IMMIGRANT POLICY NEEDS WORK RAMPART REVIEW URGES CHANGES.

Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer

While unable to confirm some of the more spectacular allegations, an independent panel reviewing the Los Angeles Police Department recommended changes in how officers handle immigrants.

The Rampart Independent Review Panel released a 20-page report Thursday and sent to the Police Commission a recommendation that the department needed to include Special Order 40 in its manual for all officers and to improve training.

The panel said it could not confirm some of the more sensational allegations made by former Officer Rafael Perez that agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service worked with the Rampart Division antigang CRASH unit.

``No one in the LAPD has yet corroborated Perez's allegations,'' the report said, finding neither captains nor other officers interviewed said they were aware of any INS agents being at the station.

Special Order 40 has been surrounded in controversy since it was first put into place in 1979 by then-Chief Daryl F. Gates. Under it, officers can't ask witnesses or suspects - when first taken into custody - as to their residency status.

It was adopted to try to assure crime victims they would not face possible deportation if they reported crimes.

Anti-immigrant groups have complained that the measure protects those in the country illegally while immigrant rights groups have complained that it is selectively enforced.

Perez said he would keep records of the residency status of gang members, so he could turn them over to INS agents or would work with the immigration service to turn over people who are in the country illegally. All of which led the independent panel to conclude that there needed to be stricter guidelines on the enforcement of the order so all officers followed the same procedures.

Once the manual is reviewed, the panel urged that officers undergo new training, records be maintained of INS contact, a public education program on the reason for the order be started, that INS agents be banned from working out of community police stations without permission and to keep records of complaints of violations.