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<> LA VOZ DE AZTLAN NEWS BULLETIN <>
<>.<>.<> Los Angeles, Alta California <>.<>.<>

May 3, 2007

FBI to investigate LAPD violence at MacArthur Park

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has commenced an investigation of the corruption ridden Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department at the request of Police Chief William J. Bratton , La Voz de Aztlan has learned. Chief Bratton said he is seeking an independent FBI probe because community leaders have expressed concern that officers at the Rampart Division targeted immigrants and Latino news reporters for mistreatment at the May Day event.

Also, it has been learned that the California Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez has requested the Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley to undertake a criminal investigation of the police officers involved in the attack on immigrants and journalists in which 250 potentially lethal rubber projectiles where used. Fabian Nunez represents the area where the police riot took place as an elected member of the California State Assembly.

The Rampart Division of the LAPD has a history of corruption. In an analysis of the March 2000 - Board of Inquiry report into the Rampart area corruption, Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, a renowned legal ethicist and professor of public interest law at the University of Southern California, said that police corruption at the Rampart Division is "the worst scandal in the history of Los Angeles. Police officers framed innocent individuals by planting evidence and committing perjury to gain convictions. Nothing is more inimical to the rule of law than police officers, sworn to uphold the law, flouting it and using their authority to convict innocent people. Innocent men and women pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit and were convicted by juries because of the fabricated cases against them." He added, “Any analysis of the Rampart scandal must begin with an appreciation of the heinous nature of what the officers did. This conduct is associated with the most repressive dictators and police states.”