The Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was a specialized gang intelligence unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) tasked with combating gang-related crime between 1979 and 2000.

Each of the LAPD's 18 divisions had a CRASH unit assigned to it, whose primary goal was to suppress gang-related crimes in the city, which came about primarily from the increase in illegal drug trade.

On February 26, 1998, Rampart CRASH officer Brian Hewitt was suspended and later stripped of his job when allegations arose of a cover-up of the beating and asphyxiation of Ismail Jiminez.

In September 1999, in exchange for partial immunity from prosecution, he testified about a pattern of abuse and misconduct involving seventy CRASH officers, threatening to overturn thousands of criminal convictions.

As part of his plea bargain, Pérez implicated scores of officers from the Rampart Division's anti-gang unit, describing routinely beating gang members, planting evidence on suspects, falsifying reports and covering up unprovoked shootings.

's third member, Jimmy Hernandez (Armando Riesco), eventually decides to do the right thing and report his partners' illegal activities, causing him to be killed by them.

unit had yet to be exposed when Training Day was written, Antoine Fuqua has stated that the emergence of the Rampart scandal in the late 1990s catalyzed the completion of the film.

Denzel Washington also grew a beard in order to emulate the appearance of Rafael Pérez, an LAPD narcotics officer involved in multiple scandals.

[12][13] The police drama series The Shield (2002-2008), which revolves around a corrupt anti-gang unit called the Strike Team, is based on the Rampart scandal.