NEW ANTI-GANG PLAN PRESENTED RAMPART SCANDAL FORCED CHANGES.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Staff Writer

Building on lessons from the Rampart Division police scandal, Los Angeles police released a blueprint Wednesday for fighting gangs, with an emphasis on tightened supervision.

Among the most dramatic changes is the establishment of the Special Enforcement Unit to replace CRASH, or Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.

``In the past, we had some problems with gang units. They seemed to stray from their mission,'' said Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Dave Kalish.

Anti-gang officers will work more closely with schools, religious institutions, parents, prosecutors and probation officers to keep kids out of gangs, said LAPD Deputy Chief Mike Bostic, commanding officer for the San Fernando Valley.

``The officers will be identifying gang members, talking with them and identifying the fringe group to keep them away from gangs,'' Bostic said.

Although so far the police corruption scandal has mostly been confined to the Rampart Division, officials said they also have been examining the operation of the Valley's anti-gang units.

No wrongdoing was found, but the potential was there, Bostic said.

``We found that officers were signing their own arrest reports and booking approvals - a formula for disaster. You've got to have management oversight at any place in any organization in the world,'' Bostic said.

Under the new system, arrest reports and search warrants will be audited daily by the commanding officers, officials said. The officers also will do more to share with detectives information about gang members, Bostic said.

In an earlier announcement, police said the new anti-gang unit's officers now must wear uniforms, drive marked cruisers, have at least three years on the force including two on patrol, and rotate through every three years.

CRASH was disbanded March 12, and about 300 anti-gang officers, including 60 in the Valley, were returned to uniformed patrol duties.

The Special Enforcement Unit will include about 80 anti-gang officers at five Valley divisions.

About half of the former CRASH officers in the Valley will return to their anti-gang assignments, said Detective Woodrow Parks, assistant officer-in-charge of the Valley's Special Enforcement Unit.

``They will be finding out where the gangs are located and who they are, rather than setting up a detail and finding out where they're selling $25 worth of cocaine, which truly doesn't solve the problem,'' Parks said.

The shake-up stems from the Rampart scandal, which began with the discovery that CRASH Officer Rafael Perez had stolen cocaine from a police locker. Perez later admitted to framing and shooting innocent people.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California in Los Angeles, called the police blueprint ``vacuous.''

``Rather than addressing the substantive and urgent concerns of Los Angeles' residents - concerns about police brutality and abuse of power, about community members' complaints being taken seriously - this new order on gang suppression units brings little new of substance to the table.''