Mugshots: Rafael Perez - LAPD's Notorious Cop | Forensic Files

it looked like a scene from an old Hollywood movie a bad cop asking for forgiveness I cheated on my wife I
cheated on my employer and I cheated on all of you the people of Los Angeles what Rafael Perez has admitted
to makes him one of the worst cops that anybody's come across at the LAPD one my
clients said that he'd rather meet Satan in a dark alley than Rafel perez2 whoever chases monsters should
see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself when he said that chasing monsters you turn into
a monster I think he's the monster [Music] oh [Music] [Music] Raphael Perez stood in a courtroom
Shackled at the waist dressed in the jailhouse Blues worn by the hundreds he'd s away when he was a police officer
this time Raphael Perez was going away he ple bargained the charges of stealing 8 lb of cocaine from an LAPD evidence
Locker he'd get 5 years in prison but be eligible for parole in only 16 months in exchange for this reduced sentence
Raphael Perez would destroy the image of the LAPD breaking the blue wall of Silence by confessing to crimes of
misconduct committed by himself and his brother officers at the division called Rampart today we have file the first
criminal prosecution arising from the LAPD corruption Scandal we expect there will be
additional prosecutions our special prosecution team has one mission to get to the very
bottom of the LAPD corruption Scandal the worst scandal in LAPD history would be sparked
by the man who very well may be the very worst cop the LAPD has ever seen [Music]
like the city they're sworn to protect and serve the Los Angeles Police Department has always been wrapped in
American mythology since the Depression era days of bribes bootleggers and brothel the LAPD has worked hard at
polishing an image as the most professional force in the nation they took great pride in that and
Chief William Parker who took over in 1950 and ran the department for 18 years um made that his top priority that they
would be uh corruption free uh efficient and uh very aggressive in combating crime even in the Rough and Tumble and
often brutal LA Confidential days reality was softened by the LAPD of paperbacks and Motion Pictures yet
nothing Define the image of the LAPD like television [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
[Music] you had shows like Adam 12 you had very clean cut very straightforward always
got their guy law-abiding cops they didn't get into some of the hardcore reality of what was going on on the
street and and some of the hardcore police misconduct that's that's been a big part of LAPD history Charles rapley
is a reporter on the front line of the Raphael Perez case he knows the history and he knows the rules changed since
gangs and crack cocaine took over the streets of LA in the80s if you're looking for red flags of the LAPD having
a real problem red flags that came out before Rampart certainly OJ and Mark Ferman were one of course Rodney King
was another somehow it didn't go deep enough uh to convince people that that kind of Reform had to go forward I think
the image of the LAPD as far as in law enforcement circles if you're an aspiring cop the LAPD remained at the
Pinnacle until now until Rampart the lapd's rampart station is steeped in Tradition even depicted in the opening
of Adam 12 ironically the TV show that inspired Raphael Perez to become a cop and the area it covers is at the very
heart of that mythical world of La crime from Raymond Chandler to gangster rap I'm serious you take another step I'm
busting kicking up Dustin have no time for no arguing ating I'll be minding my own business and these foods be wanting
to test me and stress me but give me headache like the rampart district is is just
west of downtown it's uh among the older it's one of the older neighborhoods in Los
Angeles and it's one of the [Music] poorer this used to be sort of a garden spot spot but in the past 40 years or so
it's become a place of tenement very heavily uh Spanish-speaking Community many of them illegal immigrants most of
them afraid of the police both because where they came from the police were Thugs and because they knew that if they
got into scrapes with the authorities here they could be shipped out Rampart was a dangerous place to be a cop8
square miles that were among the busiest and most violent areas is to patrol it also has the highest concentration of
gang members in all of Los Angeles more than 8,000 of them in 60 Waring groups you had a lot of underground activity on
the street you have drug trade on the street corners you have gangs operating on the streets block to block driveby
assassinations battling for control of the drug trade control of the street corners and there were a lot of bodies
on the street in the Rampart Division Raphael Perez made his Mark as part of rampart's Community Resources against
Street hoodlums Unit otherwise known as crash an Elite Squad of nearly 20 officers that targeted The Gangs gang
containment was a priority for the LAPD and the city felt safer for it who is that brother your brother is she here we
arrest him you guys are going someplace go you want to go back to your house go back to
your house don't stand here but there was a problem with the way Raphael Perez and his fellow crash cops were keeping a
lid on gang activity in Rampart yeah this is a car 45 I got a two Liv in progress in the
corner of Floren and Stockton suspects are 3 m Hispanics A7 on location suspects assum to be armed and dangerous
they used to pull me over ask me questions that I couldn't answer imp on my car and I mean that's like they were
just messing with me I wasn't a bad guy I mean I always gave them the respect and I mean they always came at me like
if I was a little kid almost getting me naked in the street tell me take my shoes off take my socks off pick up your
shirt take your muscle shirt off what for un losing your belt searching me for weapons drugs whatever and I used to
like I mean you could just pet me down but you answer bad you getting mad so I wouldn't you know want to talk or say
nothing to him Raphael Zambrano and Hugo Madrid are just two former gang members
who serve time in jail after Being Framed by the LAPD I'm a family man I got children you know I was taken away
from my children my children were taken away from me you know there's there's L years there that I cannot make up for
the Scandal that was about to be exposed would throw the criminal justice system
into turmoil and draw in dozens of attorneys like Gregory Yates of Beverly Hill Hills I just didn't understand the
scope of it and the gravity of it until I really got into it but the crimes of one particular officer would Stand Out
Among the rest the crimes of the one who started it all what we're finding now is
there was a lot of misconduct there was a lot of uh people being framed there were a lot of cops
bending the rules on sending people to Jail the real corruption at Ram Park still looks like Raphael Perez looks
like Raphael Perez was the one who was dealing drugs Raphael Perez looks like the guy who really lost track of being a
cop and it was Raphael Perez who was the criminal in uniform as Raphael Perez sits in prison
the question is not only why but when this cop went bad and why he decided to confess not only his sins but those of
his brother cops the answers when mugshots continues [Music] ever since I was a young boy living in
Philadelphia I dreamed of being a police [Music] officer as Raphael Perez sat in jail
preparing to testify against his fellow cops he would tell reporters he was raised on the Romance of the LAPD glued
to TV shows like Adam 12 and chips as a Young Man growing up in Philadelphia he can remember walking on a certain corner
and this was was a corner that was routinely used for drug transactions and he said he can recall specifically
saying to himself you know one day I'm going be a Narcotics officer and I'm a bust all these
guys he was born in 1967 in Puerto Rico then as a child he moved with his family
to New York Patterson New Jersey for a while and ultimately Philadelphia where he graduated from only High School class
of 1985 at age 177 Raphael Perez shipped out to boot camp he came out a United States
Marine he was a very good Marine he was good at his job he stayed on top with the physical fitness routine they had to
do promoted meritoriously I think three or four times and that means you exceed and you don't have to wait for time in
rank time in service you're that good that you get promoted that quickly Lori Perez is one of the few
people who got to know Raphael Perez well she was 21 when she met him he was an 18-year-old Lance corporal stationed
in KY Maine she lived across the bridge in Portsmouth New Hampshire a specialist
with the US Air Force I had a friend that was going to the Marine base for a guy that she liked
and we met that night it's a funny story I I had said something to him like I don't care if you the last person on
Earth I would never get with you because he looked really mean to me if it wasn't
love at first sight Lori at least found Perez wasn't as mean as he appeared it was like once you met Raphael and you
got to know him you wanted him to be a part of your little world cuz he was really nice and always thinking of other
people we had very very similar likes we had a lot of things in common we were both
military there was no real reason to not trust him or you know think otherwise we were really really
close friends and he was just a really really special guy the friendship deepened and
6 months later Raphael Perez proposed we knew it was one of those things that we
just knew and he told me that he thought that we would live good together and of
course I'm like what do you mean he goes you know and I go no I don't know what you mean you know we would live good
together like permanently and I I was like what are you asking me and he goes you know what I'm asking you I'm asking
you do you want to get married and of course I wasn't going to say no was the love of my life here I
couldn't say no the couple eloped on August 9th 1986 married by the mayor of Portsmouth 3 months later there was a
second wedding for friends and family during the early years of their marriage lri says she never saw the Dark Side of
Raphael Perez that would later emerge I thought that Raphael would be the person
that I could see us just growing old together just him and I it was like having my
best friend as my husband he had really big aspirations and most of the time he he met his goals he was really driven he
talked to me several times about becoming a police officer because that was one of his childhood dreams and he
never let that go I just told him to go for it if that's what you want to do I support you go do
it yet had Lori admits there was a part of her husband that remained elusive he didn't have that many friends
I was I was it cuz he didn't trust anybody he used to always tell me that he just didn't trust people cuz people
were vindictive or you know they did things they were not always nice in 1988 the KY main base was closed a
bureaucratic decision that would set Raphael Perez on a course toward his Destiny they were closing the Naval
Shipyard and all the Marines were being sent to different bases and he was the only Marine at the time married to
another military person so he was asked where he wanted to be stationed and we almost stayed in Maine he asked me where
did I want to go and I said I want to go home and home is here in California the
young couple packed up their car and drove West Raphael Perez was just 19 when he got his first look at Los
Angeles he was excited La is different from from anywhere else that you could possibly go the couple lived at a Marine
Base South of the city but the subject of the LAPD came up often he just said let's find out where I can take the test
I know he thought they were a really Elite group of people and he liked that protect and serve that was his thing he
liked their protect and serve slogan and he just felt he'd be really good at that job within months Raphael
Perez took the LAPD exam and passed his marriage meanwhile began to fail it was the first sign that Raphael Perez had a
hidden side I just knew that things were weird because he would take off on Fridays and not come back until Sunday
and it was always I'm with my friends and with my friends and for somebody that doesn't want a lot of friends or
trust a lot of people and I had known him for all that time that did not add up to me I kept asking I asked him was
he cheating no and I said are you sure he said no I'm not cheating and then I found out because I checked our peel box
and found a postcard from another female another Marine he cheated and that was the end of our
marriage despite the breakup Lauri and Raphael remained friendly she even attended his graduation from the police
academy in 1989 by the time the divorce came through Lori Perez found herself closer
than ever to her ex-husband's career she had gotten a job with the Los Angeles police union he would come in and visit
not all the time but like once or twice a year just to see how I was doing just to say hi and just to see if I needed
anything and we would talk mainly I'd be asking what are you doing now you know is it exciting where are you now and
he'd tell me what division he was at at that time Raphael Perez did really well initially
he was well-liked he handled himself well and before long he was assigned to undercover narcotics unit which is sort
of an elite assignment but rapael Perez uh was assigned to the West narcotics Bureau and there he teamed up with David
Mack so when did Raphael Perez go bad journalist Charles rapley suspects his fellow officer David Mack was a big F
actor well before Perez arrived at Rampart David Mack was an LAPD officer who grew up in Compton in South Central
Los Angeles very StreetWise very together guy and Raphael Perez hooked up with him looked up to him and he had a
lot to look up to David Mack knew what was going on but Mack was a guy who uh preceded Perez in this in this double
life of being a cop who was at the same time uh running crime on the side the bond
between the partners was sealed on October 26th 1993 when David Mack supposedly saved Raphael Perez's life
though some say it was the day that Raphael Perez learned that a cop can get away with murder they approached a drug
dealer and started to negotiate a buy the drug dealer pulled a gun he put it to Perez's
head Mack responded by pulling his own gun and uh shooting the guy in the head killing him there the version that
Witnesses at the scene tell is quite different the guy approaches the car he's unarmed he sticks his head in Mac
pulls out his gun and shoots him he starts reeling off from the car Mac continues shooting at him and the guy
turns and runs and he shoots at him until he empties the gun his magazine and he's laughing in 1996 Raphael Perez
was tapped to join rampart's crash unit by this time he was living with his new wife Denise and staying in touch with
his ex-wife Lori I remember when he was assigned to crash and I asked what was crash and he was like oh it's gangs and
I go so what about gangs oh you know dealing with stopping Gang Related activities and this that and the
other it was around this time when he joined the crash unit at ramp Park that he really started to ignore ignore the
law and if you talk to the gang bangers that's how Raphael would would act and if they defied him uh he would he would
plant evidence on them he would take them to the station and send them to jail in the ramp part CR unit things
began to change the us against them ethos of the overzealous cop began to consume me and the ends seem to justify
the mean what happened amounted to a House of Horrors for the [Music] LAPD the lines between right and wrong
became fuzzy and indistinct I stepped over that line Landing with both feet sometimes on innocent persons it didn't
occur to me that I was destroying lives all along there were those who knew the bad side of Raphael Perez and his fellow
officers at Rampart crash but no one would listen to them because they were gang members the only one that believe
me was my mom cuz I mean I told my mom you know it ain't my gun mom Raphael Zambrano was a member of the Playboy
gang but he'd had only a few brushes with the law when Rampart crash officers burst into a party he was attending they
made everybody get underneath then they started choosing who was going to get taken in and I was the first one they
chose one of the officers recognized Mr zono and went over to him and said you're going down there was another of
my friends sitting down and he he told my friend that he was lucky that he had seen me first or if not he would have
taken him and he asked him out in the open in front of everybody do you want to take his place and my friend said no
with the assistance of Officer Perez they found a gun nowhere near Mr zimano planted it on
him and for that he eventually took the rap and pled guilty because he faced a formidable task of
overcoming the obvious uh uh credibility problem of a gang member versus an LAPD officer Zambrano came eye to eye
with Perez in court yeah first when he walked in he walked in he took the stand he lowered his microphone he looked at
me and he gave me a little smile like a little teeth smile T me his teeth and smiled at and he looked at me I looked
at him he looked at me and I tried to tell my attorney that that he wasn't the one that arrest to me that he was lying
and he just told me to be quiet the guy says I don't even know what the cop was talking about and prese would roll his
eyes and say your honor you know uh I'm a drug expert I'm a gang expert I've handled a hundred of these cases and
here's what happened and the the jury's bought it and the judges bought it and the prosecutors bought it and these guys
would go off to jail Raphael Zambrano faced 8 years he took a deal 16 months at solidad State
Prison he gave me a good kick in the mouth uh he these two teeth here they're dead now these two teeth right here I
had to have a root canal done in prison because I had an absis growing and in prison they don't really do too much
quality work so I'm finishing off out here now I'm on a payment plan Hugo Madrid knew the bad Raphael
Perez he was a member of the crazy Riders gang and already at a felony record I was hanging out with a couple
buddies after a sweet 16 party we were at a hotel just having a couple beers all of a sudden four police officers run
into the uh Hotel building and uh start you know tossing us around you know put your hands up in the air
[Music] freeze there was an altercation between officer Perez and Mr Madrid he was
dropped hit and kicked and subsequently a gun was planted on him I started to ask officer Perez you know
what's going on here you said you're going to let us go just take our picture and he turns around looks at us and say
don't act dumb I'm like what are you talking about he goes don't act stupid don't don't tell me you don't know about
the gun and the dope I'm like what are you talking about so you know it clicked in right there that 's getting
framed after Raphael Perez testified against him Hugo Madrid had something to say so so when I went into the courtroom
I got up I I think I asked the judge can I speak up I'm for myself and um the judge made the the um
the da leave the room and let me talk to her oneon-one so she tells me Hugo what's going on I go well your honor you
know can I be frank with you he goes yeah be frank I go I'm being framed here by LPD I go why do you say that I
because I have this officer Perez here saying that I had a gun and that uh my that I had held it with my hand and
threw it with my right hand yet I asked for the fingerprints and there are no prints on the gun I go
isn't that enough to throw this out of court and the judge looks at me and goes well Hugo uh there's no law that states
that uh that you need prints on a gun the problem here is that a police officer's word is good enough to take to
trial Perez's testimony would put Hugo Madrid away for three years when Perez testified Marcy my wife was able to see
Perez in the hallways she confronted him you know with my daughter and comes out
to Perez and tells Perez you know officer why are you doing this to my husband this is his daughter here look
at him and Perez looks at her and goes oh you have a beautiful daughter she looks like my daughter's age then my
wife tells him well then you should understand why are you doing this to him he didn't have a gun and Perez tells her
well maybe he didn't but he wasn't if he wasn't the way he was I wouldn't have done this to
[Music] him officer Perez and his fellow Rampart crash cops were cleaning up the streets
but at a terrible price the cops were becoming criminals Perez got deeper and deeper into this into the uh into the
illegal activity into the bogus arrests to the point where you start to wonder if he made any good arrests by the end
if he bothered catching anybody in a crime as the crimes of Raphael Perez became more complicated so did the
secret life he was now hiding from his wife Denise he had girlfriends on the street that
believed that he was a single man and that they were his only girlfriend he was telling him that on the other hand
his wife believed they had a successful marriage and she was raising their daughter she was uh an employee of the
LAPD she worked down at the Parker Center they look like a all cop family in the interest of her safety
little else has been revealed about Denise sent her life with Raphael perezz but for a Time the couple lived in a
posh apartment complex in an upscale part of town and in 1998 after Denise and Raphael gave birth to a daughter the
family moved to this quiet Suburban neighborhood a house on the corner overlooked by Churches David Evans owns
the house next door Raphael Perez told him he was a building contractor I believed he was a contractor it just
seemed like he had more money than than than the average in individual in the neighborhood cuz he was buying new cars
bought new garage doors he he put new lighting up put new Roofing on I mean he went through everything from a to Z1 to
26 I mean and and and the people that was viewing that that goes to the um church across the street made
some comments to me say wow I wish I had the money this guy had wow I wish I had
the contacts he had I sure like to do this to my home the churchgoers had no idea the connections were drug
connections on the streets of rampart according to the DA officer Perez and his partner Nino Duran Went A Step
Beyond brutality and abuse of power they became profiteering criminals themselves
shaking down drug dealers stealing their drugs and selling them Duron would eventually be suspended he's not yet
been charged then again not even he what is far as Raphael perezz after a Time Perez got tired of
all was jacking up drug dealers on the street and decided to start going to the evidence Locker of the LAPD itself and
getting his drugs there there were several instances of him going in of signing out drugs under the names of
other officers the quantities got bigger and uh the ruse got more flimsy used to
carefully weigh out uh replacement when he would take drugs then he'd return it but it would be flower what finally
caught up with him is he went in he signed out the drugs under the name of another officer named Perez and that was
getting a little too close to home meanwhile his former partner David Mack had really crossed the line robbing a
bank in November of 1997 of more than $700,000 3 Days Later Perez and his girlfriend would join Mack in a wild
weekend in Las Vegas ultimately David Mack would be arrested and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison
[Music] Perez was never implicated in the robbery uh he was a suspect he believed
he was being followed as a result of that in fact the LAPD Internal Affairs people had figured out that Perez may
have had something to do with the theft of cocaine from their evidence Locker he
was being tailed because of that Raphael Perez had lived two lives for too long both were about to crash down around
[Music] him by the summer of 1998 officer Perez knew he was being followed by police
Internal Affairs officers for 3 months he'd been stealing cocaine from right under the nose of the LAPD walking in
and taking bricks of it from the evidence Locker now with Justice closing in he was walking into an attorney's
office he had not been charged with anything I believe he had been relieved of Duty at that time and he was told
that he was a suspect Winston Kevin McKesson says he liked Raphael Perez from the start but admits he's an
unlikely defender of a bad cop I worked with Johnny Cochran's office for about 5
years at that time I did a lot of police misconduct work and so I guess you'd say
it was a little bit unnatural because normally I was on the other side I was the guy who was suing the police but
this case was very interesting it presented a very interesting challenge to me at the outset attorney messen had
no notion of the brutal Secrets held by Raphael Perez but in the end he'd protect his client with a very sweet
immunity deal this attorney who went after cops would become Raphael Perez's best friend we've become friends and we
we're buddies and we speak about guy type things on the morning of August 28th 1998 after weeks of surveillance
police moved in to arrest their brother cop at his home you sure I found out SWAT was uh all around my building okay
in my driveway across the street in the in the parking lot of the church in the front of his house and uh the
intersection here was completely blocked off with police cars and U I thought it
was drugs because they had to they had to search dogs Raphael Perez did not resist arrest as he was taken in for
stealing 8 lbs of cocaine it's shocking because you think you really know someone somebody that
you're with and you think why how this wasn't the same person I knew how could they change just like that or were they
like that all along Perez was locked up in the county jail where he'd remain throughout his trial the case against
him was not dead to rights they didn't have him red-handed they they call 35 Witnesses who able to cross-examine all
the witnesses and I believe we did a decent job of neutralizing their testimony and the verdict came by back
as a hung jury I felt pretty good about it because what the district we forced the District Attorney's office to trial
probably a little bit before they wanted to go to trial they hadn't had any financial
data the DA's office quickly refiled charges and this time they were going in for the
kill the district attorney coming back in for the second case had done more leg work had more information on Perez's
finances and believed that they could implicate his his wife in being knowledgeable of illegal income and Was
preparing to charge his wife when they let Perez know that that's when Perez decided he didn't want to go through
that second trial he didn't want to bring his wife into it uh I believe at that point his wife still didn't know
about Perez's girlfriends and Perez was still holding on to the belief that he could keep her in the dark about that I
know that uh the first trial was emotionally draining for him and so he you know he decided he wanted to do
what he's done because he kind of wanted to make a he kind of want to atone for uh some of the some of the H problems
that he had whatever his motivation Raphael Perez was about to make a decision that
would change his life and the LAPD forever Perez decides to plead but he wants to do it on his own terms he
doesn't want the 12 years that he's looking at or perhaps more he's going to tell the da about widespread misconduct
at Rampart the initial reception was skeptical but then he upped the anti he let the da know that if they did not
cooperate with him he would withhold the name of an individual who he and his partner had shot framed and sent to
prison for 23 years on a crime the guy did not commit so then the district attorney is confronted with the
situation of an innocent man spending a long stretch in jail for something he didn't do and the only way to get at it
is to cooperate with Raphael [Music] Perez it is not a good day you're you're accurate September 15th
1999 began as a good day for LA police chief Bernard Parks this is a great event for the city of Los Angeles and
the Los Angeles Police Department 18 of his officers were receiving medals for bravery what makes these officers so
unique is they're the only ones that run towards gunfire and they're the only ones that we know that will give up
their lives for people that they do not know but within hours one officer would overshadow the work of those 18 and
thousands more good evening we appreciate uh you coming at such short notice but we had something that we
thought was of significant importance to have a news conference this evening rafhael Perez had made his deal with the
district attorney and had begun to talk Chief Parks broke the news to a stunned City officer Perez was involved in a
officer involved shooting uh we have uh from his information he has given us sufficient uh information to cause us to
believe that much of the information that was originally offered uh was false we will be asking uh that the person
that was subsequently the uh victim of that shooting be released from custody the victim was a member of the
18th Street gang named Javier oando oando was living in an abandoned apartment building that was a place
where Perez and his partner uh went one night and set up what they call an observation post they they basically set
up shop there to spend the night and keep an eye on what was going on in the neighborhood Duran and Perez take obando
to a second room they handcuff him and they start giving him the third degree and uh
obando apparently is not Cooperative uh and Perez was very intolerant of anybody trying to hold out
against his will um Perez got angry he pulled out his gun and he shot obando in the
chest uh then according to Perez Nino Duran his partner pulled out his gun and shot obondo again in the chest he's been
shot twice he's lying there bleeding and Perez apparently is in a rage picks up obondo by the front of his shirt hauls
him up off the floor shoots him puts the gun to his head and shoots him again uh for some reason oando didn't
die Rafael Perez said he planted a gun on the man oando who had no previous convictions was charged and sentenced to
23 years in prison the judge noted he'd shown No Remorse he was in a wheel chair
when he was tried uh because of the uh because he was paralyzed as a result of the shooting aando was released from
prison within a day of the chief's announcement everything is hard for me everything
everything every day I wake up I wake up with pain the aando case was devastating
to the image of the LAPD but Raphael Perez had only begun to confess to Unthinkable abuses by him himself and
his fellow officers of Crash crash cops beating suspects bloody shooting them on
a whim in one case gunning down a man on a street called Shadow place then letting him bleed to death while they
came up with an alibi Perez said the one sworn to Serve and Protect even celebrated killings at the cop hangout
on Sunset Boulevard not far from the police academy there were more than 100 incidents it ranges from drug dealing by
the officers to uh planting drugs gun planting uh setting people up for other offenses which they didn't commit but it
also involves setting someone up for the charge of murder is sickening Beyond description these are the kind of crimes
we're talking about torture what do we expect to do in the greatest City the melting part of the of the United States
that we have Rogue police officers a rogue mayor this is not a scandal this is Terrorism on Community where do you
go when you've been framed by law enforcement that's my question to you right now A betrayed Community expressed
outrage and demanded long-term reform 70 LAPD officers would be under investigation and at least 30 of them
would be relieved of Duty or quit a few officers would be arrested and all the crash units would be dismantled
attorneys like Gregory Yates would become instant civil rights celebrities people like Raphael Zambrano would be
Vindicated and people like Hugo Madrid would be freed from prison My Hope Is With
God that's where I place All My Hope in my faith you know if the good Lord decides for me to go in a certain in a
certain way he will you know I my I seek my my my peace I seek through prayer and as you can tell the Lord does
work in mysterious ways [Music] when we return Raphael Perez cops to his [Music]
sins there is no justification for my misdeeds either on or off duty I can only say that I succumb to
the sduc of power used wrongfully it is a power that can bend the will of a man to satisfy a lustful moment it can open
lock bolts to facilitate death he can even subvert Justice to hand down a lifetime Behind Bars Under the terms
of his deal Raphael Perez was sentenced to 5 years in prison for stealing 8 pounds of cocaine from the LAPD with
immunity for any crimes he committed or witnessed at Rampart crash by revealing the unpleasant Truths
Behind the badge that at one point I so proudly wore I hope to write some of the
many wrongs I will try and serve as a catalyst for change within the Los Angeles police depart department and
specifically specialized Street units whether to save himself protect his family or serve Humanity his decision to
talk was historic and so was the statement he made before he was sent away and I'll tell you with every inch
of my heart and soul that I am truly truly sorry I am also sorry for eroding The
public's Trust of their Police Department I had no part in writing that speech I heard it the day before he
delivered it I was glad I heard it the first time before hearing I I would have hate to have broken down and cried in
[Music] court what I most want at this time is to remind the greenest rookie cops that
they need only to look to me into my impending prison sentence to remind them that for whatever reason they might have
to consider placing a finger on the scales of Justice it is morally indefensible and
contrary to our constitution Perez's mayaula was really the most powerful statement that anybody's made yet on on
Rampart it was moving it talked about the Constitution it talked about just how just how far he had crossed the line
uh and it also talked about how it's a Temptation that's there for every cop do not let the pressures of status numbers
and impressing supervisors dictate the type of Officer you become the moment you cross that first line it will become
impossible to turn back it strikes at the very core of our system of justice a free state versus a police
state there's nothing more important than what's going on right now in this case that did take a lot of courage to
get up and do and I know he's trying to do the right thing by doing it but at the same time you have all those people
that are hurt the families that have a loss I look at that poor guy in the wheelchair and that's sad that man will
never walk again but at the same time Raphael's got to carry that big giant cross and answer for all those things
and it's got to be really really hard Raphael Perez is expected to serve no more than 16 months in prison like the
LAPD mythologized in American culture his Saga is certain to continue I mean I know he ain't going to do it again he
ain't going to be able to be a cop no more so I mean let it all be for the best he's
doing time now I mean you know whatever he gots coming he gots coming Perez is going to get out actually in Fairly
short order there's a couple of ways he could go he could become something of a celebrity playing on this idea that he
had a he had a a conversion of Faith that's why he came forward at at the same time Perez is a target Perez is a
target for all these people who he put in jail there's also a bunch of cops who are very mad at Raphael Perez and
they're gunning for him too I B the threshold of doors that lead to crash offices you read such
philosophical statements as some Rise by sin and some by virtue fall as well as we intimidate those who intimidate
others to those models I offer this whoever chases monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a
monster himself [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I [Music] oh [Music]

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Brief Summary

Rafael Perez's confession exposes LAPD corruption, impacting lives and the department's reputation.

Key points

The Rampart Scandal Unfolds. The LAPD's Rampart Division faces scrutiny as corruption comes to light.
The Worst Cop in LAPD History. Rafael Perez's confession leads to a major LAPD corruption scandal.
A Dream Turned Nightmare. Raphael Perez's childhood dream of being a cop leads to a life of crime.
The Dark Side of Raphael Perez. Lori Perez reflects on the hidden side of her husband.
The Moment of Betrayal. Lori discovers Raphael's infidelity, marking the end of their marriage.
The Aando Case. The LAPD faces backlash after the wrongful conviction of Javier Aando, shot by officers.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I dreamed of being a police officer.

Raphael Perez's childhood aspiration.

10:05WatchJul 28, 2014

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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