A week ago we told you about controversial cop Frank Lyga with the Los Angeles Police Department, who has been accused of being a racist asshole. It seems Lyga’s bosses think so, too. Lyga was terminated by Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck, the detective’s attorney, Ira Salzman, told L.A. Weekly yesterday.
Lyga was sent home with pay in June after a recording of comments he made to an ongoing-training course for law enforcement was brought to the media’s attention by political consultant Jasmyne Cannick. The white detective, who justifiably* shot a black officer in 1997 while both were out of uniform, said, “I could have killed a whole truckload of them.”
During the November class at the Police Academy, Lyga also called a black civil rights attorney an Ewok, described a fellow cop as a “fruit,” and suggested that an LAPD captain slept around.
The investigator’s fatal shooting of Officer Kevin Gaines, which precipitated one of the LAPDs darkest hours, the Rampart Scandal, was found by the department to have been justified.
Lyga was working narcotics undercover when he said he got into a traffic dispute with an off-duty Gaines in North Hollywood. He said Gaines pulled out a gun and that he feared for his life. Later coverage of the confrontation painted Gaines as an officer who associated with criminal rap mogul Suge Knight.
LA Weekly has the full story.