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. The unit was established in the South Central district of Los Angeles, California, United States, to combat rising gang violence during the period. 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. CRASH was subject of the Rampart scandal from 1997, which exposed widespread police corruption within the unit, including involvement in murders, robberies, police brutality, evidence planting, and participating in gang activity. CRASH was disbanded in 2000 and was replaced by the LAPD Gang and Narcotics Division. History Establishment By 1973, street gangs were quickly becoming a problem in the 77th Street Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), located in the South Central area of Los Angeles, California. Deputy Chief Lou Sporrer, commanding officer of South Bureau, responsible for 77th Street Division operations and ultimately responsible to Chief of Police Edward M. Davis, created a unit of uniformed officers and a plainclothes intelligence section. The two were combined to be identified as 77th Street Division TRASH, an acronym for "Total Resources Against Street Hoodlums" with the idea that LAPD did not want to glamorize gangs. Community activists began efforts to abolish the CRASH unit, stating the name itself hurt the image of these youths joining gangs. Sporrer agreed to a name change, with the "T" for Total becoming a "C" for Community and TRASH became CRASH. In addition to gang-related crime prevention, CRASH officers also had to obtain information about a specific gang that was assigned to them and relay that information between districts. The "freedom of movement and activity" and "gung-ho" nature of CRASH officers led some of them to incite controversy among themselves and the whole CRASH unit. In the 1980s, gang violence began to increase dramatically as a result of the drug trade, specifically the introduction of crack cocaine. Operation Hammer Operation Hammer was a CRASH-led initiative that began in 1987 to crack down on gang violence in South Central Los Angeles. As a result of increasing gang violence and a drive-by killing resulting in the deaths of seven people, then-Chief of Police Daryl Gates responded by sending CRASH