How
could one of the largest police departments in the United States step back and
do nothing as an ex-con from the Aryan Brotherhood came after one of its own
officers?
In L.A.’s Last Street Cop: Surviving
Hollywood’s Freaks, The Aryan Brotherhood, and the L.A.P.D.’s Homicidal
Vendetta Against Me (Highpoint
Lit; May 4, 2020) author Al Moreno paints a chilling picture of official
retribution for his whistleblowing on Los Angeles Police Department corruption.
He lived to tell this tale but learned that even a life-saving cop doesn’t have
a shield big enough to protect him from a few bad guys in the Department
wearing the same uniform.
Moreno’s
story not only takes us behind the wall of what really happens behind the
scenes at the LAPD – and of what happens when cops turn on cops -- but he gives
us a gritty look at the dangers law enforcement confronted in the 1970s and
80s, seeking to contain drug rings, gang wars, and rampant crime. His narrated
stories and insightful reflections have the feel of a Hollywood film. It’s the
story of how a true underdog (born in Tijuana, Mexico, growing up a dyslexic
with a physical disability, living in poverty in a war zone with an absent
father and 11 siblings) rose against the odds to become a high school dropout-turned-Vietnam
War patriot and one of the LAPD’s most effective street cops at the age of 29
Moreno tells us:
·
How
he overcame so many obstacles growing up to become a highly commended officer.
·
Insights
on the phenomenon of gang violence – and how to stop it.
·
Gripping
stories of how he was able to often avoid use of lethal force, despite
confronting life-death situations.
·
How
he closed the door on unsolved crimes in his private security work of the past
34 years.
·
Why
his name deserves to be cleared after getting fired from a corrupt police
department.
·
The
challenges and opportunities for law enforcement in the Black Lives Matter era.
“Al Moreno's commitment and dedication to the citizens
of Los Angeles were always at the forefront of his service. It’s all there in
his book” says Frank R. Flores, retired L.A.P.D. Sergeant.
For
the past 34 years Moreno’s firm, Global Investigations and Global VIP Security
Services, has conducted high-level private investigations and security services
for multiple VIP clients in the entertainment industry and Corporate
America. Moreno is a client of the PR firm that I work
for. For more information, please consult: www.laststreetcop.com.
Below is a Q & A with Moreno:
1.
Al,
what inspired you to tell your story now, nearly 40 years after you fell victim
to police corruption?
From the time of my tragic termination in 1982 to the present I must
have written hundreds of letters to news agencies, Hollywood directors,
producers, T.V. talk shows, authors, and politicians to tell my story. However,
no one seemed to give a damn. I continued my crusade for justice and
approximately four years ago, Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down,
answered a letter I wrote to him in the hope that he would write this
unbelievable story. He advised me no one would take my story because they all
have their own projects. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and
write L. A’s Last Street Cop.
2.
You
had dozens of commendations and received some amazing job performance reviews.
Does it shock you that your own police department, after nearly seven years on
the force, would go after you for being a whistleblower?
Yes, it was a totally unexpected shock. I was so immersed in my work as
an officer in our anti-gang CRASH unit and so confident in my outstanding
police record that it never, ever occurred to me that the department I
so loved would turn on me for exposing the corruption in our unit. Our unit’s
boss, Lt. Bill Lynch, had been cooking the books for years to lower the real
gang crime stats to placate his superiors, City Hall, the Mayor’s office, and
LAPD staff management.
3.
Corruption
in any police department seems possible. How do we stop it? Someone from the inside must be willing to
throw their life into a meatgrinder and lose everything! Unfortunately, few are
willing to step into that irreversible vortex of despair and misery, as
illustrated by one scandal after another, year after year in all sectors of our
society. Mirroring society at large, corruption from one degree to another
occurs at all levels of policing, from small towns to big cities, as well as
throughout state and federal law enforcement agencies. This will continue to be
a fact of life until our society changes its moral compass for good. However,
from my personal experience I can assure the public that the great majority of
our men and woman in uniform will forever do what is necessary to maintain
justice and security in this great country.
4.
Do
you feel like Serpico, the famous NYC whistle-blowing cop? Yes, there are undeniable similarities in my
story to Serpico’s crucifixion. I foolishly thought I would be commended for
stepping up to expose the corruption that everyone in the L.A.P.D.’s Central
Bureau knew was occurring. It was blatant and had reached a level beyond what I
could morally accept. So, I reported the corruption to our new bureau
commander, Mark Kroeker. At that time, two of the units’ sergeants stepped up
and confirmed my information, and heads were going to roll. However, higher-ups
in the department decided to discredit and dispose of me instead. They found
their vehicle for doing that by embracing two murderous gang members – one an
ex-con member of the Aryan Brotherhood – who had attacked my friends and me
during an off-duty weekend trip.
5.
You
seem to have three amazing stories in one. Let’s start with how you overcame
the odds to become a police officer at age 29. How did you, one of 12 growing
up in Watts and the barrio, overcome three juvenile arrests, dropping out of
high school, dyslexia, and a physical disability to become a cop?
It wasn’t easy. I dropped out of high school in my senior year and was
subsequently arrested three separate times – for burglary, armed robbery and
felony assault, but was found not guilty for all three arrests. In 1968 I
joined the Marine Corp at the height of the Vietnam war, and from that point on
I worked hard to make the best of myself. After my return I attended Cerritos
College in Norwalk, California, and finally learning how to address my learning
disabilities, I graduated with an Associate of Arts in Administration of
Justice in a year-and-a-half as opposed to the standard two years and made the
honor roll. In September of 1971, I applied for the L.A.P.D., but was barraged
with one erroneous disqualification after another. In August of 1975, after
successfully fighting a total of nine disqualifications. I was hired onto the
Department. I excelled in all my assignments and was awarded an unprecedented
71 commendations at the five-and-a-half-year mark. Nobody should ever give up
on their dreams.
6.
Next,
you were a warrior as a cop, especially when you worked on L.A.’s first
gang-wars taskforce. You had a penchant for avoiding lethal force and taking
down some very dangerous criminals. Why were your fellow officers so surprised
that you often avoided “the kill shot”? I first heard whispers of disbelief from
inexperienced officers’ bravado that officer Moreno, didn’t have what it took
to make the kill shot when I shot one axe-swinging suspect in the legs instead
of taking lethal action. I’ve seen more violent death than most people, but not
as much as some. Taking a single human life is like killing all of humanity. It
is an irrevocable act that will forever live with a decent man or woman 24/7. I
was blessed with a unique gift of walking the razor’s edge in confronting armed
suspects and taking them into custody without firing a kill shot, although,
they would have killed me and my partner in a heartbeat.
7.
The
third part of your story is how you became a whistle-blower and paid a huge
price for it. Tell us what you exposed. From the jump, the department had it wrong in
fighting the ubiquitous gangs. Los
Angeles is recognized as the Gang Capitol of the United States with over 450
active gangs and 75 to 100,000 gang members. The department picked 40 of its
elite officers to dispatch the criminal gangs that in some cases were formed as
far back as the late 1880s. Within a short time, our unit commander, Lt. Lynch,
recognized the math didn’t work! 40 super cops vs. 100,000 gang-members! Like
any clever crook, he continually rewrote what constituted a gang-related crime,
thereby on paper showing many more gang-related arrests and “success” in
reducing those types of crimes in the city. Simply, he was cooking the books.
L. A. County Sheriff Sherman Block confirmed my disclosures on several
occasions to public officials. I have copies of said disclosures.
8.
Why
wasn’t anything done about it? For the past 40 years, I have petitioned
every L.A.P..D Chief of Police, from Daryl Gates to Charlie Beck, including the
15 members of the Los Angeles City Council, Mayor Antonio Villaragosa, and Eric
Garcetti, with a formal “Request for Rehearing,” via the City Charter section
202 subsection 16. Not one of them ever responded to my cry for justice.
Hopefully, the unbelievable revelations I uncovered in the L.A.P.D. Internal
Affairs investigations and corrupt Board of Rights will disgrace the City of
Los Angeles to address this historical corruption and my unwarranted
termination.
9.
How
did they eventually get you kicked off the force? I was fired after a corrupt Internal Affairs
investigation and corrupt Board of Rights. I was charged with two separates
complaints of misconduct. One for grabbing and pushing a gang member while
interviewing him for the sawed-off shotgun killing of an innocent 16-year-old
kid. The other complaint was for being involved in an off-duty altercation
while on a skiing trip to the Colorado River. At one point in our
mini-vacation, our group of five went to a bar for drinks and dinner and
unbeknownst to us the bar was a hang-out for the Aryan Brotherhood. Within
minutes, we were attacked by the ex-cons and defended ourselves. At the
conclusion of the bar fight, one of the ex-cons came at us with a shotgun. The
department tailored the two complaints against me to their advantage and fired
me for misconduct.
10.
What
happened after you heard the guilty verdict? There are no
words in the English dictionary to express my shock and disbelief after going
through five hellish years of successfully fighting nine erroneous medical
disqualifications and realizing my childhood dream of becoming a member of Los
Angeles Police, only to be fired by the Department I so loved. The LAPD
management is no different from any other major corporation that will stop at
nothing to protect their criminal misbehaver. I pray that L. A.’s Last
Street Cop will warn my brothers and sisters in uniform to watch their six.
Do what is dutifully mandatory on the street, but they should recognize the big
picture, for they too could end up like me. Everyone else should read this book
to understand the mischief, great and small, that has and is happening
throughout law enforcement and get an insider’s view on how upper police
management can sometimes deceive the public about what is really happening on
our street.
11.
What,
if anything, will make you feel vindicated? I fear that no
one in authority in L A.’s city government or the L.A.P.D. will ever
acknowledge this historical injustice. It’s predictable how they are going to
respond once they are confronted with this story. They are going to close ranks
an attempt to distance themselves from any culpability. However, that will
prove their undoing. I submitted the evidence of my innocence for the last four
decades and they have all turned their back to the irrefutable truth. It’s their
own internal documents that prove my innocence. Yes, this disgraceful and
criminal action did not happen on their watch. But once they received the
exculpatory documents, they have both a fiduciary and moral mandate to right
this shameful wrong!
I’ll be damned about that
Blue-Wall (BW) phenomenon! I’ve heard about it since before I became a Los
Angeles police officer. Is it a “Blue Wall” thing when law enforcement turns
its eyes away from blatant dishonesty within the ranks of our street cops? I’m
here to tell you that that BW accusation is a tsunami of bullshit! If I (or the
men and women I worked with) ever saw some cop doing something that would
dishonor our reputation, we would get medieval on their ass and roll them over
in a heartbeat! Obviously, I’m not
saying that some police officers never do dreadful things in the past, today or
in the future, but from my personal experience the overwhelming number of
coppers that I worked with are the best souls our Lord has ever created. And I
strongly feel that if any evil seed in law enforcement has violated the public
trust, he or she must receive the harshest punishment possible!
PLEASE
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