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L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 12:00:57 PM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock

Like an episode of "The Shield" or "Training Day", both set in Los Angeles, 19 former police officers have been charged with robbing drug houses while acting as police officers according to AP this morning.

They cased homes containing drugs, money and weapons like suspects in any other robbery ring, prosecutors say.

But instead of donning ski masks and stealing through windows in the dead of night, the robbers allegedly wore police uniforms and badges as they carried out raids that authorities say were intended to appear like official law enforcement searches. Five of the suspects were sworn officers at the time.

Nineteen people have been charged in the ring, led by then-Los Angeles police Officer Ruben Palomares, prosecutors said Thursday in announcing the results of a four-year investigation.

The analogy to "The Shield" and "Training Day," two of my favorite works, is not mine--it came from the AUSA on the case:

"While this story sounds like a script from 'The Shield' or 'Training Day,' it actually happened here in L.A.," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien.

Neither Councilman Benito Martinez nor Det. Vic Mackey could be reached for comment.

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    L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses | 21 comments (21 topical)
    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#1)
    by kdog on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:07:23 PM EST
    I know I keep asking this but.... Who are the good guys again? If the victims (the dealers) had defended their property with lethal force, they'd be on death row. That ain't right.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#2)
    by Patrick on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:21:11 PM EST
    19 former police officers have been charged with robbing drug houses while acting as police officers according to AP this morning.
    Perhaps your information on this case is different than what was in the article, but according to the article
    Five of the suspects were sworn officers at the time.
    Of those five, one was a former deputy sheriff who had hired on a state correctional officer and two were police officers While all are peace officers, only two of them would be commonly associated with the term police officer by the general public. Certainly a subtle distinction, and perhaps one the author hoped people wouldn't make. Wasn't there a thread here somewhere about accuracy in the media and sensationalism. Sure glad that isn't happening in the blogsphere. But I guess rehashing the Rampart Scandal in a new wrapper to make it look like something new isn't sensationalism either.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#3)
    by Patrick on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:22:32 PM EST
    Who are the good guys again?
    Seems to me the good guys are any law abiding citizens.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#4)
    by kdog on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:29:09 PM EST
    Not necessarily Patrick. I like to think I am a good guy. I am far from law abiding. The dealers that were robbed may have been good guys. My dealer, for example, is a good guy. Somebody who breaks down your door with a weapon to find some plants, either for personal use/sale or confiscation, would be a bad guy in my book. A thief.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#5)
    by Patrick on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:31:21 PM EST
    Well then I guess we differ in our definitions then.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#6)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 02:16:33 PM EST
    I wonder if anyone actually views themself as a bad person.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#7)
    by nolo on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 02:22:42 PM EST
    I wonder if anyone actually views themself as a bad person. I know people who aren't who do, and people who are who don't.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#8)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 02:25:56 PM EST
    Good point nolo. .

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#9)
    by Lww on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 03:16:56 PM EST
    This has gone on in Miami,NO,DC and other cities around the country. In the rush to hire minorities they scrape the bottom for the likes of these guys. NYPD pays about $25 grand as starting salary; that's a pay cut for most people. That's why you can't get qualified minorities to become cops. Qualified minorities(decent education and a clean record) can do much better than 25Gs a yr.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#10)
    by scarshapedstar on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 06:04:47 PM EST
    Seems to me the good guys are any law abiding citizens.
    Who knew the legislature was the final arbiter of morality?

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 06:47:40 PM EST
    L.A Cops and some long beach AND MANY OTHER cops are also dealing in the drug world most are Secret gang members inside the local political police system that are running most gangs inside this non nation state. see bush and the taliban heroin deals in the 1980s also read Paul L Williams.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 06:50:07 PM EST
    it is time to make a real move on the local cops and show the cops what can happen to evil people who help drug dealers and bush.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#13)
    by Sailor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 08:08:08 PM EST
    In the rush to hire minorities they scrape the bottom for the likes of these guys. [...] That's why you can't get qualified minorities to become cops. Qualified minorities(decent education and a clean record) can do much better than 25Gs a yr.
    Conversly, it would explain why the majority of cops are white trash. [/sarcasm] I would bet the ratio of bad cops to good, broken down by race, would exactly reflect the departmental racial percentages. BTW, NYPD Starting salary is $34,970 (including holiday pay, uniform pay and night differential)

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#14)
    by Johnny on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 11:45:33 PM EST
    LWW, I need some clarification... Are you blaming minorities or affirmative action for the general worthlessness of cops?

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#15)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 07:29:17 AM EST
    I guess the Rampart debacle taught them nothing. Throw away the keys. 25K for a starting salary in NY? For an academy trained police officer? I call BS.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 08:53:04 AM EST
    Patrick, I'm with kdog here as you know. But where you guys in law enforcement with your pat answers about "law abiding" are complicit with the evil and harm occasioned by Prohibition II is (1) that law enforcement improperly fights in political forums to keep the federal hammerlock on drug laws and the status quo and defeat the will of the voters because of the jobs and power it maintains, and (2) because, like Prohibition I, the neverending "War" on Some Users of Some Drugs leads to corruption and inefficiency in law enforcement. The incident reported here is far from isolated, most believe it is widespread and systemic, given that an estimated 90% of drug supply is *not* interdicted and is stable, despite 35 years of expensive suppression efforts. Pete Christ, a retired patrol officer and detective (now with LEAP) talks knowingly about uncounted piles of cash in a drug raid and the cop with the $4,000 plumbing bill in his pocket that he has no idea how he is going to pay here.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#17)
    by kdog on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 10:48:57 AM EST
    LWW is right. Rookie cops get 25k a year in NYC. The PBA sold out the new hires in their last contract to beneifit the veterans. All complaints about the 25k starting salary should be directed to the PBA. And I think you need 2 years of college to boot. Selfishly, I love it because I figure less people would sign on to be cops. We already have to many in NY looking for people to harass cuz there's nothing better to do. No starting salary excuses violent home invasion robberies. I feel bad for these dealers...put in a position where they cannot defend themselves or their property, lest they end up on death row. If I didn't abhor guns, I'd say follow Huey's advice and have a shotgun ready for the bastards when they come knockin in the middle of the night.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#18)
    by Sailor on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 01:30:53 PM EST
    The NYPD website still says $34k, but the Line of Duty website says "After six months in the academy, rookie salaries are bumped to $32,700." So they are being paid to go to the Academy starting at $25k
    325 members of the new class have four-year college degrees, 275 have associate's degrees, 14 have master's degrees and one has a doctoral degree. More than 20% are women and 54% are members of minority groups.
    The LAPD, which this case is about
    new Recruits are hired at Step 1 unless additional education or experience apply. Full Salary and benefits provided while Recruit is in training at the Academy. Salaries are adjusted annually. STEP 1 = $51,114
    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#19)
    by Lww on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 01:34:25 PM EST
    I don't know where you are in NY but city cops rarely bust people for possession of small amounts of drugs. In small towns and suburbia the cops are gung-ho on locking up recreational pot smokers. Talk about idiots being made cops? My two brothers,who have 40 odd yrs between them in NYC have NEVER busted anyone for possession of less than a half ounce of pot unless there were other charges. They'd toss it.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 04:14:32 PM EST
    LWW: Re: NYPD, that *used* to be true, where the 1976 decrim laws were respected. That is, before Guliani and "broken windows" and Operation Condor, which was EXPRESSLY about circumventing the decrim laws and busting pot smokers in a manner which would result in overnight booking and incarceration and then sentences to "time served". See this 2002 Salon article which describes a typical police encounter and its aftermath. An estimated 10% of the nation's 750,000 marijuana arrests now happen in NYC. A friend of mine's dad was delighted with Operation Condor because they got four hours of overtime for each bust and it helped propel his pre-retirement salary (upon which his pension is based) into the six figures.

    Re: L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 09:33:19 AM EST
    I don't know my friend J's dad, and was quite surprised to find this bit of personal history out - J and his gf and college friend from Long Island and I had been going to shows and camping festivals for years and I didn't know about J's father being a drug undercover in NYC. It came up kind of unexpectedly when we were having some pre-show cocktails in NYC last year and we were talking about Operation Condor (also infamous for the killing of security guard Patrick Dorismund during a cop-initiated drug sting and some other SWAT fatalities of innocents) and how dangerous it was to buy or smoke pot on the streets since 9/11 "hero" Guliani's reign, and J. unexpectedly offerred up this story. Quite unexpectedly, perhaps, J also defended his father, who was not an ahole in his son's eyes, since "the law is the law" and his dad was "just following orders" and the financial incentives were just and rational. J also mentioned that he felt that the Operation Condor overtime and fattened pension helped him too by paying for his college education at a state university at the time. He also mentioned that his father had worked the parking lot next to the Wetlands Preserve in SoHo, a alt-rock club we went to a lot, and warned his son and his friends to smoke inside the club, and not on the streets outside.

    L.A. Cops Indicted for Robbing Drug Houses | 21 comments (21 topical)