Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
A popular spot with Valley motor officers is one door over from a notorious crime location.
Archive: Crime
A popular spot with Valley motor officers is one door over from a notorious crime location.
After grand jury indictment, the former lawman could get 20 years but probably wouldn't.
LA County's disgraced former sheriff withdraws his guilty plea for lying to the FBI about jail abuse.
Six months for his crimes is not enough, U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson rules.
LA journalist and author Michael Krikorian has posted a nice piece on encountering an interesting fellow in the gas pumps at the 76 station just above the Santa Monica Freeway.
A 2008 LA Weekly piece by Christine Pelisek named the serial killer responsible for murdering perhaps dozens of South Los Angeles women.
Before the former Charles Manson follower could actually get parole, the full state parole board and Gov. Jerry Brown would have to approve.
Son of the former Assembly speaker got out of prison Sunday thanks to act by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The disgraced former undersheriff could face 15 years in prison when sentenced for conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Aides of the Valley councilwoman and their family members have been called into a grand jury over $5 and $10.
An unusual open letter from McDonnell says "these cases slice across all socio-economic and racial lines."
Plea deal with federal prosecutors would cap prison time for Lee Baca at under a year, reports say.
For the first time in a long while, crime is up in all categories and in all police divisions across Los Angeles.
These are the first criminal charges Cosby has faced despite complaints by more than 40 women that the actor sexually assaulted them, often after giving them drugs.
Bad day yesterday for stereotypes about the Mojave Desert cities being a hotbed of unsavory news.
The suddenly rising crime rate threatens to undo a lot of good trends in Los Angeles.
In early August we published a blogger piece about Williams, convicted in the murder of Los Angeles police officer Thomas Williams in 1985.
Joe Domanick argues that the city's rising poverty and crime rates are related, "coming together in an era of astounding, Third World-like income disparity, declining social services and desperate poverty." And you thought Uber getting into LAX was the big issue of the day.
WDBJ photographer Adam Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24, were interviewing a chamber of commerce official at a strip mall this morning. The shooter was a former reporter at the Roanoke station.
Bad day for the Los Angeles Police Department image.
The bassist for the 1970s girl band had never talked about the long-rumored incident until now. She collected details from witnesses -- not including Joan Jett, who has yet to acknowledge what she saw.
New LA Times analysis shows the downward trend in LA crime stats is over and that crime is up in all major categories except homicide.
Two other deputies took previous plea deals and testified. This is the case of the jail visitor who was beaten up.
A retired video technician is charged with steering $4 million in contracts to friends and back to himself.
After convicting Charles Manson and followers, Bugliosi wrote "Helter Skelter" and a number of other books.
Henry Solis was arrested in Ciudad Juarez and handed over to the FBI at the border.
Sepp Blatter, longtime president of the soccer federation, was not among those charged. The U.S. will seek extradition from Zurich.
The federal grand jury is investigating corruption in the LA County jails and the attempt by sheriff's officials to hide a federal informant from the FBI.
This officer from Hollywood division was trying to smuggle somebody. Henry Solis is still at large.
Police are looking for probationary LAPD officer Henry Solis in connection with a fatal shooting outside a Pomona nightclub Friday morning.
HBO could not have gotten a luckier PR break with the final episode of "The Jinx" airing tonight.
The depth of reporting by LAT reporter makes 'Serial' resemble a book of poetry, says the reviewer.
Journalist Sam Quinones writes that street gangs have been retreating from public view all over Southern California for a few years now.
For the first time in 12 years, LAPD crime reports show an increase in the statistical category labeled as violent crimes -- just months after the LA Times caught the department understating crime.
Richard Alarcon moved up his jail date but was sent home with an electronic monitoring device.
A five-part series in the Desert Sun will look at the history of Mafia influence, including the taint on Frank Sinatra and kids who grew up romanticizing the scene.
Hikers found the remains of the missing Fox distribution executive in the rural high desert near Palmdale last month, according to officials. He disappeared May 1, 2012.
Two leading civil rights activists applaud the prosecution, saying that allegations of racial profiling are not "toys" to be tossed out lightly to cover up misdeeds.
That's another Democrat going down for cheating on the residency laws. I wonder if that's going to keep happening.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ordered an independent review of Los Angeles County Sheriff Department crime statistics, following on the questions about the integrity of LAPD numbers.
The LA Times' weekend revelation about under-played numbers of aggravated assaults has legs — the IG will look into years of LAPD stats and the department put out a statement. Plus more.
"The Hawaii Red Cross disaster truck in Hilo was stolen last night. Please call 9-1-1 if seen."
Krenwinkel, now 66, has been in prison for 45 years for her part in the Manson family murders. She appears on video for the first time since 1994.
Former Councilman Richard Alarcon and his wife were acquitted on most charges, but convicted on enough. Alarcon said he would probably appeal.
These fake emails labeled as attempts to collect unpaid EZPass bills are sweeping the land. I received one yesterday.
The deputies could face up to 15 years in prison for hiding a jail inmate from federal investigators.
“It’s heartbreaking to have to turn away patrons who we know paid sometimes as much as four times face value for a fraudulent ticket," says the LA Phil operating officer.
UC Santa Barbara has cancelled Tuesday classes for a “Day of Mourning and Reflection," and will hold a memorial service on campus at 4 p.m. All six of the victims of Elliot Rodger who died were students.
A gunman opened fire inside the West Bureau station on Venice Boulevard and shot at least one officer. The wounded officer was reportedly wearing a ballistic vest that may have stopped some of the seven rounds.
The San Francisco area lawmaker, a Democrat running for Secretary of State, is due in federal court for arraignment right about now. Yee was arrested this morning along with a shadowy San Francisco figure known as "Shrimp Boy" during raids by the FBI and others.
Christine Pelisek has a new piece in LA Weekly on the 23-year murder spree she essentially uncovered, plus she's in a Lifetime documentary on the case and played by Dreama Walker in a movie. Meanwhile, suspect Lonnie Franklin is still awaiting trial.
A dismissal motion filed Tuesday in federal court alleges that former Sheriff Lee Baca and former undersheriff Paul Tanaka personally ordered the hiding of federal jailhouse informant Anthony Brown.
Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the kingpin of the Sinaloa cartel, is "the biggest arrest in a generation." He had escaped prison in a laundry cart 13 years ago.
Ron Calderon's charges could bring up to 396 years in federal prison and Tom could face 160 years, if convicted. Tom surrendered this morning and Ron is expected in court Monday.
NBC and the LA Times are reporting that the two suspects in the Dodger Stadium beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow on Opening Day in 2011 may accept a plea bargain in court on Thursday. NBC4 says that Stow's family will be in court.
She was reportedly stopped by Anaheim police after running a red light then failed a field sobriety test. Walker was released on a promise to appear in court.
Jocelyn Y. Stewart used to cover hard news for the Los Angeles Times, an assignment that often took her into the South LA neighborhood where she grew up to cover homicides and other crimes. Then one night, late, her phone rang.
Two men from Ensenada were convicted of ramming a Coast Guard inflatable, throwing Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III into the water near Santa Cruz Island. He suffered a fatal injury in the 2012 incident.
The Inglewood Democrat is the first member of the California legislature to be convicted in criminal court since the 1990s. He could face eight years for lying about his address.
He wrote a column on Saturday taking retailers like Target to task for not doing a better job of safeguarding credit card data. Hours later, he found that his own American Express card was among the pilfered.
Matthew Butcher worked at an Echo Park marijuana dispensary during a 2010 robbery. The robbers got away with $10,000 and a load of pot, but returned to shoot Butcher and...
Architect Gerhard Becker pleaded no contest Friday to involuntary manslaughter in the 2011 death of Los Angeles city firefighter Glenn Allen, who died fighting a fire at Becker's home on Viewsite Drive in the Hollywood Hills.
The stats cover Dec. 13 to midnight on January 1 and include arrests by 100 different law enforcement agencies.
Former city of Bell administrator Robert Rizzo will plead guilty to federal felony charges and face a maximum of eight years in prison, prosecutors just announced.
While today's indictments were not unexpected, Baca said, "it is nevertheless a sad day for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. We do not tolerate misconduct by any deputies."
Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city administrator in Bell, was found guilty today on 11 of 13 counts of felony corruption, including misappropriation of public funds. She was found not guilty on one charge; another ended in a hung jury.
A dark or silver Mercedes-Benz struck an LAPD officer and his motorcycle on Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset a little before 8 p.m. tonight. The officer was taken to UCLA with non-life threatening injuries.
"I met them at the elevator, stopping the jurors to thank them, to hug them," says the well-known LA labor activist. "One held me and murmured: It was our pleasure."
Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives are working to solve the homicide of a woman that took a macabre twist on Monday.
Murray served two years of his four-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson.
Another plastic bottle filled with dry ice erupted in an employee area at LAX on Monday night. Two other of the bottle bombs were found unexploded.
Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy said she will sentence Rizzo to a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 12 years in state prison.
Jay Roberts describes for the first time his motel room encounter with Randy Kraft, who is now on Death Row. But is is true? Orange Coast Magazine's editor took steps to find out.
Nna Alpha Onuoha, arrested for allegedly making threats after being suspended from his TSA job, is the screener who shamed the 15-year-old daughter of LA journalists in June.
The reporters and editors at the OC Weekly are old school: they keep booze in the desks. After some unexplained drainage, they set up a video camera to catch the culprit.
This is, I guess, a follow-up to the earlier gossip from TMZ and others that the former Laker and Clipper's family feared he was off on a drug binge. His rep said he was fine.
Police said they have arrested Nathan Campbell, 38, on suspicion of murder for Saturday afternoon's horrific incident on the crowded Venice Beach boardwalk. One woman died and 11 other people were hurt.
Sheriff's deputy Jose Rigaberto Sanchez, 28, was arrested Monday evening and charged with eleven felonies including sexual penetration under the color of authority, rape under fear or duress, and soliciting a bribe from his alleged victims. The crimes were alleged to have occurred in Palmdale in 2010.
LAPD detective Christopher Barling is the homicide supervisor for the 77th Street station in South Los Angeles — which has 250 open homicide cases. He agreed to "open up about his life and his work" with online readers of the UK newspaper The Guardian.
Swarms of about 40 young men and women ran down Hollywood Boulevard Tuesday night, grabbing merchandise and attacking shop keepers and tourists. Police responded en masse but most of the youths got away. Video inside.
A 75-year-old man wearing an unlikely wig posed as a Los Angeles County sheriff's official to invade a woman's home in the gated community. He came armed but deputies were able to capture him safely.
An unidentified Los Angeles Police Department gang officer helping to search a home in the unincorporated Willowbrook area this evening was shot in the face and neck by a suspect hiding in the attic. The house is surrounded by cops.
The undercover burglary detectives received minor injuries and are helping in the search for the gunman who ambushed them. The station is on Venice Boulevard in the Mid-City area.
A post at KCRW's "Which Way, LA?" news blog says that station general manager Jennifer Ferro was giving a small tour of the studios at Santa Monica College last Friday when one staffer, then another, brought the news that gunman was outside shooting. Ferro also started receiving texts from someone at the Santa Monica Police Department. "At that point, I knew it was real," Ferro said.
Throughout the history of American newspapers are examples of editors and headlines affixing catchy names to notorious crimes and criminals. This is one of the few things that newspapers do that can fairly be attributed to the impulse to "sell papers."
Marcela Franco, who was 26, died Sunday after her family decided to remove her from life support. She was leaving Santa Monica College on Friday with her father when they were both fatally shot by John Zawahri.
A student named John Zawahri appears as a junior in the 2006 yearbook. He did not appear a year later with the 2007 graduating class. Those grads would be 23 or 24 now.
Video from inside the tense KCRW studios just before yesterday's evacuation. The U.K. band had to cancel last night's show at The Avalon. Will try again Sunday.
One of the dead was a long-time employee of Santa Monica College. His wounded daughter is not expected to survive, the college president says in a statement. Media have identified the slain gunman as John Zawahri, who would have turned 24 today.
Police revised downward the number of deaths at multiple locations. They believe the shooter acted alone. KCRW staff was evacuated from the studios and moved to Culver City.
AP says that Richard Ramirez has died at age 53 while in prison. No more details are available yet. In the mid-1980s, Ramirez would enter Los Angeles area homes through open windows and doors and murder who he found inside.
LAPD Sgt. David Mascarenas dove in the murky, bubbling, smelly pool at the La Brea Tar Pits on Thursday looking for evidence in a 2011 murder case. It's not anywhere you would want to go.
After deliberating for a week and getting some urging yesterday from the judge, jurors acquitted businesswoman Kelly Soo Park in the 2008 killing of model and aspiring actress Juliana Redding. Outbursts of "murderer" and "travesty of justice" were heard in the courtroom.
Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis has been in trouble with the law before, but this time could hurt. An LA jury convicted Francis of false imprisonment, dissuading a witness from reporting and assault causing great bodily injury — involving an encounter with three women in 2011.
Randy Kraft was arrested almost 30 years ago with the body of his latest victim in the front seat of his car, and photos of many other victims under the Toyota's floormat. The computer programmer was convicted of 16 murders and linked to 65 others. He's still languishing at San Quentin, now 68 years old.
Summers gave up without incident and "police confirmed his identity through the Superman logo tattoo on his chest." Heh. He is scheduled to be pushed back across the border today.
Beverly Hills police are asking for help in identifying the driver of this car who appears to deliberately pin a bicyclist against a trash dumpster in an alley off Wilshire Boulevard.
Jason Torchinsky, now 41, bought his 1973 Volkswagen Beetle when he was 18. So it kind of sucked when the car was stolen last week.
After taking two weeks to arrive at a mixed bag of verdicts and undecided charges, one of the jurors has asked the judge if he or she can change their mind about Wednesday's guilty verdicts. (No, said Judge Kathleen Kennedy.) The judge ordered the jury to keep trying today to resolve dozens of pending charges, but it has not been going smoothly.
Five of the former Bell city officials on trial for misappropriating public funds were convicted on some charges, and a sixth — Luis Artiga — was acquitted of all charges. The convictions were mixed in with some not guilty findings and a report to the judge that the jury remains undecided on many charges after 18 days of deliberations.
If you're NBC 4, you probably figure you have the TV footage of police chases, might as well cut the video together and put it on the web. The greatest hits reel from recent chases runs 2:44 and includes the man who huffed on balloons in the Valley and the woman who took off running while still on her cellphone.
Sheriff's detectives said today they are now investigating last May's disappearance of media executive Gavin Smith as a homicide case. Smith's 2000 black Mercedes Benz 420E was recovered last month in a storage facility in Simi Valley.
Damian Kevitt was riding a bicycle on Zoo Drive about 11:30 a.m. a week ago Sunday when the driver of an older gray Toyota Sienna minivan bolted out of traffic and made a sudden left turn. Witnesses told the CHP that the van accelerated after hitting Kevitt and dragged the biker for 600 feet, then sped away.
Former LA Times veterans of LAPD coverage come at the Dorner issues from different places. Plus a view from the Inland Empire.
Because the State of the Union speech by President Obama was going to depress TV viewership numbers on the West Coast on Tuesday night, the local stations sold half-hour blocks for infomercials on the movies. But then, voila, lots of eyeballs were watching TV in Southern California. TV Guide's Michael Schneider explains.
Channel 4 will pre-empt "Law and Order, Special Victims Unit" to air a one-hour special, "Manifesto for Murder: The Hunt for Christopher Dorner." Airtime is Thursday at 10 p.m.
Associated Press reported that a California driver's license with the name Christopher Dorner and other personal items were found in the basement of the burned-out cabin next to the remains. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says the episode appears to be over, but that tests are needed to be certain so that LAPD targets and families can relax.
The woman at the Mexican restaurant in Orange County told CBS2 reporter Michele Gile that she knew nothing about Dorner. Ten minutes later, she went inside the home he sometimes shared with his mother. Also: CBS 2 gets pranked.
Several reports say that Christopher Dorner is the gunman who died in a vacation cabin in the 7 Oaks area off highway 38, about 10 miles down the hill from Big Bear. But both the San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman and the LAPD insisted that Dorner's death has not been confirmed and that no body has been recovered. A San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy was killed in the shootout and another was wounded.
A couple of intriguing points are contained in the federal court criminal complaint filed last week against rogue ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner.
The video is from the Sports Chalet in Torrance on Feb .1, two days before the first two of the murders that authorities attribute to rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner. It shows a man who is apparently Dorner getting two scuba tanks re-filled with air and purchasing a third tank.
The LAPD, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and several cooperating agencies announced on Sunday a $1 million reward for information that leads to fugitive ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, who has vowed to keep killing officers and their families. It might be the biggest local reward ever — and was suggested by the wife of Chief Charlie Beck.
Crain, an 11-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department, was the officer killed the morning of Feb. 7 when allegedly ambushed by rogue ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner. He was an 11-year veteran of the Riverside PD, a Marine veteran of Kuwait, and leaves a wife and two children.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called in CBS2 anchor Pat Harvey for an exclusive interview today in which Beck said he would take a look at some of the allegations of racism made by disgraced ex-cop Christopher Dorner. Beck told Harvey that his motive in re-opening the case that led to Dorner's firing was to keep the department's trust among African-Americans. "I'm not doing this to appease Dorner," Beck said.
It appears that fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner abandoned his Nissan truck on a fire road above Big Bear Lake due to a broken axle. Of course, that doesn't explain why he lit the truck on fire before heading into the forest, but it suggests that abandoning the truck and setting out on foot just before a snowstorm hit the area may not have been his first choice.
Law enforcement all over Southern California is on alert after the events of this morning in Riverside County. Police suspect that Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer, killed one officer and wounded two others. Dorner has threatened cops in a Facebook manifesto and the LAPD is on citywide tactical alert. Updated post.
An ex-LAPD cop is the suspect in those two Irvine slayings, the department was sued by a Hollywood executive who says officers beat him, the Sheriff's Department moved to fire seven deputies who belonged to a secret clique, and a Building and Safety inspector agreed to plead guilty to bribery.
Jason Leon, 32, a teacher at the Tarzana middle school, was taken into custody today on an arrest warrant and charged with four counts of child molestation and three counts of battery. The victims were girls aged 13 and 14 at the time of the alleged crimes.
Tyrone Ricky Freeman, the former president of Service Employees International Union locals 6434 and 434-B, was convicted Monday on federal charges of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union that represents home healthcare workers. "This was a case about abuse and betrayal,” said U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. of Los Angeles.
Dan Evans, the editor of the Times Community News papers, moved downtown from the Burbank area about six months ago to try living in the Arts District. Sounds like he mostly liked it until last Sunday night, when he was mugged about midnight near Sci-Arc. Now he caries a socket wrench.
At the end of the Los Angeles Times story about two young street muggers being hanged in public in Tehran on Sunday, there's a surprise.
The LAPD says that Samuel Little, 72, has been extradited to California from Kentucky and charged in the murders of three South Los Angeles women. DNA evidence links Little to the crimes, investigators say.
Julio Morales cannot be convicted of raping a sleeping woman unless she is married, due to California state law, or unless it's proved that Morales knew she was asleep when he forced himself on her.
Two Hollywood area narcotics officers have reportedly been implicated by four women. The accusations go back several years. The LAPD moved against the two officers on Thursday after one of the women filed a lawsuit.
Police in the Rampart division laid out for the media today all the stolen loot they say was retrieved from the car of Frank Chibbaro, a 38-year-old ex-con arrested hiding in a downtown garage on New Year's Day. It's a lot of stuff. Video inside.
With a few days left in the year, the number of murders in the city of Los Angeles has crept up and will likely surpass 300 for the first time since 2009. Total crime declined for the tenth straight year.
Federal prosecutors filed to drop their long list of charges accusing Los Angeles anti-gang leader Alex Sanchez of actually being a shot caller for the deadly Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) crime organization. But the feds say they will refile some charges.
Another sad lonely guy with a gun terrorized a crowd tonight, this time in the parking lot of the Fashion Island shopping mall in Newport Beach. No one was hit, but there some injuries in the panic.
All 26 of Adam Lanza's victims at the school in Newtown, Connecticut were shot multiple times with a long gun of some sort, officials said today. Lanza's mother, killed at home, has no known connection to the school.
The current death toll in Newtown, Conn. stands at 28, 20 of them children aged five to ten.
Three federal grand jury indictments led to the arrest of 18 members of the Harpys, which claim territory just north of USC and are "one of more than a dozen Latino gangs across a wide swath of South Los Angeles allegedly controlled by Mexican Mafia member Danny Roman."
The suspects are picked up at a Las Vegas casino.
Police arrested a suspect in Las Vegas who they believe was involved in the weekend shootings at a Devonshire Street unlicensed boarding house where four people were killed. A news conference is expected later this afternoon.
Grieving members of the Coast Guard Cutter Halibut and other friends spoke to the media in Marina del Rey Monday about their late shipmate, Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne.
he owner, an elderly man who lives there, denied it was a boarding house despite evidence that the rooms had been partitioned so completely that one section of the house could only be accessed via a window.
Until these four killings, the LAPD's crime maps show just one homicide since July 1 on the Devonshire division's turf.
Chief Petty Officer Horne, of Redondo Beach, was out with the Marina Del Rey cutter Halibut when a suspected smuggling vessel rammed his inflatable boat, throwing Horne into the sea near Santa Cruz Island.
Los Angeles county prosecutors said only that new information led them to dismiss the murder charge against Lois Goodman over the death of her 80-year-old husband, Alan Goodman, in the couple's Woodland Hills condo last April.
A federal grand jury in Santa Ana today indicted retired baseball star Doug DeCinces and three associates "for allegedly using non-public information regarding a takeover bid to purchase stock in an Orange County-based medical device company – stock that dramatically increased in value when the takeover bid was publicly announced.
Federal prosecutors in Sacramento intend to seek a prison sentence of 97 months for Kinde Durkee, the Los Angeles-area political campaign treasurer who pleaded guilty to absconding with more than $7 million in funds she managed for Democratic candidates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Patrick Frey and his wife, both veteran prosecutors in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, are victims of one of the more despicable political dirty tricks practiced in America these days. Over his blogging.
A judge on Monday set Assessor John Noguez's bail at $1.16 million, the amount the prosecutors allege he cost taxpayers by lowering property tax assessments for the clients of a consultant accused of bribing Noguez.
Today, the department took to social media to try find out what happened to 42 women who showed up in Lonnie Franklin Jr.'s photographs.
Yongda Huang Harris caught the attention of Homeland Security agents at LAX — after his flight. I wonder if it was the bulletproof vest and flame retardant pants underneath his trench coat?
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who made the controversial film "Innocence of Muslims," was deemed a flight risk by a federal magistrate and ordered held without bail.
That $10 million art theft at the home of Santa Monica bond trader Jeffrey Gundlach has been solved — or at least he has gotten his artwork back and two men have been arrested. I guess rewards work when they are big enough.
The jury found Lomita chef David Viens guilty only of second-degree murder: willful and deliberate, but not premeditated. His sentence will be 15 years to life, says the Daily Brreeze.
Washington, charged with defrauding banks by falsely claiming identity theft, is one of more than 40 arrests this year of staffers at the county probation department.
The arrest of Nune Gevorkyan, 35, and her husband Oganes Koshkaryan, 40, came through the multi-agency Eurasian Organized Task Force. Didn't know we had one of those.
Busch, the former Los Angeles Times reporter who was threatened over a story by Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and his cronies, appeared frail and frightened-looking in court today, says The Wrap.
The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced today the death of inmate Gregory U. Powell, who served a life term for 1963 kidnapping and murder of Los Angeles police officer Ian Campbell. Powell and his partner, Jimmy Lee Smith, had been pulled over for an illegal turn by Campbell and another plainclothes LAPD officer from the Hollywood division. The criminals commandeered the officers and drove them to an onion field outside Bakersfield where Powell shot and and killed Campbell.
The Beverly Hills Police Department has opened its photo and case files to the authors of the newest book from Angel City Press — "Beverly Hills Confidential: A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders." It's what it sounds like, only authorized.
Check out the story in the Daily News on a Valley mother who gave her daughter (and her middle-school friends) a ride to terrorize some ex-friends. Hey, at least they weren't out walking in the unsafe city.
Another former member of the Cudahy City Council, Osvaldo Conde, has agreed to plead guilty to federal extortion and bribery charges. He joins the former mayor, David Silva, and another official who formally agreed last week to plead guilty to federal charges.
LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman's latest book is a page turner. Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History takes off from the 2003 killing of Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Stephen Sorensen, by a hermit named Donald Kueck, to peel back some of the mystery and secrets about life in the Mojave Desert north of us. She reads this afternoon at Skylight Books.
Michael Steven Poret has an investment brokerage office on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and a home in the posh hills of Encino. Still, police have now arrested him twice as the suspect in a siege of broken windows on Ventura Boulevard and in Beverly Hills.
The personal fall of ex-New York baseball star (and SoCal financial whiz) Lenny Dykstra continues. The former outfielder for the Mets and Phillies, already in state custody on earlier convictions, pleaded guilty today to bankruptcy fraud and other federal charges for selling items "pilfered from his mansions in Ventura County," the feds said.
The red-handed bribery in support of a marijuana store is bad enough. But it's the other corruption, including vote tampering, that's really chilling.
It's a plea deal for Brian Mendoza, the May Day demonstrator who was caught on video whacking LAPD officer Mandee Duyanen on the back of her helmet with a snare drum.
It's the southeast cities corruption story du jour, I guess. The feds say that Santa Fe Springs city councilman Joseph Serrano Sr., who is 62, agreed to plead guilty to a bribery count that was filed in U.S. District County in Los Angeles this morning. Fascinating reading, actually.
Two men surrendered last night in the videotaped beating of a motorist on Interstate 5 near Boyle Heights — that's the video saved from vanishing from sight by an Irish computer geek. Here's the other twist. The motorist who was left sprawled out on the pavement while two goons kicked him in the head was himself arrested today.
The City Council has approved a $50,000 reward for information on the May 31 murder of chiropractor Robert Rainey at his office in Palms. James Rainey, the media writer at the Los Angeles Times, spoke this morning about his brother at a press conference at the scene. Watch the video.
The video showing the assault on a Los Angeles freeway driver near downtown only got in the hands of authorities — and seen by you — because of an unemployed croupier and casino dealer across the Atlantic — and an alert food writer at the LA Weekly.
Before Wilson gave voice to the case against broken windows, Gitlin took his course and "learned a lot about cities, classes, political machines, and reformers....[but] as Wilson’s commitment to conservative orthodoxy grew, his critical edge was blunted."
James Rainey, the Los Angeles Times media reporter, posted to Facebook and tweeted a nice piece about his brother. Robert Rainey, the Palms chiropractor who was discovered beaten to death in his Venice Boulevard office on May 31, was a well-known runner in the LA area. The Raineys grew up in Malibu.
Lots of tears in the courthouse in Long Beach on Thursday. After almost ten years, five of them spent in prison, once-promising high school football player Brian Banks was officially exonerated of the rape charge he pleaded no contest to as a sixteen-year-old, in a bid to avoid a longer sentence. The childhood friend who accused him, Wanetta Gibson, friended him on Facebook last year and admitted on tape that she had made up the rape allegation.
The Dodgers are concerned enough about Sunday night's parking lot incident — and the memories of last season's Bryan Stow assault — to put out a statement this afternoon. Full statement
The LAPD says robbery was the motive for the April 11 killings of Ming Qu and Ying Wu as they sat in a car about a mile from the USC campus. Two men were arrested Friday, possibly based on cellphone signals and forensic evidence tying the gun to other recent crimes.
Surveillance video spotted four suspects, two males and two females, fleeing the scene.
"Three fled north on the Promenade and the fourth ran south."
Prosecutors allege that former Glendale city councilman John Drayman embezzled between $304,000 and $880,000 from the weekly farmers market in Montrose, and filed false tax returns that did not reflect his true income.
The LAPD says that Brian Mendoza, 23, has been arrested in the videotaped head bonking of an officer working the May Day rallies in downtown. He is 6 feet 280, she is 5'1" 115.
Some dude was caught on camera whacking an officer on the helmet with a drum during Tuesday's protest in Downtown. Pretty amazing that none of the other LAPD cops on the scene saw him.
Think this is serious? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the president of USC, C.L. Max Nikias, all threw a press conference this morning to try to assure parents, students and potential students — here and abroad — that the neighborhood around the campus is safe. More cops and prosecutors are among the steps.
The so-called "teardrop rapist" appeared to stop in 2005 — at least no victims have come forth. Now DNA evidence ties the same criminal to a sexual assault last November around Adams and Normandie. Women should not walk alone at night, an official says. Video
Starts in the Valley around Magnolia and Woodman, moves slowly and almost politely through Hollywood, Los Feliz and Atwater Village, then into the city of Glendale.
Ying Wu and Ming Qu are profiled at USC's Neon Tommy by a Chinese journalism student who was able to gather information in Mandarin from social media. Corrina Shuang Liu writes that the pair came from humble backgrounds, unlike the image some believe that they were spoiled rich kids.
Shooting the Times places "near USC" is actually five miles away in Baldwin Hills. The LA Times building itself is closer to the campus. For whatever reasons, grokking the inner map of Los Angeles is just not an LAT strength.
Leonard Cohen delivered a heartfelt statement in Los Angeles Superior Court today at the sentencing of Kelley Lynch, his former business manager. He also thanked the judge for "the elegant manner in which these proceedings have unfolded. It was a privilege and an education to testify in this courtroom."
The graduate students in electrical engineering were in a BMW about a mile from campus when both were shot early this morning, possibly in a robbery or carjacking attempt.
Music legend Leonard Cohen testified in Los Angeles Superior Court for a second day in the harassment trial of his former business manager, Kelley Lynch. She is charged with inundating Cohen and others with harassing phone calls and emails over the years.
A stolen Ferrari's GPS ping tipped off customs agents before the new cars and trucks could be loaded on ships for export to Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Police say a safe taken out of an upstairs closet in a home in the 200 block of South Highland Avenue contained cash, jewelry and valuables worth $10 million.
Bryan Stow's family website marked Saturday's anniversary of the attack outside Dodger Stadium that left the father of two and Giants fan from Northern California brain-damaged and unable to live outside a care facility.
Lynch will escape prison, but must pay back $385,000, serve 1,500 hours of community service and be on probation.
Federal prosecutors are expected to recommend 11 to 14 years in prison for the Democratic campaign treasurer, Politico reports.
Six people, including the former longtime gneral manager Patrick Lynch, were named in a 29-count felony indictment from the Los Angeles County Grand Jury unsealed today.
A sheriff's department spokesman said he may have died of natural causes, rather than being shot or beaten.
Jeffry Paul Quinton, a 21-year veteran assigned to the Central division, was arrested in Orange County and accused of stealing cash from a Laguna Beach hotel where he moonlighted. Quinton...
Stephanie Lazarus, the former LAPD detective who was arrested on the job in 2009, was convicted today in the 1986 killing of Sherri Rae Rasmussen, the wife of a man Lazarus dated for awhile.
Former baseball player Lenny Dykstra, who once made so much money as a financial adviser he bought Wayne Gretzky's Ventura County mega-mansion, was taken into custody Monday after being sentenced for a scheme to lease cars using fraudulent paperwork.
This piece ran in The Atlantic in March 1982 and is credited as an influential argument in the movement toward community policing embraced here and in New York by William J. Bratton. The magazine posted it online in its entirety following Wilson's death on Friday.
What is going on in Wilmington? Two more street killings, this of a boy and girl on F Street near Bay View Avenue just after 7 p.m. tonight.
For me, the worst incident of the day was the death in a police pursuit of a woman who apparently had been kidnapped this morning in the Westlake district.
The District Attorney's office has declined to file charges against Allan Munnecke, the former Tournament of Roses official hauled out of bed the other day and arrested in the 2004 death of a Rose Parade volunteer.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore told KPCC that a student's account of Miramonte Elementary School suspect Mark Berndt being helped by another teacher was fabricated and not true.
Bruce Beresford-Redman, the former TV producer accused of killing his wife Monica in Cancun in 2010, has been taken from the federal detention center downtown is said to be en route to Mexico.
Ricardo Guevara, a former teacher's aide at the Miramonte Elementary School's Early Education Center, was convicted in 2005 of committing lewd acts with children and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
If the children at Miramonte Elementary School weren't traumatized before, they will be when they get back to school on Thursday.
Martin Springer, who lives in Alhambra, was arrested by sheriff's detectives this morning after a short investigation into new reports of lewd acts with children.
A recreational boater reported the pot bobbing in the swells about six miles northwest of the entrance to Marina del Rey.
Mark Henry Berndt, who taught for more than 30 years at Miramonte Elementary School in South Los Angeles, was ordered held in lieu of $23 million bail after appearing in...
Former California Highway Patrol officer Tomiekia Johnson was convicted Monday of first-degree murder for shooting her husband beside the Riverside Freeway in 2009.
Investigators believe the body parts found off a trial under the Hollywood sign belong to a man who was only dead for a day or two.
Romantic rivalry, not gangs, appears to be the motive in the murder of Francisco Javier Rodriguez Jr. outside the teenager's home in Winnetka. Two suspects with long rap sheets, a man and a woman, have been arrested.
I guess the Los Angeles County reserve sheriff's deputy who made the traffic stop that netted arson suspect Harry Burkhart is OK looking too.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says at the presser that Burkhart has been booked on one count of arson. Chief Beck says they got their man.
The German native is 24 years old and suspected of setting as many as 53 fires, with property damage over $2 million.
A German man who several sources said "is believed to be the same person seen in a surveillance video released by police Sunday" was detained by a reserve sheriff's deputy this morning near Sunset and Fairfax.
Police distributed video Sunday of a man they say was seen near more than one of the fires in the recent spree of arson fires that has centered in Hollywood and West Hollywood. Plus more updates and a Facebook page.
The new fires, inside the Hollywood and Highland parking structure and in a Hollywood home's carport, came as authorities deployed hundreds of extra firefighters, patrol cars, undercover officers and helicopters to fight the mysterious ongoing arson string.
Los Angeles police and fire officials suspect the string of 35 or more suspicious fires reported since Friday morning have been set by more than one arsonist.
The office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has just distributed a summary of Occupy members charged, sentenced or awaiting a resolution of their arrests in the Nov. 30 raid outside City Hall
The employee at Southern California Edison's information technology facility in Irwindale, reportedly a systems analyst, began methodically shooting co-workers this afternoon before killing himself.
Baseball's all-time home run leader can appeal before serving his sentence.
The music industry veteran who was shot in his Mercedes by Tyler Brehm in Friday's rampage in Hollywood died of his injuries this afternoon, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced.
Top aide to Mayor Villaraigosa heard the shots and the screams, and a local photojournalist takes the money shot of the gunman lying wounded.
Twitter video from above shows the gunman in the Hollywood intersection and cars jamming on the brakes and making u-turns to escape. The gunman was later killed by police....
The breakdown is 290 booked for failure to disperse, one for battery on a police officer and one for interfering with an officer.
Dr. Conrad Murray was just sentenced to four years in L.A. County jail for his part in the death of Michael Jackson.
The women suspected to using pepper spray on a crowd of Black Friday shoppers at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch turned herself in at the Devonshire Area station late last night.
Bryan Stow's familyposted a photo showing the Dodger Stadium beating victim surrounded by smiling relatives and friends on Thanksgiving.
Four robbers rushed into the Macy's at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza before closing tonight, began smashing jewelery cases with hammers and started grabbing loot.
This time it's a captain with the Los Angeles Fire Department arrested on suspicion of trying to buy seven balloons of simulated heroin from undercover officers near Avenue 61 and Figueroa Street in Highland Park.
The Los Angeles jury holds Murray responsible for the death of Michael Jackson....
Man in Smurf costume shot leaving Halloween party.
Everyone — including Rand — knew its study saying crime went up when marijuana clinics closed smelled funny, but now Rand has gone the rest of the way.
Gregory Powell, convicted and originally sentenced to death for the 1963 murder of LAPD officer Ian James Campbell, was turned down today as a candidate for parole.
Michaels, Sam Zell's right hand at Tribune until last fall and that New York Times story about his sexcapades and frat boy mentality, was arrested early Friday morning near Cincinnati and allegedly failed three field sobriety tests.
The feds today talked about Christopher Chaney, a 35-year-old in Jacksonville, Florida who is accused of using his home computer to crack into the email accounts and mobile phones of celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis and Christina Aguilera.
That recent Rand study finding that crime went up after the city cracked down on marijuana dispensaries is going back for more work.
Alexander Hugh, the Koreatown developer nabbed for illegally contributing reelect Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2009, was fined $183,750 by the city's Ethics Commission this morning.
Forget that stuff about only low-level offenders being part of the state's transfer of cases back to Los Angeles County.
The LAPD says the officers were working undercover near Vermont Avenue and Leeward about 9:15 p.m. when they saw a gang-related shooting and intervened.
Stow, the victim of the Opening Day assault at Dodger Stadium, progressed this week to speaking with relatives and asking to see his children.
Kinde Durkee, the campaign treasurer suspected of absconding with the funds of many California Democrats, has been avoiding the cameras since her release on bail.
The FBI confirms it's looking into a report that Johansson's nude self-photos were stolen from her mobile phone.
The former Dodger's wife called police Monday and said he slapped her face during an argument.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said today she doesn't know yet the exact losses, but says her campaign fundraising account has been "wiped out" in the scandal growing around popular Democratic treasure Kinde Durkee.
Arraignment for Kinde Durkee, the Burbank campaign treasurer accused of stealing as much as $677,000 from at least one of the hundreds of Democrats she works for, was postponed until Friday.
The government's accusations against the big Democratic campaign treasurer are substantial.
Former Laker Javaris Crittenton was taken into custody tonight at John Wayne Airport in Orange County after checking in for a Delta Air Lines flight to Atlanta.
A Los Angeles Police Department officer was hit at least three times after stopping several pedestrians about 2:45 p.m. on south Western Avenue near 66th Street, between Gage and Florence avenues. The officer, whose name has not been released, is at the hospital and is expected to survive.
The City Attorney's office has announced the charges against Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, who was booked last night after surrendering at the LAPD's Pacific Division station. He bailed out this morning.
Caltrans had planned to show off four new pieces of artwork along Los Angeles freeways this morning, replicas of murals from the 1984 Olympics era that had been defaced by taggers. But overnight, two of the pieces were stolen.
Todd Martens posts at Tumblr that it was pretty jarring to watch a dispute on the Red Line rapidly escalate to a fatal stabbing. His report of Friday night's incident,...
Pop music staffer Todd Martens was in the subway in Hollywood last night when he witnessed a man stab another man, then flee the scene. It was more complicated than...
The Huntington Beach home of indicted former Bell official Robert Rizzo hit the multiple listings database last week.
Imprisoned former Hollywood troubleshooter Anthony Pellicano said during his first prison interview — with Daily Beast writer Christine Pelisek for Newsweek magazine — that he knew enough about Arnold Schwarzenegger to prevent him from becoming governor. No details offered.
Avery, who plays the role of agitator in hockey and has been run off a couple of teams by his own teammates, was arrested this morning on suspicion of battery against a police officer. He has since been released.
The ineptitude takes your breath away - agents made about 60 visits to the home of onetime parolee Phillip Garrido without realizing that Dugard was being kept hidden in the backyard.
Matthew Lee, who was with Stow for the Dodgers home opener and had been considered an important witness, died Sunday after an allergic reaction to nuts.
He calls the arrest "regrettable," but also defends the decision to bring in Ramirez.
The L.A. Times has posted tonight, for Sunday's paper, the first of a four-part series by Richard Marosi that reconstructs the inner workings of a busted Sinaloa drug cartel from court records and interviews.
There never was any physical evidence linking Giovanni Ramirez to Dodger Stadium or the beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow, just weak eyewitness IDs, says an L.A. Times story. Then...
Prosecutors today charged two Rialto fathers, Louie Sanchez, 29, and Marvin Norwood, 30, with felony mayhem, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury in connection with the opening day attack on Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium.
The con man has been sentenced back to prison, and his journalist partner in short-selling stock on companies they "exposed" does PR for the city of Costa Mesa.
The L.A. Times story saying Giovanni Ramirez is off the hook in the Bryan Stow beating is attributed to an unnamed law enforcement source
Lance Armstrong's new legal team, led by John W. Keker of San Francisco, has filed a brief alleging the government has been leaking damaging information to "60 Minutes" and others about the former bicycling champion.
A federal judge in Los Angeles must really feel that Jeff McGrue's crime was over the top.
The Wrap is reporting that the Beverly Hills police have completed the investigation into the Nov. 16 murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen. The gun was stolen from a police officer in the Valley.
CBS 2 says it has an exclusive with the local murder suspect who was released from custody in Puerto Rico then disappeared.
Riverside County sheriff's picked up Rodney King this afternoon while he was driving in Moreno Valley.
It's a "Primetime" special airing tonight on ABC. Watch video.
The Google street view glimpse of the Santa Monica apartment house where Boston crime boss James Bulger was living shows a unit for lease sign up.
Bulger, a fugitive since 1994, was reportedly arrested tonight in Santa Monica, the L.A. Times says citing "multiple law enforcement sources."
A robber hit the Fast Fix jewelry store in the Westfield Century City outdoor shopping mall about noon today, and while running to a waiting car he fired one shot in the air as a security guard gave chase.
Guarded good news out of San Francisco on Bryan Stow, the victim of that brutal assault at Dodger Stadium on this season's opening day.
Tyler Hamilton, the former bike racer who said on "60 Minutes" that he took banned substances with then-teammate Lance Armstrong and knew of a positive drug test that was covered up, had words with Armstrong at a bar in Aspen on Saturday night.
The L.A. Times has been reporting all weekend that anonymous "law enforcement sources" are contradicting NBC 4's report that blood stains on a Dodgers jersey match Bryan Stow's blood.
NBC 4 reports tonight that police have a jersey with blood stains that was dropped off at a cleaners.
Anthony Brooklier has been in the news recently as the lawyer for Giovanni Ramirez, the parolee who the LAPD thinks is a top suspect in the Bryan Stow beating at Dodger Stadium.
ruce Malkenhorst Sr., at one time California's highest-paid public official — while employed by one of the state's least populated cities — pleaded guilty today to a charge of misappropriating public funds.
Authorities are using a parole hold to keep Giovanni Ramirez in custody, without criminal charges, while the police investigation continues.
Actually, tonight's "60 Minutes" says it's the testimony of Lance Armstrong's former teammate and confidante, Tyler Hamilton, that threatens to rewrite the story of bike racing and its biggest American legend.
OK, the statement shapers got their work done in time for the LAPD to announce this afternoon they have formally arrested a 31-year-old man in the Bryan Stow beating.
A suspect was extracted from an East Hollywood apartment building in a SWAT operation this morning, the LAPD says.
Federal grand jury subpoenas have come in, there's been a guilty plea, and a USC fraternity sues for being held up for bribes.
The Giants fan who was beaten into a coma in the Dodger Stadium parking lot has been experiencing major seizures.
Sirhan Sirhan has a new story about what happened the night Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel.
Good story about a sheriff's detective who was thumbing through photos of gang members and recognized a Pico Rivera murder scene tattooed on one guy's chest.
City News Service now says there were 46 tickets written by the LAPD and no arrests at last night's game.
The Los Angeles Fire Department has posted four surveillance videos showing a Hollywood transient who broke into Temple Israel and apparently set a small fire in a second-floor classroom.
The FBI says that David Deng tricked Chinese nationals into paying him $300 and up (plus annual renewals) to enlist in what he called an elite U.S. special forces unit that operated out a storefront in Temple City.
Federal officials say Ron Hirsch, 60, was arrested Monday night in Cleveland.
NBC 4 bills this as a photo from this morning of cash changing hands — literally — between an FBI agent and a Los Angeles city building inspector.
Steve Jenkins is in surgery in "very guarded" condition after being shot in the face on Dronfield Avenue, LAPD chief Charlie Beck announced.
A new lawyer will argue that his client, who is now 66, does not remember shooting Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968.
Maurice Cruz made his first alleged prank call to 9-1-1 last August 27 at approximately 4:46 p.m.. He placed the last of more than 18,000 calls this morning at about 2:35 — and then he was arrested.
David Viens jumped in Rancho Palos Verdes hours after being named in a Daily Breeze story.
Robert Rizzo leaves on a gurney, Lindsay Lohan walks away but is told that she faces jail time if convicted or if she pleads out.
It seems safe to say that nothing about the Mitrice Richardson investigation will go into the how-to training manuals.
Politics. media and other items from the in-box.
For at least the second time, guards at Corcoran State Prison found a mobile phone in Charles Manson's cell on January 6.
That messy break-in we told you about Friday — at the home of food blogger Barbara Hansen — is the subject of a story coming tonight at 11 p.m. on Channel 2. Why isn't so clear.
Police told Barbara Hansen that the burglars who ransacked her place were pros, but the destruction seems needlessly vicious.
An LAPD alert posted to Facebook by a resident: "Burglary Suspects posing as DWP employees are attempting to enter homes in Woodland Hills.
Last week's lockdown of Woodland Hills schools, fear felt by students and parents, and massive dragnet for a gunman that disrupted entire Valley neighborhoods — all the result of a dishonest LAUSD police officer, LAPD chief Charlie Beck said tonight.
Krenwinkel, now 64, is the longest-serving female prisoner in the California prison system — a distinction she gained when fellow Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins died in 2009.
Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden told the Hollywood Reporter that the final ballistics report confirms that Harold Martin Smith gunned down publicist Ronni Chasen on Nov. 16.
The student was shot today near Bell High school, the LAUSD school police officer outside El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills.
Troubled ex-Dodger Milton Bradley looks to be in trouble again. He was booked into the Van Nuys jail today on suspicion of making criminal threats, reportedly involving a woman in...
At least two students have been shot at Gardena High School, possibly by accident. The student suspected of the shooting is believed to be in a classroom and talking to...
Officer Tomiekia Johnson, 31, originally told police she shot her husband two years ago because he was abusive.
A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy was shot in the cheek Tuesday night in East Los Angeles. The gunman was killed.
LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman was outside the University Medical Center in Tucson on Sunday for the outpouring of public support for the six victims killed in Saturday's shooting and for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in intensive care with doctors optimistic about her chances for recovery.
Lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who's now 77, has posted a lengthy argument on his consulting firm's firm website contending that O.J. Simpson did not kill his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords was making an appearance at a Safeway in north Tucson this morning when a young gunman walked up and shot her at close range in the head.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives said Friday that LAPD help has led them to identify two of the men whose faces were shown on video that allegedly recorded sexual attacks...
The Los Angeles County sheriff's office has put out an unusual press release based on anonymous (and unreleased) video footage reportedly showing at least ten severely disabled women being sexually assaulted by four men.
Esteban Nuñez, son of the former Assembly speaker, had been sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the October 2008 stabbing death of a student during a fight near San Diego State. The governor's executive action, on his last day in office, commutes the sentence to seven years.
That leaves about 140 women who the LAPD would still like to identify and locate to see if they are OK and survived their contact with Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie Franklin Jr.
Brian Alexik has been talking a lot to Downtown News reporter Ryan Vaillancourt.
Andrew Blankstein at the L.A. Times has a law enforcement source who says, not for attribution, that the gun Harold Smith used to kill himself in Hollywood appears to match the gun used to kill publicist Ronni Chasen.
The Daily Beast runs an email, apparently of the Beverly Hills neighbor-to-neighbor gossip sort, reporting second-hand that someone saw a black man in gang garb brandish a gun at a driver on Benedict Canyon a week or so before Ronni Chasen's murder.
One resident at the dicey Hollywood apartment building where "Harold" shot himself last night says he had bragged about killing Ronni Chasen.
The L.A. Times is reporting that "a man described as a suspect in the slaying of veteran Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen fatally shot himself at a Hollywood apartment house Wednesday evening as Beverly Hills police were serving a search warrant there."
Three members of the Imperial Stars band were charged by District Attorney Steve Cooley, for blocking the Hollywood Freeway last month.
Robert J. Lopez, the night cops reporter at the Los Angeles Times, just tweeted the sad truth.
You don't see this every day. In a video clip provided by the L.A. Superior Court, longtime LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus learns she is a suspect in the 1986 killing of her ex-beau's wife.
The Hollywood Reporter is going with a story that the working theory is that the attack on Ronni Chasen was planned in advance and not the result of road rage or a carjacking gone awry.
Bruce Beresford-Redman is the reality TV producer who left Mexico while authorities there were investigating the killing of his wife, Monica Beresford-Redman, in Cancun last April.
Nobody has been able to advance the story much on this morning's killing of publicist Ronni Chasen, while Hollywood reacts. Services are Sunday.
Longtime Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, 64, was found dead of five gunshot wounds about 12:30 a.m. today in her Mercedes-Benz E-350, which had crashed into a light pole on Whittier Drive just south of Sunset Boulevard.
Video appears to show the marshal shooting the man in the back, and the investigation has found the marshal was drinking heavily, arguing with his wife, and may have shot the man to settle a grudge.
This is the tenth anniversary of the murder of David Price, the brother of our contributor Jenny Price.
The bus was carrying 54 students from the East Los Angeles Skills Center.
This brings Robert Rizzo, the former city administrative officer in Bell, to 55 felony charges, mostly of misappropriation of public funds.
San Gabriel mayor Albert Y.M. Huang said he would resign from the City Council following his arrest on suspicion of robbery, assault and battery, citing the pressure on his family.
The show's Bruce Lisker segment airs Saturday night.
U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips rejected a move by lawyers for the state to return Bruce Lisker to prison because he was freed on a legal point that no...
An LAPD tactical alert was in force for about an hour earlier this evening following the police shooting of a suspect in the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts.
KFI News tweeted shortly after midnight that former Bell city administrative officer Robert Rizzo had posted bail and been released from jail.
The Daily News today unveiled Under Arrest in L.A., which it calls "a list, updated daily, of felony arrests made by the Los Angeles Police Department over a 30-day period." Searchable by name, crime and other factors.
The Times has been working with the LAPD and sheriff's department to ensure good data and today launches a new feature mapping crime across the city and a substantial part of the county.
Before he died in August, longtime "48 Hours" correspondent Harold Dow working for more than a year on a story about Southern California serial killer Rodney Alcala and his "40-year odyssey of rape, murder and eluding justice."
That's down from the $3.2 million originally set for ex-Bell city manager Robert Rizzo.
Arraignment is coming up for the eight current and former city of Bell officials who were arrested yesterday. "LA courtroom hallway jammed with friends, family, lawyers, bail bonds men, activists...
District Attorney Steve Cooley is on live TV now announcing the charges and arrests. Former city manager Robert Rizzo is accused of misappropriating more than $5 million in public funds....
The City Attorney's charges against Mariotti stem from a domestic violence incident last month with his girlfriend at their condo in Venice.
The Daily Beast is billing former LA Weekly writer Christine Pelisek as the site's "new L.A.-based crime reporter, with a piece up today on Drew Street's Maria Leon.
In today's Los Angeles Daily Journal, reporter Gabe Friedman says that "as federal prosecutors ramp up the high-profile criminal investigation into alleged doping by U.S. pro cyclists, including seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, two questions have stumped observers: Why here? Why now?"
As Paris Hilton gets older and more experienced at this getting busted thing, she's learned to really work the booking camera.
Three bodies were found in an apartment shortly after "shots fired" calls came in from the 600 block of North Kings Road, just off Melrose, about 9:15 p.m. West Hollywood...
During a 10-year period beginning in 1984, multiple serial killers targeted young, poor, African American women across the south side of the city and county, the Los Angeles Times says.
There have been credible reports of Mitrice Richardson sightings in Las Vegas and the L.A. County sheriff's department plans to hold a news conference there tomorro
Many news outlets are reporting on arrests in the Trousdale Estates murder. Only the Huffington Post headline, though, screams "massive manhunt" -- even the story doesn't back it up.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. would share violent fantasies about prostitutes and say they deserved to die, according to neighbors.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. was handcuffed when he was slugged twice in the head by newly convicted killer Antonio Rodriguez.
Another Grim Sleeper scoop from Christine Pelisek and Jill Stewart at the LA Weekly.
LA Weekly writer Christine Pelisek takes her story on the origins of the Grim Sleeper to The Daily Beast.
Swiss authorities announced this morning that Roman Polanski has been set free from house arrest and will not be extradited to Los Angeles, citing a flaw in the U.S. extradition...
LAPD detectives are re-examining at least 30 unsolved killings of women in South Los Angeles to see if they can link the homicides to Lonnie Franklin Jr., the accused Grim Sleeper serial killer. Chief Charlie Beck says he they expect to tie more cases to Franklin.
Johannes Mehserle, who testified that he thought he fired his Taser not the gun that killed Oscar Grant, was convicted by a Los Angeles jury of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors and the family of victim Oscar Grant had wanted a murder conviction.
Do you know this man?
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested today — this morning actually. But tomorrow at 11 a.m., Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD chief Charlie Beck will front for a bevy of suits — including two statewide candidates — at a media op in the Police Administration Building to "announce the circumstances surrounding the arrest.
The AP is reporting that the LAPD has arrested a man in South Los Angeles in connection with 11 serial murders, mostly of young black women, between 1985 and 2007.
Matthew Butcher, who was shot during a robbery at a marijuana clinic in Echo Park, was the 27-year-old son of Julie Butcher. She is a longtime leader of the Service Employees International Union in Los Angeles.
This unedited and graphic video released by the Los Angeles Fire Department shows the crowd in Downtown attacking that taxi after the Lakers championship victory.
At least 38 were arrested, an LAPD officer and a sheriff's deputy were hurt, an unknown number of others were injured, three vehicle fires were set, and some shops and restaurants had their windows broken or stuff stolen.
Brian Alexik, the 34-year-old New Jersey man arrested a month after he fled unit 701 of the Reserve Lofts in Downtown's South Park area just ahead of the law, faced some new charges today.
ESPN tonight airs June 17, 1994, a 30 for 30 documentary by Brett Morgen on the day O.J. Simpson went fugitive in his friend's white Ford Bronco.
The suspects' car struck and killed a child who appeared to be five years or under in Lake View Terrace.
Stephen Clancy Hill, apparently known in the adult video business as Steve Driver, has been wanted since an attack Tuesday night porn warehouse in Van Nuys.
Brian Alexik hadn't even fled Downtown, it seems. The Downtown News says he was arrested without incident at 1:40 p.m. in an apartment at 303 Hewitt Street, after police cordoned off a big swath of the Arts District.
Charlie Samuel, the 50-year-old transient who kidnapped and killed Lily Burk in July 2009, will escape a possible death penalty by pleading today to first-degree murder, carjacking and other crimes.
In addition to the earlier mysteries about why Brian Alexik had counterfeit $100 bills, AK-47s, fake IDs and a CIA floor mosaic in unit 701 overlooking the Federal Reserve Bank, the Downtown News has posted an update with more good questions.
Nancy Salas is alive and safe, but the story of her disappearance did not exactly end happily.
That's the market value of the city-owned parcel near Disney Hall that officials are thinking of giving to Eli Broad at $1 a year for his art museum and offices for the Broad Foundation
Larry Harnisch, a longtime copy editor at the Los Angeles Times who also created The Daily Mirror, a blog that compiles items extracted from the paper's archives, was honored by District Attorney Steve Cooley for helping save a woman from a beating by her husband outside the Pasadena police station in 2007.
Esteban Nuñez, 21, the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, and a co-defendant had faced a murder charge in the 2008 stabbing death of a college student in San Diego.
Here's a photo of the CIA seal mosaic that was found in the floor of the Downtown loft where a counterfeit operation was found, along with AK-47s and fake passports.
Perhaps the surest sign that the Roman Polanski saga could be speeding toward a final disposition: Los Angeles' most famous fugitive took to the web this weekend to make a personal plea to Swiss authorities to stop his extradition.
Several blocks around 44th and Broadway in Manhattan are blocked off while a bomb squad investigates a Nissan Pathfinder that is parked illegally, has visible gas cannisters in it, and was seen smoking. There are also reports of a timing device, black powder and someone running from the scene.
Police who broke into unit 701 at the Reserve Lofts found, in addition to counterfeit money and AK-47s, a handmade tile mosaic replica of the Central Intelligence Agency seal and a portrait of Huge Chavez.
Last week's bust in a downtown penthouse of a counterfeit-money operation has the makings of a great yarn, if only detectives can figure it out.
The U.S. Attorney's office has moved to dismiss federal charges against the Santa Monica sushi restaurant that admitted serving illegal whale meat.
Winder Barrios and Jose Aldana, robbery suspects who were due in court today, got out of the Peter Pitchess Detention Center last night but didn't get far.
The Dodgers and the LAPD decided to crack down on parking lot partiers at yesterday's home opener. L.A. Times staff writer Carla Hall commits the story to video:...
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed this morning for an injunction naming 80 suspected drug dealers active in the Skid Row area of Downtown.
All the TV stations I saw tonight went live from UCLA due to a fifth recent attempted sexual assault on or near the campus.
The City Administrative Officer was arrested by the California Highway Patrol about 12:15 this morning in Covina after attending last night's Los Angeles Political Roast downtown. Santana, who was driving his city car when arrested, issued a written statement through the mayor's office this afternoon saying he would seek counseling.
The Santa Monica Airport restaurant that served whale sushi posted on its website that it was closing today after 12 years with an apology to "our loyal customers, the city...
Today's LA Observed piece during "All Things Considered" on KCRW talks about the L.A. story of this week that had a little of everything. That would be Jennifer Steinhauer's New...
An average half-hour of L.A. local news devotes almost three minutes to crime stories, but only 22 seconds to all kinds of local government coverage, according to a big new study by the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.
It's no longer "millions" in missing jewelry, but the yarn gets more interesting.
Amy Beck is 33 and a sixth-grade teacher at Jordan Middle School in Burbank.
Jose Pepe Fanjul, said to be one of the world's richest men, and his wife Emilia reportedly were cleaned out of millions of dollars worth of jewelry on Friday at the Four Seasons hotel — by a man in a tuxedo who chatted them up in the elevator then came to their room.
Rich Camp told LongBeachReport.com this morning that he doesn't see himself as any kind of hero.
AP is reporting that the Southern Californa-bred spokesman for Al Qaeda has been arrested in recent days by Pakistani intelligence officers in Karachi.
Roberta Busby, the exotic dancer who was severely burned outside a Tarzana club, testified today at the sentencing of one her attackers to life in prison. She also talked on camera about her life, including that she and her two children are about to lose their home.
An unsealed legal filing reveals details about L.A. artist Shepard Fairey being the subject of a federal investigation for "potential violations" of laws prohibiting evidence tampering and perjury.
Dr. Conrad Murray was allowed to walk into court and give himself up before today's arraignment on charges that his medical actions killed Michael Jackson.
The Inglewood Fox, closed since the 1980s, is up for sale with bids due on Friday.
The City Council finally was able to pass a medical marijuana regulation ordinance that a majority of council members could live with. Tuesday's vote was 9-3.
Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza decided today that fugitive director Roman Polanski has to return to a Los Angeles courtroom in order to be sentenced in the 1977 sexual assault case.
Three, four or five armed men in ski masks walk through Century City's outdoor shopping mall, storm into Tiffany and Co., order the employees on the floor, then use hammers to smash the jewelry cases before fleeing with loot — and they aren't seen by dozens of nearby shoppers at 6:30 p.m.?
Lester Robert Evans, a 68-year-old who lives Downtown, was arrested by the LAPD on suspicion of robbing the bank branch where he has an account.
U.S. District Judge Manuel Real changed course and approved Sanchez's release on $2 million bail, Celeste Fremon says at Witness LA.
Before he turned up dead in his cell at Men's Central Jail, murder suspect Marlon Martinez had told of seeing Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies beating an inmate.
The 2002 Nick Broomfield documentary on the killing in Los Angeles of Biggie Smalls, and the earlier murder in Las Vegas of Tupac Shakur — "a story of great friends...
The suspect knew the Fountain Theatre director and producer, police say.
From Hollywood power lunches to house arrest with an ankle bracelet.
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
