Read Online Vigilante by Stephen J. Cannell - Free Book Online Page B

gardening tool. There were eight to ten counts of verbal assaults against various cops. None of this legal vitriol had gone anywhere in court.
    Last year Stephanie Madrid, a captain in charge of the Advocates Section at Internal Affairs, had used police union funds to finance a restraining order against Lita, which would require her to stay more than fifty yards away from the Hollenbeck Station. That suit had prevailed.
    There was a raging legal debate being fostered within the L.A. Times blog community over whether Lita Mendez was a community activist exercising her First Amendment rights or a criminal menace, who was hurting her community and the quality of civilian life in Boyle Heights. By-and-large, the bloggers were throwing in with Lita, accusing the police of just about everything but double-parking.
    However, even Lita’s detractors admitted that she had a sophisticated understanding of how to use the court system and the complicated Federal Consent Decrees that, until recently, had governed the LAPD. She had often stated in the L.A. Times articles that her dream was to one day complete her GED and go to law school.
    She might have made an excellent attorney, because with no formal legal training and a closet of conservative business suits for court, Lita Mendez had managed to keep Internal Affairs and our city prosecutors embroiled in an endless legal debate. Just last week Captain Stephanie Madrid had filed a criminal lawsuit against Lita, charging her with intentionally making a false police report.
    In the gang-corrupted streets, she was heralded by Evergreens as a hero. They claimed she had the courage to stand up to City Hall. Her attorney, who mostly worked her cases pro bono, claimed Lita had never been convicted of a felony, even though she did have a sealed stolen-car beef dating back to when she was a juvenile.
    When I was finished, I had compiled a long list of people who hated her guts. A lot of them were cops.
    Capt. Stephanie Madrid was well known to everyone in the department. She was a hard-ass who ran the Advocates Section at IA. Advocates were police officers who had the job of prosecuting accused officers. In essence, they were advocates for the department. Defense reps were the officers picked by the accused to defend them. A defense rep could be any officer on the LAPD as long as they were below the rank of captain. The chief advocate had supervisory responsibilities over both the advocates and defense reps. It was a big, important job and Captain Madrid ran a large machine that brought police officers charged with malfeasance before administrative Board of Rights hearings. Hundreds of cops had found themselves facing boards because of Lita’s mostly frivolous complaints.
    When I finished, I rubbed my eyes, which were fatigued from hours on the Internet. It was a depressing compilation of facts and angry people. I had a long list of G-sters and cops to look into, including a prickly IA captain. Stephanie Madrid was often referred to as the “Queen of the Dark,” so I certainly wasn’t looking forward to conducting a suspect interview with her.
    One thought was buzzing around me like the angry green blowflies in Lita’s kitchen: this certainly was the perfect case for V-TV.
    At five o’clock Hitch called to say he was just leaving the ME’s office. I suggested we meet for a beer in a bar called the Copper Buckle across the street from the Police Administration Building. A lot of cops came in there for drinks after work, and it was usually packed.
    We found a booth in the back and sat across from each other over foaming mugs. I gave Hitch a copy of my background information on Lita and he slid my copy of the ME’s report over. Instead of reading the paperwork, we filled each other in verbally and would go through the paperwork later. After I gave him Lita’s background info, he started recapping the coroner’s report.
    “The two bullet wounds to the head were made by nine-millimeter