Investigation Launched After LAPD Allegedly Participates in Los Angeles Business Meeting With Former Mexico Mafia Member

The president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners has demanded an investigation into the LAPD's involvement in holding a meeting between a group of business leaders, local police chiefs and an infamous former Mexican Mafia boss. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck admitted late Thursday that "mistakes were made in holding" the meeting in downtown LA earlier this week.

"I have directed the department to more thoroughly review future events before committing LAPD resources," Beck said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The department is being criticized for arranging an event that used public resources to transport and protect Rene "Boxer" Enriquez, an ex-Mexican Mafia member currently serving life in prison for two murders, to a private meeting set up at the request of business leaders.

The admission came soon after a spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti criticized the LAPD's involvement in the meeting with Enriquez, who has been under heavy security since he began working with authorities in 2000 after his arrest.

As a result, Steve Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, called for an investigation by the department's inspector general. He also described the LAPD's involvement in the meeting as "very, very misconceived and surprising."

"It's a giant waste of public resources," he said.

The meeting started around noon Wednesday and ran until late in the evening. Present at the meeting location was a bomb squad and about a half-dozen officers.

According to LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Downing, the meeting was an "LAPD-sponsored event" where officers listen to the convicted killer describe his experience with a "transnational criminal enterprise."

"He talked about how it grew, how it was branded, how it expanded, how it evolved," Downing said of the meeting.

Enriquez spent two decades working for the notorious Mexican Mafia prison gang before he pled guilty to charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder in 1993, reports Fox News Latino.