Within days of his first confession, Perez, who says he and Officer Nino Durden shot Ovando without cause, recounted another dirty shooting, in which one civilian was killed and a friend wounded. The wounded man said he was unarmed when LAPD officers shot and killed his friend, then shot him in the back and framed him on charges of assaulting police. The Los Angeles Times reported that both Perez and Mack openly lived the high life, wearing expensive clothes and taking lavish vacations. Now, many in the city are wondering why no alarm bells went off with police administrators. Perez worked there as a narcotics officer focusing on gangs.
None faces criminal charges.
Some are suspected of dealing drugs, others of planting evidence, framing people, shooting or beating gang members, lying and observing a code of silence that kept them quiet about their colleagues' transgressions. So far, the corruption investigation has centered on a handful of officers in one division. Unlike the King case, the story is not one of black and white. Perez and Ovando are Latino. The police chief leading the housecleaning, Bernard Parks, is black.