LAPD Rampart Division Trial: 2000

In addition, over 70 officers have been investigated as a result of the scandal and dozens have been fired, suspended, or have resigned. However, as of mid-2001, only eight have been indicted. Critics have charged that the District Attorney's Office has not acted quickly enough to bring the rogue officers to justice and these allegations played a large role in District Attorney Gil Garcetti's defeat for reelection in 2000.

Of the eight, Manuel Chavez has pleaded no contest to assault while Shawn Gomez entered the same plea to a charge of filing a false police report. Perez's former partner, Nino Durden, entered into an agreement whereby he pleaded guilty to six felonies, including obstruction of justice, perjury, and filing a false police report. This plea was in exchange for the dismissal of a charge of attempted murder and Durden's promise to cooperate with the authorities in their investigation of other officers. (Durden has since been sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison for those six charges.) Ethan Cohan pleaded not guilty on March 28, 2001, to charges of attacking a suspect and then trying to cover it; he is currently awaiting trial.

The remaining four officers (Michael Buchanan, Paul Harper, Brian Liddy, and Edward Ortiz) all pleaded not guilty to charges of unjustifiably shooting suspects, planting evidence, filing false police reports, and perjury. The charges specifically dealt with the alleged planting of a gun on a reputed gang member, Allan Lobos, in April 1996 and of a conspiracy to falsely arrest two gang members, Cesar Natividad and Raul Munoz, in July 1996, for an alleged assault on Buchanan and Liddy. The four officers were tried jointly in Los Angeles before California Superior Court judge Jacqueline Conner, a jurist who is regarded by some local commentators as pro-police. The trial began on October 4, 2000.

During the following month, 27 people testified for the prosecution. In contrast, the only defense witnesses were the defendants themselves and an accident reconstruction expert. Most of the prosecution's witnesses had credibility problems in that they were gang members with their own criminal past. Many of them were also reluctant to provide any incriminating evidence against their friends and, thus, limited the scope of what they would testify about in court. A number of the prosecution's other witnesses were police officers who were similarly hesitant to testify against their colleagues.