In the fall of 1999, Rafael Perez, a police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department's crime- and gangster-ridden Rampart Division, was arrested for stealing three kilos of cocaine that had been confiscated as evidence during an undercover drug deal. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Perez, who was assigned to the elite antigang unit known as CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), offered to tell investigators about other crimes he and his fellow Rampart officers had committed. The highest-profile crime Perez admitted to was shooting Javier Francisco Ovando in October 1996 and subsequently planting a gun on him to frame him for attacking him and his partner. Ovando, who was paralyzed by the shooting, was sentenced to twenty-three years in prison, but was released in September 1999 after Perez's confession. Perez also told investigators that he helped cover up two other unjustified shootings by Rampart police officers, including one incident...