Investigation Now Targets Beating at Rampart Station

Federal authorities said Friday that their civil rights investigation into the expanding Los Angeles Police Department corruption scandal is also focusing on the February 1998 beating of a handcuffed suspect held inside the Rampart station.

Brian Hewitt, 34, the officer who allegedly beat the young man, was also involved in one of the station’s controversial shootings, which left one man dead and two wounded. Hewitt fired seven of the 10 rounds discharged during the July 1996 incident.

According to LAPD documents, the suspect was beaten by Hewitt, and court documents filed by the suspect’s lawyers say he was so severely abused that he vomited blood. The district attorney’s office has declined to prosecute Hewitt, even though the LAPD fired him in June for excessive use of force and other charges. A district attorney’s spokeswoman said: “The bottom line is the injuries were not consistent with what [the victim] said happened.”

Federal authorities, however, are still interested in the case.

“Anything that indicates potential civil rights violations will fall within our purview,” said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

As the largest LAPD corruption scandal in 60 years has unfolded, a dozen officers have been relieved of duty or forced to leave the department, and more officers may be involved, according to investigators. The probe centers on two shootings that involved officers from the Rampart Division.

Ex-LAPD Officer Rafael A. Perez, a convicted drug thief cooperating with authorities in exchange for a lighter prison sentence, has alleged that both shootings involved cover-ups.

On Oct. 12, 1996, Javier Francisco Ovando, a 22-year-old gang member, was shot and then framed, authorities now believe. On Thursday, he was released from prison, where he was serving a 23-year sentence.

On Friday, attorneys for Ovando’s daughter said they will sue the LAPD on her behalf. The girl was born while he was in prison and has never met her father.

Ovando’s young daughter, said attorney Gregory W. Smith, has “been denied a relationship with her father for 2 1/2 years during an important developmental stage of her life. . . . The whole father-daughter relationship is going to be affected for the rest of their lives because he’s in a wheelchair. He’ll never be able to pick her up. He’ll never be able to carry her to her bed at night.”

The second shooting being investigated by authorities occurred July 20, 1996. According to an LAPD review, nine officers went to an apartment building where gang members were reportedly preparing to retaliate for a drive-by shooting. In the chaos that ensued, officers fired 10 rounds, according to the report, killing one man and wounding another.

Detectives are looking into the possibility that police planted a weapon on at least one of the victims. All of the officers in that shooting have been relieved of duty, sources say.

Meanwhile, political pressure at City Hall was mounting to get to the bottom of the LAPD scandal.

City Council members asked Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and City Atty. James Hahn to brief the council in closed session next week on the expanding probe and its potential implications for criminal prosecutions and taxpayer liability.

In particular, council members are becoming increasingly concerned that the corruption scandal will damage the LAPD’s credibility with the public at a time when it had nearly recovered public trust after the police beating of Rodney G. King.

“It is crucial that the City Council have the facts about this very disturbing situation so it can take whatever actions are necessary to ensure that the Police Department retains and deserves the public’s trust,” said Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who proposed the briefing as head of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

Miscikowski said she wants to know what the LAPD management is doing to “take the actions necessary to punish any officers who may have been involved in corrupt behavior.”

Council members are also concerned that misconduct by police officers may hinder legitimate criminal prosecutions, as well as result in multimillion-dollar lawsuits from those who may have been victimized by officers.

In the latest case of alleged abuse, a man said he was beaten by Hewitt on Feb. 26, 1998 at the Rampart station.

According to a sworn statement, Ismael Jimenez, 22, said he was standing on a sidewalk outside a tattoo shop that day when Hewitt approached him, gun in hand.

Jimenez said Hewitt told him to face the wall and handcuffed him for no reason. The officer accused him of driving a stolen car, and took him to the Rampart station, where he was held in an interview room.

A few minutes later, Jimenez said, another officer came in and clipped off the temporary plastic handcuffs Hewitt had fastened around his wrists. Jimenez said the officer replaced the plastic cuffs with metal cuffs, pinning his arms behind his back.

Then the officer left. Moments later, Hewitt walked in.

“You must know who I am,” Jimenez quoted Hewitt as saying, according to the sworn statement. “I could book you for anything. I’ll put anything on you.”

Jimenez said Hewitt grabbed him by the neck and shoved him against the wall, causing him to bang his head. He said the officer began to strike his chest and stomach with his fists.

“I felt dizzy, nauseous and on the verge of blacking out,” Jimenez said in his statement.

Then he began vomiting blood, according to his sworn statement.

Minutes later, he said an officer in plainclothes came in, removed his handcuffs and asked him if he wanted some water or needed an ambulance. When Jimenez declined, the officer told him he could go.

Jimenez said he vomited twice more on the sidewalk outside the police station before he made his way back to the tattoo shop where he was taken into custody. There, he asked a friend to give him a ride to the hospital.

When he told an emergency room physician how he was hurt, Jimenez said, the doctor at the hospital reported it to the LAPD. Jimenez said an LAPD sergeant arrived at the hospital and took a tape-recorded statement. The sergeant took him back to the Rampart station interview room where he said he had been beaten.

Jimenez said that while he was there two plainclothes officers threatened him and told him to keep quiet. They “told me to watch what I said, because if I said something it would come back to me.”

He said the officers added that “they would get me on the street.”

Paul R. DePasquale, Hewitt’s attorney, said he believes his client is innocent of the alleged beating. “The claims of excessive force are not well founded,” he said. Hewitt could not be reached for comment.

DePasquale said he was unaware of Hewitt’s role in the July 20, 1996, shooting.

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Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this story.