LAPD captain accuses department of underreporting violent crimes

Has the LAPD been intentionally underreporting crime in the city?

That's the claim from a captain within the department who also says there's been a cover-up.

Lillian Carranza has 28 years on the job with the LAPD. She's risen to the rank of captain, currently commanding the Van Nuys area. She realizes her career may now be at a bit of a dead end when it comes to promotions because of how she's speaking out out what she calls the ''cooking of the books'' by the LAPD when it comes to crime stats, specifically aggravated assaults.

She says to make the department look better, crimes that were incorrectly classified were never corrected, despite her pointing out errors she says she found in her personal ''audit.'

"It's easy for me, it's about doing the right thing all of the time, not just some of the time ' she said at a packed news conference in the Beverly Hills office of her attorney Greg Smith. Smith has a long and successful history of suing the police for a variety of issues, he's now readying a 'whistleblower' lawsuit on behalf of Carranza and she claims she's now being retaliated against by not being promoted.

The LAPD, with that lawsuit coming, issued its standard 'we can't comment because of pending litigation', but did say that any challenge to the accuracy of its crime reporting statistics will be taken very seriously, as integrity is a 'core value.'

The department has been down this road before, after a major LA tTmes investigation revealed much the same problem covering the years 2008 to 2014.

Carranza's cases are more current, up to and including 2016, and she says the LAPD still hasn't learned from past mistakes. 'It's about giving people a false sense of security' she said, and her attorney agreed.

Perhaps Chief Beck will address all this if he's at the regularly scheduled police commission meeting on Tuesday.