Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
Maya Lau comes to the LAT from Baton Rouge, where she covered crime and investigations.
Archive: Police
Maya Lau comes to the LAT from Baton Rouge, where she covered crime and investigations.
Owen was shot and killed answering a home burglary call in Lancaster.
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.
The chief meteorologist for CBS 2 and KCAL 9 will be the LAPD's new public information director.
Six months for his crimes is not enough, U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson rules.
Shooters apparently firing semi-automatic weapons hit at least 11 police officers in Dallas tonight at an otherwise calm protest over police shootings of unarmed suspects in other cities.
Errant tweet from Santa Monica police chief added to Sunday jitters.
Tom Angel forwarded derogatory jokes and as criticism built, McDonnell couldn't save him.
Newsweek goes long on an exploration of the mysteries about Richardson and the LA Sheriff's Department.
The disgraced former undersheriff could face 15 years in prison when sentenced for conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
TMZ says the crime lab found no DNA, hair or any other potential evidence.
In an unexplained reversal, the state attorney general's office says it is reviewing the LA sheriff's department's handling of the substitute teacher.
Plea deal with federal prosecutors would cap prison time for Lee Baca at under a year, reports say.
O'Donnell, 47, pushed Gov. Brown to sign California's new right-to-die act, which won't take effect until later this year.
It's the first time the LAPD chief has recommended charges in the killing of an unarmed suspect.
For the first time in a long while, crime is up in all categories and in all police divisions across Los Angeles.
Rep. Brad Sherman analyzes the language used, the likelihood that the writer was Muslim, and whether LA officials were right to act.
LA Unified closed all of its schools based on a crude email threat that many experts dismissed almost immediately as a probable hoax. Schools are open today.
Cannick was arrested by the LAPD while covering a Ferguson protest in DTLA as a reporter last November.
Two black women -- an executive rousted at gunpoint and the chief of police -- have varied perspectives of the same incident.
Galvez was a five-year veteran of the Downey Police Department from Whittier. Three suspects have been arrested.
Lisker Chronicles update: The City Council first must approve the settlement. "It’s been a very emotional ordeal,” Lisker said.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck credits Milner's Pete Malloy with inspiring him to join the force.
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.
The "Django Unchained" actress and her boyfriend have until tomorrow to write an apology that actually sounds sorry.
Editors re-explain the decision to cut ties with the cartoonist and add new analysis of a disputed LAPD audio tape.
The paper says the editorial cartoonist's post had factual inconsistencies. He says the Times buckled to pressure from the police department.
Bad day for the Los Angeles Police Department image.
Federal; judge ordered video released after requests by the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and Bloomberg.
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.
Catching up on politics, media and place. Including a piece on KPCC's Latino audience.
In a piece for the Cal State LA campus magazine, Connelly goes to the lab that provides many scenes for his books and Amazon original series, "Bosch."
Two other deputies took previous plea deals and testified. This is the case of the jail visitor who was beaten up.
Officers yelled at a man who flagged them down to drop the weapon, then opened fire. No gun was found. He survives.
The officers who shot and killed Ford in South LA were partly justified but also acted partly outside of department policy.
The newspaper counts the alleged homicide by Henry Solis outside a bar in Pomona in its tally "arising directly from encounters with law enforcement."
Henry Solis was arrested in Ciudad Juarez and handed over to the FBI at the border.
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.
Chief Beck has already said he's concerned about this shooting after seeing video footage.
The ACLU drops its support after the policy allows officers to view footage before writing reports. Chief Beck also says he won't release footage publicly.
Inmate Elana Pritchard's cartoons in LA Weekly of the indignities and shortages in LA County's women's jail led to changes.
The Los Angeles cartoonist posted his take on the killing in South Carolina of another unarmed black man and the unmasking of the police cover-up.
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.
The typewriter belonged to Samuel T. Cohen, inventor of the neutron bomb that could kill people but leave buildings unscathed.
Chief Beck opens the investigation by saying Sunday's police killing downtown appears justified, while Skid Row residents are upset.
The video shows a skirmish between officers and a flailing man, then an officer yelling to "drop the gun" before shots were fired.
Jim McDonnell visits with Larry Mantle at KPCC, sits with Conan Nolan at KNBC and allows backstage access to photographer John McCoy of the Daily News.
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.
When Sal LaBarbera retires on Jan. 31, "he'll leave a legacy as one of the best homicide cops in the history of LAPD, meaning one of the best anywhere," says an LA Weekly tribute.
Autopsy shows that the mentally ill black man in South LA was shot in the side, arm and back. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck met the media and took questions.
Activist Jasmyne Cannick, among the arrested, says flat out no dispersal orders were given by the LAPD at 6th and Hope streets. She is tweeting about her experience.
The final numbers are bigger than they looked on the live streams I followed last night (and more than reported in the media this morning.) Most arrests were for disorderly conduct.
A small group broke off from a protest in front of LAPD headquarters to run onto the 101 freeway at Grand Avenue and drop objects from the street above. Traffic stopped on the freeway without any injuries as far as I can tell.
New York police commissioner William Bratton, the former LAPD chief, was spattered with red paint during a protest over the grand jury announcement about the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
No campaign manager, advertising, debates or web page. But there is now a Tanaka campaign video on YouTube.
Daniele Watts, who is black, and her white husband posted on Facebook they were rousted for being affectionate on Ventura Boulevard and deemed to be a suspected prostitute and john.
Alcaraz was killed on his motorcycle in a traffic collision in Torrance. He was due to start work in West LA division on Sunday.
Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Wood drifted into a bike lane while typing on his patrol car screen last December and struck entertainment attorney Milton Olin Jr.
Charles Belk was at an Emmy event in Beverly Hills when he went out to feed his meter. He was stopped by police, cuffed and taken away as a bank robbery suspect. He says its about walking while black and his Facebook post has gone huge.
With students returning to school today, some residents are unhappy about the new policy that would put an AR-15 in the trunk on some on-duty campus police officers.
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 Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 today to defeat a push by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to create a civilian oversight board that would help guide the troubled Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky cast the key no vote.
Advantage Garcetti: He posts a YouTube message to officers since the union doesn't want him to speak at stations.
The deputies could face up to 15 years in prison for hiding a jail inmate from federal investigators.
Deon Joseph, a senior lead officer in the LAPD's Central Area, has had enough. Skid Row, where he has worked for 16 years, has "once again become an outdoor asylum without walls."
Rihanna and Steven Soboroff, the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, are certainly making the most out of their recent encounter at the Clippers playoff game. The broken phone is paying off for the LAPD Foundation.
I guess nobody at the Daily Mail recognizes Steven Soboroff, the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission — dismissed as a "jolly older gentleman" and a "pensioner" in a Fail story on Rihanna attending a Clippers game while dressed.
Allen was killed by a runaway truck on the same Beverly Hills street where officer Nick Lee also was killed by a truck. The city has ordered a halt to truck activity and put in radar to catch speeders.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced this morning's death of six-year veteran Roberto Sanchez, 32, of the Harbor station. He is the third officer to die while driving in recent weeks.
Officer Chris Cortijo of the Valley Traffic Division died today of injuries he suffered when his motorcycle was hit by a DUI suspect in Sun Valley on Saturday.
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.
Man, it's hard to take a picture in Los Angeles without a palm tree sneaking in there.
An unmarked LAPD car reportedly racing to a crime scene with lights and siren on went through a red light at Fletcher Drive and San Fernando Road and collided with another vehicle. In all seven people were hurt.
The mother of seven-year-old Tyler Seddon pays her respects to the officer who helped brighten her ill son's day.
Nicholas Choung Lee is the Hollywood division officer who was killed today in the collision of his patrol car with a truck in Beverly Hills. Chief Charlie Beck tweeted, "A man of greatness and selflessness. Nick was a great cop."
Mayor Eric Garcetti's office just released a statement on the death of an Los Angeles Police Department officer in a Beverly Hills crash this morning.
A Los Angeles police officer was killed this morning and a second injured when their LAPD car collided with a truck in Beverly Hills. No names yet.
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.
Celeste Fremon has covered for many years the foibles and scandals of Lee Baca's sheriff's department, and in the new issue of Los Angeles Magazine she gets more than 10,000 words to explain for newcomers the "morass" that formed under the management of Baca and top deputy (and now candidate) Paul Tanaka.
For a Column One story in the LA Times, reporter Joel Rubin and photographer Brian Van der Brug embedded with a class of recruits at the LAPD academy a few years ago. They followed the careers of several who made it through.
The California Highway Patrol announced today that Officer Juan Gonzalez, 33, and Officer Brian Law, 34, died this morning when their cruiser came upon a crash on state route 99 near Kingsburg, south of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley.
The covered, county-maintained patio where loyalists of Undersheriff Paul Tanaka could enter with a private token and smoke cigars, apparently illegally, will be turned into a barbecue area.
John Scott and his wife both gave up Los Angeles sheriff's department careers out of concern about the direction under Lee Baca. Now Scott gets the rest of the year to leave his mark.
Former LAPD official Jim McDonnell has endorsements from Chief Charlie Beck, DA Jackie Lacey, City Attorney Mike Feuer and Supervisor Don Knabe, among others. He is currently the chief of police in Long Beach.
Former Fullerton Police Department officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli were found not guilty of all charges in the 2011 beating death of homeless schizophrenic Kelly Thomas.
Sheriff Lee Baca said he is retiring for personal reasons and also to avoid the negative coverage of the Sheriff's Department in the upcoming campaign.
Media say that Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca informed the county's elected supervisors and his key staff that he will announce on Tuesday. Gone by end of the month. Long Beach police chief Jim McDonnell reportedly looking at getting in the race.
The stats cover Dec. 13 to midnight on January 1 and include arrests by 100 different law enforcement agencies.
One Long Beach police substation doesn't have to go far to obtain donuts. Photo inside.
Officer Don Thompson, a 26-year veteran assigned to the bomb squad, spotted the wreck, jumped over the center divider and cut the unconscious driver out of a burning Mercedes. Both savior and saved suffered burns requiring treatment.
Smashing your car into any cop's vehicle is never advised, but this was really the wrong guy to hit.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck today placed on leave the three officers who shot and killed Brian Beaird after a chase that ended with the crash of his Corvette downtown.
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."
The FBI moved in this morning to start arresting current and former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and officials on criminal corruption and civil rights charges. U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. has scheduled a 1 p.m. news availability in the downtown federal building.
This will make Bratton the only cop to have run the NYPD, the LAPD and the NYPD again (and be mentioned in London papers as a possible head of Scotland Yard.)
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.
Former governor Gray Davis, former city attorney Carmen Trutanich and high-profile defense lawyer Mark Geragos are co-hosting a $1,500-per-napkin fundraiser for Baca next week.
From his initial comments, it sounds as if Soboroff intends to be heard from in the post.
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Deputy Elton Simmons has written thousands of traffic tickets in 20 years — that's 25,000 traffic stops, says a story by CBS News. They got it from an LA Times story last September.
Steve Soboroff, Paula Madison and two other new faces will give the Garcetti police commission a new look. Emanuel Pleitez gets a pension commission slot.
Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa turned up on MSNBC on Wednesday talking with Chris Hayes about the new program, approved by the police commission this week, that lets accusers and cops voluntarily talk out accusations of racial profiling in front of a mediator.
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.
Big story for Celeste Fremon's small volunteer, but respected and aggressive, LA investigative news site.
The LAPD has warned businesses in Westwood Village that mayhem is possible tonight when pro-Trayvon Martin protesters target the neighborhood. Protesters are expected to gather at Wilshire and Veteran about 6:30.
Claudia Peschiutta of KNX Newsradio was covering a protest over the George Zimmerman verdict last night on Crenshaw Boulevard when she was hit by a bean bag fired by an LAPD officer. Yes, she tweets, it hurts.
A two-year civil rights investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department concludes that deputies violated the Constitution and federal laws in the treatment of blacks and other residents of public housing in the Antelope Valley.
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.
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.
CBS 2 sifts the data for the most notorious places for LAPD traffic cops to nab speeders, while Joel Grover and NBC 4 turn their hidden cameras back on Jiffy Lube. May is always a busy month for local TV's investigative teams.
KCRW producer Matt Holzman embedded with cops in the LAPD Air Support unit to see what it's like in the helicopters that patrol Los Angeles skies. Listen inside.
Deposed undersheriff says that Baca used the department to hire friends and relatives, micromanaged, and ordered the hiding of an jail inmate from the FBI. None of these allegations were made while Tanaka served as a senior but controversial aide, Baca's team points out.
That extra traffic in Laurel Canyon this evening was due to an accident involving an LAPD motorcycle officer. The unidentified officer was on his way to investigate a previous accident when a driver stuck in traffic made an abrupt turn in front of the officer's bike. He's at a hospital but going to be OK.
I'm told that what could be the final episode of the television drama "Southland" will shoot tomorrow morning in front of the Police Administration Building. Chief Charlie Beck is supposed to make a quick cameo appearance sometime between 11 a.m. and noon.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck was among the top law enforcement and government officials whose address, social security number and credit reports were posted online. The head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, also had some personal information posted, as did vice president Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Beyonce, Ashton Kutcher and Mel Gibson, among others.
There hasn't been a stormier career lately in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department than that of Paul Tanaka. Today the department announced that Tanaka will step down as the number two sheriff's official and retire on August 1. He was reelected Tuesday to a third term as mayor of Gardena.
Former LA Times veterans of LAPD coverage come at the Dorner issues from different places. Plus a view from the Inland Empire.
MacKay died Tuesday of wounds incurred during the firefight with fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner outside a cabin in the 7 Oaks area of the San Bernardino Mountains. He lived in Redlands and was assigned to the Yucaipa station. MacKay is survived by his wife, 7-year-old daughter and four-month-old son.
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.
If I'm the publisher of the LA Times, I probably reject the big ads for "Southland" right now and don't let images of cops with guns take over my website for a small amount of revenue.
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.
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.
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.
If you don't get a $234 LAPD ticket this year for turning right at 7th Street and Broadway, you could have D.J. Prator to thank. He lives near the corner and noticed that LAPD traffic officers were always writing tickets there. Thus began a little crusade. Story on 'SoCal Connected.'
The final occupants of Parker Center moved out last Friday and today LAPD officials ceremonially closed the headquarters where Bill Parker vowed to stop the mob and Joe Friday lectured many seasons worth of Dragnet bad guys. Read or listen to the departrment's end of watch message.
The Voice For The Animals Foundation has put out a 2013 calendar featuring LAPD officers with their own rescue animals. Proceeds go for medical treatment, food and shelter for animals. Chief Beck is on the cover.
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.
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.
Phillip Rodriguez will have access to unredacted autopsy and investigative documents, and coroner's photos, for his documentary on the 1970 death in East Los Angeles of journalist Ruben Salazar.
Christine Pelisek, the veteran local police reporter who is now a Los Angeles writer for the Daily Beast, writes for the website's broad audience on "the latest use-of-force incident to surface in recent months involving the Los Angeles Police Department, which has been grappling with a series of brutality claims—some of which have been caught on tape."
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.
In its final report, issued this morning, the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence put a lot of the blame on Sheriff Lee Baca and his number two, Paul Tanaka, and said the department needs to be reformed top to bottom and undergo a management shakeup. Civilian oversight is also needed.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck suffered a broken collarbone during a motocross event on Thursday and is home resting. He's expected back at work on Monday.
The Los Angeles Police Department officer who blogs for various conservative political sites using the pseudonym Jack Dunphy has two interesting observations about that use-of-force incident where the handcuffed woman was thrown to the ground in the parking lot of a Del Taco in Tujunga.
Alesia Thomas was described as large and not cooperative with police who came to talk to her after she left her two children at the LAPD’s Southeast Area station. Some of what happened next was caught on a patrol car's video camera, the LA Times says.
Whoa, this was decisive: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced tonight that he has relieved Foothill division commander Capt. Joseph Hiltner for his "severely deficient" response to the appearance of excessive force used against a handcuffed woman in Pacoima. "Proper steps were not taken," Beck said.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck, on the Patt Morrison show on KPCC just now, said he's very concerned by a video showing officers throw a handcuffed woman to the ground during a traffic stop. He said there are criminal and internal investigations going on and the main officer has been assigned to home duty. Watch the video.
Rodney King had PCP, cocaine and marijuana in his system and was probably in a drug- and alcohol-induced delirium when he fell into his swimming pool and drowned in June, the San Bernardino County coroner's report said Thursday.
Former LAPD chief William Bratton has been meeting with potential mayor candidates in New York and voicing his desire to succeed New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the WSJ says.
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.
Protesters and the OC Weekly suspect a police plant after a blonde woman seen taunting Anaheim police during street protests was also spotted standing with a police line and verbally defending officers. Meanwhile, city officials called for outside reviews of the Anaheim PD's use of force.
Police and protesters clashed in the streets of Anaheim again Tuesday night, more aftermath of the police killing of an unarmed man who was running from officers. The day's turmoil began when a crowd of about 200 tried to get past officers and into the Anaheim city hall for a city council meeting.
Jack Dunphy, the LAPD veteran who blogs anonymously for a number of conservative political websites, listens to the audio on the Aurora, Colorado shootings and gives huge credit to the unidentified woman on the radio.
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.
You may have noticed that Sheriff Lee Baca is under intense scrutiny for his management of the Los Angeles County jail system. Nonetheless, Gov. Jerry Bown just announced he is appointing Baca to the Board of State and Community Corrections.
Last night's downtown Art Walk included an Occupy LA protest and a skirmish line with police on Spring Street.
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.
Fun story in the LA Times: an analysis of 75,000 computerized traffic citations found the street name "mangled beyond all but the most hopeful inference about 20% of the time....The only thing we can say with 90% certainty about data like this is 'Argh!'"
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed Andrea Sheridan Ordin to fill a term on the city's Board of Police Commissioners — a panel she sat on for five years earlier in the mayor's administration. Most recently she was the county counsel, a post she retired from earlier this year.
Manuel Anthony Ramos, a ten-year veteran of the Fullerton Police Department, will be the first Orange County police officer to stand trial on a murder charge for his actions while in uniform. A judge ruled today that enough evidence of a crime was presented at a preliminary hearing for Ramos, 38, to face trial on charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
I haven't posted much about this Orange County case, in which a homeless man was beaten so severely at police hands that he died, but the video of what happened to Kelly Thomas was released today. Thomas's pleas for his dad to help him are what may get to you. Warning: the video and audio are graphic.
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.
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Sheriff Lee Baca and let stand a ruling that says he can be personally sued for racial violence in the county jails, which Baca's department runs.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck writes in an LA Times op-ed piece that the riots 20 years ago were "a defining point in the history of the LAPD and, for me personally, a life-changing event. I knew in my heart then that we had to completely change the way we policed this city."
In its communication this week on the riots, the Police Protective League downplays the role of the riots in changing the department. It includes an interesting stat: about 7 in 9 of today's officers were not in the LAPD at the time of the riots, or by extension at the time that Rodney King was beaten in the dark on Foothill Boulevard.
West Covina police officer Eduardo Flores had a busy morning on Monday.
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.
This is more interesting than the exercise of tweeting the sinking of the Titanic, because as you read the mundane tick-tock of events from the trial of the officers who beat Rodney King you know that something really big is coming. The idea came from Olsen Ebright, a member of the digital team at NBC4.com.
Two decades before the Rodney King verdict riots, the Eastside erupted over the Vietnam War and other issues. The events of that time still echo in the city.
Police were reportedly in cellphone contact with Abdul Arian, 19, and his mother during last night's chase across the West Valley.
It turns out that about 150 LAPD officers and other employees still work in Parker Center, the bedraggled former headquarters that most of the department gladly abandoned a couple of years ago. "Nobody is happy to be here,” says facilities manager Thom Brennan.
The New York Post reports that former LAPD chief William Bratton was spotted parking his Lexus SUV in a “No Standing” zone outside his offices in midtown Manhattan — with an official police business card in the window.
Robbery squad officers dressed as women to catch a purse snatcher in 1960.
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.
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.
Hackers released the names, addresses and phone numbers of more than 100 law enforcement officers whose information was pilfered from the web site of the Los Angeles County Police Canine Association.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck had a bit more to say today about his comments yesterday in favor of issuing a special drivers license to undocumented residents who pass the tests....
"When something doesn't work over and over and over again, my view is that you should reexamine it to see if there is another way that makes more sense," said the LAPD chief.
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.
Los Angeles police outside a 1987 show by The Ramones and Black Flag at the Hollywood Palladium.
Former LAPD chief William Bratton was on "The Young Turks" on Current TV when he talked about the department's interactions with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Former California Highway Patrol officer Tomiekia Johnson was convicted Monday of first-degree murder for shooting her husband beside the Riverside Freeway in 2009.
Video: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at Dodger Stadium talking about his fandom of motorbikes.
Capt. Mike Parker of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is in Las Vegas talking up the electronic features of a black-and-white developed for the county by Raytheon.
Doesn't look good. The woman has a history of mental issues and assaults on police, says Sheriff Lee Baca, but she wasn't arrested in this incident.
After taking another look at the 1981 drowning of actress Natalie Wood, sheriff's detectives see no reason to alter the original finding: accidental death.
John Miller, the TV reporter who came into the LAPD with William Bratton and left to work in counter-terrorism in Washington, is now at CBS News. He does a story on bomb-sniffing dogs at LAX.
The event was held in the Compstat room at the new Police Administration Building, was hosted by Chief Charlie Beck, and included red and white wine for an audience of Civic Center types, reporters and cops.
Shervin Lalezary, the Beverly Hills real estate attorney and reserve deputy sheriff who made the bust of arson suspect Harry Burkhart, was on Ellen DeGeneres' show.
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.
Greuel joins City Council President Herb Wesson and the Times in backing the LAPD cop in the race. For the Times, the endorsement comes with a caution that Buscaino is not all that impressive.
Bethania Palma Markus was until recently a reporter for the LANG papers east of L.A.
In an Occupy video of the Nov. 30 LAPD raid outside City Hall, City News Service reporter Calvin Milam is observed being thrown to the ground and arrested after he crosses (outbound) through the police skirmish line.
Top aide to Mayor Villaraigosa heard the shots and the screams, and a local photojournalist takes the money shot of the gunman lying wounded.
Coming in time for next April's 20th anniversary of the so-called Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, King has signed with HarperOne to deliver his memoir: "The Riot Within."
Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, Phil Spector, even Conrad Murray — Sgt. Steve Wheatcroft has walked them all past the paparazzi and into court.
Raid looks like it's about to happen.
Supporters of Occupy LA have been sounding the alarm all day about a supposed LAPD raid of the encampment after tonight's midnight deadline. But the LAPD says: who, us?
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blogs that the jail, built mostly during the Kennedy Administration, is "a deeply depressing place, filled with 4,000 or more men crammed into dank cells." With photos.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday that he expects long negotiations today with Occupy L.A. on a timeline for protesters to leave the camp outside City Hall.
It's Alexander Bustamante, a prosecutor in the Major Frauds Section of the U.S. Attorney's office, where he has worked since 2002.
The new Citizens Commission on Jail Violence, created on a unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors, will have seven members yet to be named.
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.
Miller, a former TV newsman who came to the LAPD from New York with then-chief William Bratton, then became a national security official, is returning to the news business.
Tonight on KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?," Sheriff Baca said maybe deputies shouldn't start their careers with years of jail duty.
Sheriff Lee Baca should step down, "at least temporarily," Times columnist Steve Lopez says in a column.
Another turn in the stories of alleged abuse by sheriff's deputies assigned to the Los Angeles County jails.
In her last story before leaving the Daily Journal for Warren Olney's team at KCRW, staff writer Anna Scott details lucrative outside consulting by Michael Gennaco's county-funded Office of Independent Review.
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.
A new report from Special Counsel Merrick Bobb looks at more than 380 shootings by sheriff's deputies over 15 years.
It's one of the first times – if not the first time – that prosecutors in Orange County have charged an on-duty police officer with murder, the Register says.
Bill Bratton to the Financial Times editor taking him to lunch: "So I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I was expecting a much older woman."
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 parents of Mitrice Richardson have reached a tentative agreement to settle their lawsuits against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for $900,000, the L.A. Times says.
In the September issue of Los Angeles magazine, Mike Kessler reconstructs the sheriff's and coroner's departments mishandling of Mitrice Richardson's disappearance and the subsequent investigation into her death.
Lots of stories this weekend about former LAPD chief William Bratton and the political squabbles that have formed around him since the prime minister over there, David Cameron, suggested he would like Bratton to lead the London police.
Police investigating a reported suspicious package at a talent agency office on Rodeo Drive found — and blew up — a briefcase.
The Home Secretary and Mayor of London nixed the idea, says The Telegraph.
He calls the arrest "regrettable," but also defends the decision to bring in Ramirez.
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 L.A. Times story saying Giovanni Ramirez is off the hook in the Bryan Stow beating is attributed to an unnamed law enforcement source
Nicole Bershon, head of the Los Angeles Police Department's watchdog agency just since May 2010, said today she will depart soon to become a Superior Court commissioner
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.
Today was the last day for longtime Los Angeles Police Department media relations spokeswoman Mary Grady.
KPCC's John Rabe seems a little perturbed that the police commission has overruled the LAPD staff and voted to discontinue the red-light cameras that spew out dubious tickets at 32 intersections around Los Angeles. It's moire about L.A. drivers though.
The Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to reject a new contract the LAPD wants with the firm that runs the city's 32 red light cameras.
Andre Birotte, Jr., the United States Attorney for the Los Angeles district, made the first op-ed piece of his term about the importance of respecting civil liberties in the fight against terrorism.
Andrew Garton, 44, a seven-year veteran of the Hawthorne Police Department, was escorting the procession for Manhattan Beach officer Mark Vasquez when his motorcycle was involved in a crash with another officer.
Authorities are using a parole hold to keep Giovanni Ramirez in custody, without criminal charges, while the police investigation continues.
Capt. Mike Parker, the public information officer for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, boils down what reporters want to eleven elements.
The snippets reported in the media sound more like ideological encouragement than operational orders, but the mention of Los Angeles and other cities came in the context of calls by Osama bin Laden to kill as many Americans as possible.
About 600 photographers, reporters and others pay $100 a year for a permit that is supposed to allow them to park at expired meters and in preferential parking zones while covering news
Sheriff Lee Baca is becoming one of the more interesting local elected officials, with his leading role in the defense of law-abiding American muslims and his advocacy of education programs for his jail inmates.
Jose Diance-Cruz, 23, of the Southwest station was thrown from his truck after hitting the guardrail on the eastbound Ventura Freeway at Van Nuys Boulevard.
Sheriff Lee Baca might be the only top law enforcement official to read and quote the Koran.
It's confirmation, if you needed any, that the beating of a Giants fan and the spreading perception of a violent tone at the stadium is a big issue that City Hall and the Dodgers hope to contain.
It's hard to know whether ex-LAPD chief William Bratton and Kroll, where he is chairman, will be actual security advisers or they are there as Frank McCourt's latest in a series of image consultants.
Steve Jenkins is in surgery in "very guarded" condition after being shot in the face on Dronfield Avenue, LAPD chief Charlie Beck announced.
Author Ellen Collett knows a well-written LAPD incident report when she sees one.
Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca has let Congress know before that he doesn't cotton to broad-brush slams on the Muslim community. He was back at it today, telling the panel...
Steve Greenberg, LA Observed's editorial cartoonist, penned this cartoon for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after the Rodney King beating.
Upon the 20th anniversary of the Rodney King beating by LAPD officers in 1991, media analyst Dan Gilmoor looks at how photojournalism has changed since the video by George Holliday went viral.
Mistakes were made by deputies at the East Los Angeles riot in 1970 at which newsman Ruben Salazar was killed, but there's no surviving evidence that Salazar was targeted, says a report by the sheriff department's Office of Independent Review.
It seems safe to say that nothing about the Mitrice Richardson investigation will go into the how-to training manuals.
Pardon my mixed sports metaphors. After this morning's pep rally for the Downtown NFL football stadium, Mayor Villaraigosa announced the members of a "blue ribbon commission" to evaluate the proposal...
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.
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.
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.
San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón said he had no idea when he walked into Mayor Gavin Newsom's office that he would be asked to take over as District Attorney.
Sheriff Lee Baca says the remains collected in Malibu Canyon last year will be exhumed and sent to the FBI lab in Virginia, at the request of the family.
Stephen Yagman, the civil rights lawyer who did battle with the LAPD several times before his 2007 conviction for tax evasion, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud, was formally disbarred by the State Bar Court.
In the real world where Angelenos live and drive, the city's sell-off of parking garages in Hollywood and Westwood would let rates triple over five years.
Carter, a longtime specialist in labor relations for the LAPD, was off-duty when his motorcycle collided with another bike Sunday on Santiago Canyon Road in Santa Ana. He was struck by a car and died at the scene.
The L.A. County Sheriff's Department is joining the trend of public agencies and elected officials publishing their own news.
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.
A rookie LAPD officer resigned after being accused of illegally accessing law enforcement information on two witnesses who testified at a gang member's murder trial.
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.
An L.A. Times editor disputes that the paper mischaracterized watchdog Michael Gennaco regarding Sheriff Lee Baca helping a donor.
Read the email from Michael Gennaco claiming that a Times reporter mischaracterized his position and his words.
Cullins, 28, was a Marine reservist with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment in Marja, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. He was killed Monday by a roadside bomb.
The L.A. County sheriff's department, under fire since 2008 for having more than 4,000 untested rape evidence kits, says it now has sent its entire backlog of kits out for testing.
Ex-LAPD chief William Bratton is the new board chairman of Kroll, the security firm, and former Los Angeles city councilman Jack Weiss runs the L.A. office.
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.
The creator of "Law and Order: Los Angeles" regaled the likes of City Council president Eric Garcetti, exiting Bon Appetit editor Barbara Fairchild and NBC correspondent Josh Mankiewicz with behind-the-scenes stories from the show.
The morning anchors at "Fox and Friends" reported today that the city of Los Angeles had ordered 10,000 space-age jetpacks for the police and fire departments — at $100,000 each. No, the broke city isn't actually spending a billion dollars so its cops can, you know, fly.
No LAPD officers were hurt in this afternoon's shooting in the 1600 block of Temple Street near Union Avenue.
My KCRW column this week suggests that the late Paul Conrad, if he were still commenting on Los Angeles, would see tragedy in the Westlake police shooting, not a clash of good and bad.
Last weekend's fatal shooting of 37-year-old Guatemalan Manuel Jamines continues to echo in the news. LAPD officer Frank Hernandez, who shot Jamines, was accused in a civil lawsuit earlier this...
Police Protective League drops its usual no rush to judgment stance on this one, plus a new witness saying there was no knife and other developments.
Police and a few hundred protesters squared off again Wednesday night in the area of 6th Street and Union Avenue, with some objects thrown and at least one fire lit and quickly extinguished. Earlier in the evening, Chief Beck was greeted by jeers at a community meeting where he had gone to promise a full investigation into the shooting of Guatemalan day laborer Manuel Jamines.
A gathering of protesters massed in front of the Rampart LAPD division on 6th Street tonight to vent over the weekend killing of day laborer Manuel Jamines.
fter a day of protest marches, vigils and confrontations with police, the LAPD declared an illegal assembly about 10 p.m. and officers in riot gear began clearing the streets around 6th Street and Union Avenue. That's where an LAPD bicycle officer on Sunday shot and killed a day laborer identified unofficially as Manuel Jamines.
Frank McCourt brought more than himself when he accepted an award from the Los Angeles Police Protective League’s charitable Eagle & Badge Foundation.
Visiting blogger Frank Sotomayor, an adjunct professor at USC Annenberg, argues that it's time for Sheriff Lee Baca and other officials to end the mysteries about what happened to Ruben Salazar in East Los Angeles.
Yesterday, Sheriff Lee Baca was refusing to let the L.A. Times see eight boxes of documents on the killing of Ruben Salazar, the former Times columnist who was the news director at KMEX when he was killed by a sheriff's tear-gas projectile fired into a bar during East L.A. protests in 1970.
Los Angeles police on horseback raided a long-standing homeless encampment under the 210 freeway in Big Tujunga Wash and used ropes to rip down shelters.
A message from the new Twitter account of the California Highway Patrol's L.A. area division.
Ex-LAPD chief Willim Bratton tells KPCC's Kitty Felde that he's enjoying his new life in the private sector.
Mayor Villaraigosa just came back from a night on the town with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. The mayor's twitter account chirped a report.
Governing magazine's John Buntin surveyed the new architecturally distinct police stations the LAPD has been building this decade — and he found something missing.
The California Highway Patrol is confirming for media that Officer Ortiz died at 5:50 p.m.
The suspects' car struck and killed a child who appeared to be five years or under in Lake View Terrace.
The City Council approved settlements totaling $450,000 to Ted Garcia, then of KTLA, KCBS-KCAL camerman Carl Stein and Telemundo crew Carlos Botifoll, Fernando Mejia and Elisa Rojas.
The YouTube video poster at Discarted is something of a photographer-activist, mostly in a good way, though you could read that as troublemaker too.
Email from the Los Angeles Police Protective League asking the community to "refrain from a rush to judgment" usually means one thing: there's some new video or eyewitness report suggesting misconduct by an LAPD officer.
Mayor Villaraigosa's statement commends the selection.
Chief Charlie Beck made a point yesterday of saying the longstanding LAPD policy of not initiating contact to check on someone's legal status is good policy.
Let me call your attention to a new Visiting Blogger post about Daryl Gates — our second exclusive piece by longtime journalists who had extensive dealings with the late LAPD chief.
Deputy Cameron Glover of the Santa Clarita sheriff's station died tonight after an off-duty motorcycle accident on McBean Parkway. He was a four-year veteran who had been assigned to patrol duties since 2008.
Coverage of this morning's Daryl Gates services in text, photos and video.
The family of the late LAPD chief Daryl Gates received several hundred visitors on Monday after his casket was placed on display in the auditorium at the police headquarters on 1st Street.
Patt Morrison is stretching but only a bit when she writes that Monday's closed-casket viewing at the Police Administration Building — and Tuesday morning funeral at the cathedral — "will be the closest thing to a state funeral that Los Angeles could have."
David Cay Johnston, the ex-NYT reporter who's been getting a fair amount of attention for his Daryl Gates post here at LA Observed, talks to John Rabe on this weekend's "Off-Ramp" on KPCC.
David Cay Johnston's visiting blogger piece for LA Observed on Friday about his experiences covering Daryl Gates and the LAPD in the early 1980s has been getting some nice attention and attracting favorable emails. Johnston will be a guest on "Which Way, L.A.?" with Warren Olney on KCRW at 7:30 p.m.
In a visiting blogger post for LA Observed, Pulitzer winner David Cay Johnston recalls his LAT stories that uncovered an international spying operation run by Gates that spied on L.A. leaders and political groups, infiltrated groups using sex and undercover operatives, incited violent acts and tried to intimidate reporters such as Johnston. He also writes about the seven times his car was burglarized, including in the LAPD garage, and the story that the L.A. Times wouldn't run.
Gates was chief of police in Los Angeles from 1978 to 1992, his tenure ending shortly after the riots that followed the jury verdicts exonerating officers in the Rodney King...
Ex-LAPD chief William Bratton's Los Feliz home, originally listed at $1.875 million, finally sold for $1.4 million.
Robert J. Cottle, a member of the LAPD's SWAT unit, is the first active Los Angeles police officer to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Cottle, 45, was a Sergeant Major with a United States Marine Corps Reserve battalion from Camp Pendleton. He was in the Marja region on Wednesday when a roadside bomb killed him and another Marine.
Betty Pleasant is best known as the colorfully opinionated Soulvine political columnist for the Wave newspapers that circulate across the southern swath of Los Angeles. This week, though, she writes as the mother of an autistic adult reacting to the police shooting of 27-year-old Steven Washington, who was unarmed and autistic.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca testified before the House subcommittee on Homeland Security today and, before he was done, had accused a Republican congressman of acting "un-American.
A: So low that "blood-chasing local television news stations will have to import footage from other cities to uphold their reputation for practicing the nation’s worst and silliest local reporting," writes New York Times online commentator Timothy Egan in a piece that praises L.A.'s turnaround from the depths of 1992.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck has apologized to the Kennedy family for including items worn by the slain Senator in a Las Vegas display.
No criminal charges are expected in the death of Julia Siegler, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake School who was struck by two cars Friday morning while crossing Sunset Boulevard.
Montalvo, an 11-year-veteran of the LAPD's Hollywood division, was the officer who died in an off-duty crash in Diamond Bar on Thursday.
Her name has not yet been released. She was pronounced dead at the scene of a four-car crash in Diamond Bar.
Former LAPD chief Daryl F. Gates, 82, is hospitalized with a "very serious malady," Charlie Beck told the police commission today.
Jim McDonnell, a top assistant to William Bratton at the LAPD but passed over for chief, was named Wednesday to run the Long Beach Police Department. The 28-year veteran currently...
Southers' letter to the editor has a bit of a chiding tone to it.
Former City Councilman Jack Weiss will run the Los Angeles office of Altegrity Risk International, the new international investigations firm that William Bratton left the LAPD to establish.
About 300 volunteers helped the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department search through the hills of Malibu Canyon on Saturday without finding any evidence that sheds light on the woman's disappearance.
The annual exercise in revealing the city's crime rate is will be held at the new police headquarters.
Evidence is mostly anecdotal, but the Times leads the paper with the story anyway.
Thirty-two Los Angeles intersections now have cameras installed to generate traffic tickets and, thus, revenue for the city and the company that runs the cameras. Contrary to the original intent,...
The White House just announced that Andre Birotte Jr, the inspector general of the Los Angeles Police Department, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S. Attorney...
That's City Councilmember Janice Hahn and former mayor James Hahn in the front row, flanking their parents at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, site of the county's free holiday concerts. This...
The body of 21-year-old James Wernke was found this morning near a creek bed in Fullerton. There was no immediate indication how he died. Wernke had been missing since taking...
The city of Burbank wants Debra Wong Yang, the Los Angeles police commissioner and former U.S. Attorney here, to help clean up whatever ails the Burbank Police Department. KPCC...
A federal judge dismissed the guilty plea by Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli on charges that he lied to investigators in a stock options backdating probe. AP...
Lawyer and former state assemblyman Walter Karabian won't be charged by the DA over Saturday's incident in which a parking attendant was allegedly struck by Karabian's car at the USC...
Jeffrey Tidus, an attorney with Baute & Tidus in downtown Los Angeles, died this morning of his wounds. He was found shot on the lawn in front of his home...
The interviewer on Los Angeles Kings telecasts on Fox Sports West was stopped early Monday morning, allegedly for driving too slow on the 105 freeway. She was booked on suspicion...
Former state assemblyman Walter Karabian was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly running over a parking attendant at the Coliseum before today's USC game. He...
Today's segment, airing shortly at 4:44 p.m., talks about Phil Spector's visit to the dentist in Toluca Lake. I tie in Roman Polanski moving over to the mountain chalet in...
Officer Aragon was off-duty when his motorcycle crashed around 2:15 a.m. at Fletcher Drive and Larga Avenue, according to the L.A. Times and CBS 2. He was pronounced dead at...
Redondo Beach Police officer Ken Greenleaf had to make the tough call yesterday and put down his dog. Valor, a 5-year-old black-and-gray German shepherd, had been in the hospital with...
KFI's news Twitter feed says that convicted killer Phil Spector is at a dentist's office in Toluca Lake right now, escorted by prison correctional officers. Update: Yes, Spector was allowed...
I guess the media liked the Jerusalem Post story we posted this morning — on a LAPD deputy chief saying the two rabbis shot here in October were "kneecapped" in...
Israeli organized crime activity in Los Angeles has gotten "a little bit worse" recently, LAPD terrorism chief Michael P. Downing told the Jerusalem Post this week on a visit in...
New LAPD chief Charlie Beck sent officers in the field his latest round of promotions and reassignments tonight. Captains Blake Chow, Bob Green and Mike Moriarty make commander, Sharon Papa...
New LAPD chief Charlie Beck has made his first substantial personnel moves. "The new organization includes six Direct Reports and the renaming of two Offices. I have made several selections...
Click to view larger. See more by Steve Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive....
New LAPD chief Charlie Beck lives in Walnut, the city that had resisted plans for an NFL stadium in nearby Industry. Walnut has made its peace with the stadium plan...
The City Council this morning unanimously confirmed Charlie Beck as chief of the LAPD. He was then sworn in by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and received the badge from Council...
I have no idea what is really going on at the Burbank police department, only that things seem pretty messed up. This afternoon, Chief Tim Stehr announced he would retire,...
Sacramento's withholding tax increase, a new hit on Nikki Finke and fare hikes at Metrolink, plus much more after the jump. From the weekend: Mark Lacter on the Toyota scandal...
I'm told the political chatter at Saturday night's big True Blue dinner at the new Police Administration Building — to raise about $2 million for the Police Foundation and honor...
My take on the Charlie Beck selection — I hope he's the guy to finish off the old, unprofessional LAPD culture once and for all — airs at 4:44 p.m....
More analysis of Charlie Beck, plus the state's big water deal, blacks and pot in Pasadena, Andrew Breitbart and more after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at...
In the in-box, sent via the mayor's office email from "Chief Charlie Beck" with the subject line: I'm your new Chief and I want to hear from you. It's straight...
Barbara Walters maybe? Larry King? At least Jon Stewart? No, ex-LAPD chief William Bratton is Thursday's guest with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report....
Mayor Villaraigosa and police chief-nominee Charlie Beck came out of Getty House at 11:06 a.m. The police commission and other invited guests are gathered in front of the residence on...
All three live news shows on local TV — on chanels 2, 4 and 7 — are at the scene of an officer-involved shooting and LAPD standoff in South Los...
Mayor Villaraigosa at 10:16 sent out a Twitter post saying "Meet Charlie Beck, my choice to lead the LAPD," with a link to this bio. The Rev. Carr connection: Villaraigosa's...
KPCC News, KNBC and ABC7 have joined the L.A. Times in reporting they confirmed that Mayor Villaraigosa will name deputy chief Charlie Beck to run the LAPD. Beck was rumored...
More by Steve Greenberg...
Dr. Christopher Thompson was just convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, mayhem and other charges for stopping abruptly and causing injuries to bicyclists he had just passed on Mandeville...
Channel 5's Lynette Romero had a report at the top of the hour from Wilson High School in Long Beach, where the distraught parents of 16-year-old Melody Ross spoke to...
Clearing the decks for the new week: USC president Steven Sample announced that he would step down in August, after 19 years. Honors student Melody Ross, 16, was shot and...
District Attorney Steve Cooley's office announced today there was insufficient evidence of illegal actions by cops and commanders — merely "questionable tactics" — in the 2007 rampage by police in...
Former City Councilman Jack Weiss is the latest blogger finding a home on the Jewish Journal website. (There are 25 others.) His first (I think) post recalls when Gene Bartow...
The Los Angeles Police Department has issued an alert to all Jewish day schools and synagogues in the wake of this morning's attack in North Hollywood. The Jewish Journal has...
Police are investigating this morning's shooting at Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue on Sylvan Street in North Hollywood as a hate crime. Two Jewish men were shot inside the synagogue...
More by Steve Greenberg...
Pretty shocking numbers in the nationwide crackdown on child prostitution, Hollywood restaurateur booked in death of fetus, new political endorsements and Anderson Cooper's ratings in the tank — plus much...
Sunil Dutta has been promoted to LAPD lieutenant since we last heard about his writing and opposition to capital punishment. He has an opinion piece this weekend in the Ventura...
Sunday's L.A. Times carries a story by staffer Joe Mozingo going back over the evidence that Roman Polanski drugged and raped 13-year-old Samantha Gailey in 1977. The most detailed description...
Mitrice Richardson is the South L.A. substitute teacher who has been listed as missing since leaving the sheriff's station on the Valley side of Malibu Canyon on Sept. 17, following...
In today's radio commentary I argue we should all care about embarrassed cops obtaining the phone records of TMZ's Harvey Levin. The segment airs — as every Friday — at...
Jailed private eye Anthony Pellicano and his sidekick, Alexander Proctor, pleaded no contest today in that 2002 threat on reporter Anita Busch, who they thought was working on a story...
Following his toss-down of the gauntlet last night (reported first at LAO, I feel like saying), TMZ boss Harvey Levin guests tonight on "Which Way, L.A.?" to talk about the...
Blogger offers three finalists for LAPD chief, Polanski staying put and more. After the jump....
Venting in depth for the first time about official prying into his personal phone records, TMZ editor Harvey Levin tonight called it an illegal abuse of power — "a brutal...
Rick Caruso, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission when William Bratton was hired to run the LAPD, argues in a Visiting Blogger post at LA Observed that now is...
Times op-ed columnist Tim Rutten wants LAPD chief William Bratton to stop offering his departing wisdom about the way Los Angeles works. From today's column: The flaw in Bratton's reform...
The real reason David Hockney relocated from Los Angeles to Yorkshire is that the U.S. wouldn't allow his partner back into the country, Tyler Green says in chiding the...
Looks like the Police Protective League is going to meter out these pictures a little at a time.* Still, their point is valid: should LAPD confidential records really be stored...
Laurence Rittenband was the Superior Court judge who handled the original Roman Polanski case, and if the recent documentary is correct, was going to undo a plea deal with Polanski....
Police commissioner Robert Saltzman says the board is under pressure to let the Boy Scouts continue to run the LAPD's Explorer program, despite the group's violation of the city's policy...
The departing police chief rates at least one thing about Los Angeles higher than New York. After the jump....
The Los Angeles Police Protective League says these boxes stacked near the employee entrance of the LAPD's Northeast Station are confidential personnel complaints against officers, "including names, serial numbers and...
Sounds like a compromise to me: City council president Eric Garecetti says there are eight votes to keep hiring enough recruits to match attrition from the LAPD, and Mayor Villaraigosa...
Andrew Adelman, the former general manager of the city's Department of Building and Safety who was accused of raping a woman he met in a bar, won't be prosecuted, DA...
Did the Los Angeles County sheriff's department break the law by obtaining and poring over the phone records of TMZ editor Harvey Levin, looking for evidence that a deputy leaked...
Los Angeles magazine hosted one of its periodic breakfast gatherings with newsmakers this morning at The Foundry on Melrose, with LAPD chief William Bratton invited to give an exit interview...
Officers Richard Amio, Evan Samuel and Manuel Ortiz were accused by the DA's office of lying about evidence that led to the arrest of a drug suspect in Hollywood in...
Mayor Villaraigosa's most non-negotiable agenda has been his push to hire 1,000 more LAPD officers, even as crime rates fall. The City Council has been pushing back, a little, and...
Marina Zenovich, who made the documentary about fugitive director Roman Polanski, says she's pretty surprised to hear former assistant DA David Wells claim now that he lied in the film....
When USC freshman Adrianna Bachan was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver at 3 a.m. last spring, the 18-year-old had a high level of alcohol in her system, according...
This could change some of the legal maneuvering in the Roman Polanski case. Retired prosecutor David Wells says now that he lied when he talks in the 2008 documentary, "Roman...
This is kind of amusing. Yahoo's pick-up from Associated Press on the Roman Polanski arrest in Switzerland seemed for awhile this morning to include some not-for-public-consumption, reporter-editor go-between. "no surprise,...
Director Roman Polanski was arrested on Saturday as he arrived at the Zurich airport to receive an award at the Zurich Film Festival. Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley's office...
Atkins, 61, becomes the first of the Charles Manson followers on life sentences to die while in California prisons. She died Thursday night as the longest-serving female inmate in the...
Joe Francis, the legally challenged "Girls Gone Wild" impresario, accepted a plea offer from the feds today to avoid more jail time over back taxes. From his statement, via flack:...
Gary Leonard read about the approaching truck on LA Observed and headed out to take pictures of the arrival for the Downtown News. The truck from Kansas City rolled through...
Motor officers plan to meet the truck from Kansas City when it reaches Rosemead Boulevard on I-10 at 10:30 on Tuesday. The bikes will escort the truck to a mounting...
Prosecutors still insist that Bruce Lisker probably killed his mother, but the DA's office says a new trial is problematic given the passage of time. Lisker's conviction was overturned by...
On Friday in Kansas City, a memorial to fallen Los Angeles police officers was loaded onto a trailer for the trip west. Kansas City Police officers escorted the truck to...
Pang is the Newport Beach financier accused by federal regulators of a massive fraud in which millions of dollars were re-directed for his personal use. He had been taken from...
Two LAPD officers have been placed on paid leave as investigators figure out how a photo showing the singer's battered face wound up on TMZ. Both cops have been “assigned...
OK I'm biased, but I thought we had a fun 30 minutes with authors Richard Rayner and John Buntin talking about Los Angeles' dark and storied past. Here's the audio...
A media group was escorted Thursday through the new Los Angeles Police Department headquarters across Spring Street from the L.A. Times building. The new HQ, as yet unnamed, opens in...
At the morning shift change at the Hansen Dam command post, more than 1,000 firefighters paused to remember Capt. Tedmund Hall and Arnaldo Quinones, the County Fire veterans who died...
Register reporter Greg Hardesty got through to the aunt of kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard and gets a bunch of exclusive details about the family reunion after 18 years....
The former Charles Manson follower who murdered actress Sharon Tate in Benedict Canyon 40 years ago is reportedly dying of brain cancer and 85% paralyzed. Supporters want her to be...
That is the question explored by journalist John Buntin in a new piece for Governing magazine. Buntin comes at the subject with extensive background: he's the author of a new...
Dave Laut, the athletic director at Hueneme High School, was found shot to death last night in the yard of his Oxnard home. He was 52. Laut, a UCLA graduate,...
The murder victim's missing Mercedes was recovered in the parking lot of the Trader Joe's on Santa Monica, according to law enforcement sources cited by the L.A. Times....
Michael Berkow, the former head of LAPD's internal affairs unit, has resigned as chief of police in Savannah, GA to join a division of the company that recently hired LAPD...
TMZ has the blow-by-blow, so to speak, of Rihanna's awful night in Hancock Park. If you didn't think Chris Brown had a violence problem before, you will after reading it....
TMZ says the manager of the motel in Canada where suspected killer Ryan Jenkins hanged himself identified Jenkins' former fiancee as the woman who dropped him off and paid for...
The coroner found a potentially lethal amount of the anesthetic propofol in Michael Jackson's body, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed today in Houston. The L.A. Times has a...
The suspected killer of model Jasmine Fiore, Jenkins' ex-wife, apparently hanged himself in a motel room in Hope, British Columbia. CNN, LAT...
While crackdowns on counterfeit clothes and DVDs get more attention, Ed Fuentes reports at Blogdowntown that "the Fashion District's illegal animal trade continues unabated." The photo is by Fuentes. According...
Channel 4's new website is a real piece of work. The lead story up now is about model Jasmine Fiore being killed and left in a dumpster. Look how they...
For want of a permit that officially is easy to get but that nobody seems to know how to issue, Veronique de Turenne has three parking tickets — and a...
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is the woman who pointed a gun at President Gerald Ford in Sacramento in 1975. Before that, she was the Charles Manson follower who served as the...
Photojournalist Jonathan Alcorn captured the conclusive moment when the suspect was shot with a Taser (or Taser-like) charge, bringing to a close today's lengthy standoff outside the Westwood federal building....
KFI's Eric Leonard is reporting online that Andrew Adelman, the general manager of the city's Department of Building and Safety, is being investigated by the LAPD as "the prime suspect"...
LA Observed contributor Nancy Rommelmann, at her blog up in Portland, steps back and considers the murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk, the way she and others have written about it,...
Twenty five years after he was arrested as a 17-year-old for killing his mother in Sherman Oaks, Lisker must be retried or set free. The judge based her findings on...
In an interview with the New York Daily News, LAPD chief William Bratton said he would not run for elective office, but left open the possibility that he would return...
Steve Greenberg had a nice meeting with LAPD chief William Bratton in June about the LA Sketchbook cartoon on the naming controversy over the new police headquarters. I guess Steve...
More than three dozen journalists, nearly 20 cameras and city officials packed in the mayor's conference room for LAPD chief William Bratton's announcement that he's leaving for New York and...
Police chief William Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have a 12:15 p.m. media availability in the mayor's office. The Los Angeles Times' Joel Rubin reports "Bratton is expected to announce...
The story in tomorrow's Los Angeles Daily Journal, by reporters Ciaran McEvoy and Greg Katz, says the investigation involves payments by Voter Improvement Program Inc. Federal authorities are investigating Los...
A judge today threw out a lawsuit against the city by the mother of Suzie Peña, the 19-month-old toddler killed by an LAPD bullet during a 2005 SWAT action prompted...
The news magazine's Aug. 17 print issue gives the LA Weekly and reporter Christine Pelisek big props for diligent reporting on the serial murders in Los Angeles blamed on a...
My commentary today talks about the murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk and the strong reaction it has evoked in the city. The piece airs at 4:44 p.m., can be heard...
It's an unanswerable question probably, but the LA Weekly's Christine Pelisek says police are puzzled by an aspect of the Lily Burk murder. Surveillance video shows the 17-year-old walking with...
Another lawsuit has been filed against the city of Burbank by officers (or former officers) in the city's police department. This is the second suit alone by former detective Christopher...
This evening's Which Way, L.A.? on KCRW sets up the discussion this way: "The murder of 17-year-old Lily Burk has received saturation coverage. Does a brutal crime contain any lessons...
Police said today that they took transient Charlie Samuel into custody by 5:30 p.m. Friday on drug charges in Downtown. They now have a pretty horrific chronology of the events...
Police announced that a 50-year-old man named Charlie Samuel has been booked on suspicion of murder in Friday's killing of 17-year-old Lily Burk. A press conference is scheduled for 11...
The daughter of Los Angeles journalist Greg Burk and Southwestern Law adjunct professor Deborah Drooz was found slain this morning in her car near Alameda and Fourth Street downtown. A...
An unidentified man was shot dead in his black Lexus about 11 a.m. today in the parking lot of Allstate Insurance in Glendale. Police were searching for a man who...
That South Bay real estate broker whose body was found inside a home for sale in Westchester has the kind of checkered past that will certainly perk up the ears...
News item: LAPD consent decree lifted See more in the LA Sketchbook by editorial cartoonist Steve Greenberg....
U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess freed the Los Angeles Police Department from most of the federal oversight that has been in place since the Rampart corruption scandals of...
Robert Korda's body was located by LAPD detectives Sunday in the county morgue. His death is under investigation. Korda disappeared on Wednesday and his son Noah had been seeking help...
Los Angeles and New York both make great settings for police dramas on TV. But why, over the last decade or more, are most of the better ones located in...
Korda, 69 and a veteran of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has not been seen since Wednesday, the day before he was supposed to drive from home in Van Nuys to...
Channel 7 reported tonight that Michael Jackson's casket was removed from Staples Center after Tuesday's memorial while hidden in a SWAT van. Chief Bratton would neither confirm nor deny, saying...
Hmm, selling in a down market. Let the speculation begin. The Times' Hot Property column says that LAPD Chief William Bratton and his wife Rikki Klieman are asking 1.875 million...
The L.A. Times says its comparison of LAPD crime stats to the department's online maps that are supposed to show what's going on in neighborhoods found that 40% of serious...
The Times is reporting that the unidentified detective shot herself last night after walking into the Santa Clarita sheriff's station and speaking to a deputy. She placed a box of...
Dov Charney's L.A. firm today was "fingered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for employing some 1,600 workers at its Los Angeles factories whose eligibility documentation is 'suspect and not...
"Minutes after our 10pm liveshot, FOX News Channel Correspondent Craig Boswell was the victim of a hit & run," Fox 11's Hal Eisner reported on Twitter about half an hour...
U.S. District Judge Gary Feess today extended the consent decree under which he oversees the Los Angeles Police Department until July 15, saying he needs more time to review filings...
Well, let's call it partly politics and partly law enforcement, with some union advocacy for seasoning. It's the new blog of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which posts today...
A three-year federal investigation into the Mara Salvatrucha gang's activities near Lafayette Park produced a bunch of indictments unsealed today, including that of Alex Sanchez, executive director of Homies Unidos....
Convicted killer Phil Spector was moved Monday to the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison at Corcoran, in the San Joaquin Valley near Fresno. It's the state's largest...
After Steve Greenberg's LA Sketchbook cartoon suggested a Parker Center naming compromise last month, he heard from the LAPD headquarters that chief William Bratton would enjoy a copy. One thing...
Singer Chris Brown will have to do community labor and five years probation, stay away from Rihanna, give up a DNA sample and other steps in exchange for deal that...
Steve Greenberg was inspired by today's Los Angeles Times Poll story showing higher approval ratings for the LAPD. See more by Greenberg in LA Sketchbook....
A three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeal agreed with a lower court’s decision to throw out a lawsuit that argued the LAPD policy violated federal and state laws....
Attorneys for the city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Department of Justice jointly asked U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess today to drop the requirement that the LAPD submit...
LAPD chief William Bratton, speaking just now on Fox 11, said officers are trying to clear out the last groups still hanging around Downtown. He says there have been five...
News reports of a Crips gang party in Studio City on Wednesday night made me smile, if only because of the location. The stories gave the club's name as Platinum...
Former music producer Phil Spector's new home is North Kern State Prison in Delano — known in prison system jargon as NKSP. His stay may be temporary, as NKSP...
When I played in a roller hockey league in the Valley, there was a team of deputy sheriffs that always started fights and played out of control — worst in...
The father of Sherri Rae Rasmussen, the victim of the 1986 murder that the LAPD now says was committed by one of its officers, says he told detectives repeatedly about...
Stephanie Ilene Lazarus, 49, was arrested this morning at Parker Center. Cold case investigation into the 1986 beating death of the wife of her ex-boyfriend led to Lazarus, and her...
Coming up on 40 years since the Sharon Tate murders in Benedict Canyon, any mention of the Charles Manson family still generates a predictable surge of traffic on this website...
Rachelle Spector, the wife of jailed killer Phil Spector, broke her media silence about the case over lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel with L.A. Times celebrity justice reporter Harriet...
This time, the Queen of England is preparing to honor Los Angeles Police Department chief William Bratton with the title of "commander of the most excellent order of the British...
The only wall of sound Phil Spector will be hearing is the night howls of a state penitentiary. He got 15 years to life for his second degree murder conviction,...
Natasha Vargas-Cooper, who is watching the murder trial of Jesse James Hollywood up in Santa Barbara for The Awl, grew up with killing victim Nick Markowitz in West Hills. The...
Anthony Pacheco unexpectedly announced his resignation as of July 1, saying in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that he needs to return full-time to his law firm job. Pacheco...
Federal court oversight of the LAPD that was agreed to in a consent decree nine years ago "has been a resounding success, and it should at last be allowed to...
That's what the U.S. Attorney's office here is calling this morning's raids on Latino gang members allegedly responsible for violence against law enforcement and racially motivated attacks against blacks. There...
Officer James Veenstra, who was wounded in the Feb. 2008 SWAT raid in the Valley in which officer Randal Simmons died, was honored at the White House Tuesday along with...
Sahl, who lives in Claremont, was reported missing by his wife on Friday, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune blogged this morning. An afternoon update says that Sahl, who turns 82...
Two California men were indicted today on federal charges that they illegally smuggled Asian songbirds into the country. One man was stopped at LAX upon return from Vietnam and found...
After OC money manager Danny Pang was released from federal custody in Santa Ana Wednesday and sent to home confinement on $1 million bail, he took exception to photographer Jonathan...
It was on April 29, 1992 that riots broke out at Florence and Normandie, and in the Civic Center downtown, after four white LAPD cops were acquitted in Simi Valley...
Times staffers Jessica Garrison and Kim Christensen went big on Sunday's page one with an expose on oft-accused L.A. slumlord Frank McHugh. Money grafs: For more than 50 years, McHugh,...
Wave Newspapers contributing editor Betty Pleasant got hold of a letter that ex-LAPD chief Daryl Gates wrote ripping L.A. Times reporter Joel Rubin's coverage of the William Parker naming controversy....
The Numero Uno supermarket founder and president was convicted today on federal charges that include racketeering and solicitation of murder. Somewhat of a surprise to court watchers, apparently. Steven Mikulan...
Josue Luna, husband of the woman charged in the hit and run death of USC student Adrianna Bachan, was arrested Friday afternoon while entering the U.S. from Mexico at the...
While director John McTiernan awaits a new indictment over his use of wiretapper Anthony Pellicano in a divorce case, he's pushing a new documentary that alleges the Pellicano prosecution was...
In tomorrow's Daily Journal, staff writer Don DeBenedictis writes that Orange County DA Tony Rackauckas has been dismissing felony drug charges if defendants submit their DNA samples. Upset judges and...
The jury came back today, after nearly 30 hours of deliberation, with a second-degree murder conviction for Phil Spector. He was taken into custody pending sentencing on May 29. The...
L.A. Times writer Thomas Curwen's and photographer Allen J. Schaben's series on Ana Rodarte, 3½ years in the making, has award contender all over it: "Ana Rodarte had given...
I wonder if the $235,000 reward helped? More details to come at afternoon news conference. Student Adrianna Bachan, 18, was killed in the weekend incident and Marcus Garfinkle 19, was...
The Hollenbeck station veteran who said he was shot in the shoulder by two men outside his home in East Los Angeles in January has left the LAPD after being...
Briggs was known around Los Angeles police headquarters at Parker Center as Dr. Dave, Minister of Leather. He shined shoes in the lobby for 21 years and on Monday he...
Kiran Alvi and Stuart McClave, student reporters at USC's NeonTommy, have a good story up — when sheriff's detectives claimed they didn't know how to reach a Compton shooting victim,...
Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed has been following today's jailing of Bernard Madoff in New York, the New York Times story on Rep. Maxine Waters' questionable involvement with OneUnited...
Former LAPD Sgt. Mark Arneson was handcuffed and led out of court today to begin a 10-year federal prison sentence for his conviction as an accomplice of private investigator Anthony...
A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal slipped by largely unnoticed on Saturday — who reads the Saturday Journal again? — but the yarn by Tamara Audi is a...
Nothing posted yet at the Los Angeles Police Department newsroom or blog, but the officers' union has issued a statement mourning the death at home this morning of South bureau...
Celeste Fremon writes at Witness LA that Ridgway, a supervising deputy probation officer for Los Angeles County, "changed�and in many cases, saved�more lives than anyone can adequately count." Ridgway died...
Officers from the LAPD met mayoral candidate David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg at tonight's campaign forum, took him to the Wilshire station and questioned him about an accusation that he directed...
TMZ posted last night a photo it says shows Rihanna with bruises from the alleged attack by singer Chris Brown the night before the Grammys. It appears to be an...
Court houses in Los Angeles County have metal detectors that screen for weapons. You know that, I know that, but apparently many people who come to court don't realize it...
CityBeat this week brings out-of-work classical music critic Alan Rich back into print, at the expense of freelance critic Donna Perlmutter, who wrote for CityBeat for five years (and was...
In a statement this afternoon through crisis managers Sitrick & Co., performer Chris Brown doesn't mention Rihanna but does mention God: Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened...
The Huffington Post says the L.A. Times was the first major media outlet to identify Rihanna as the victim of Sunday's early morning domestic violence, "despite the LAPD's refusal to...
TMZ reports that law enforcement sources tell the site Rihanna was found in Hancock Park with two "huge contusions" on her forehead, and a bloody lip and nose, from the...
Both performers were supposed to appear this afternoon at the Grammy festivities at Staples Center, but instead Brown was being booked at the LAPD's Wilshire station and Rihanna's people were...
Marc Haefele's comparison of Thursday's Drew Street demolition to something out of the Middle Ages struck a nerve in the City Attorney's office, which sent over a response: The February...
The Los Angeles artist best known now for his Obama poster was taken into custody on his way to Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art for the opening of his first...
Residents of Culver City got robocalls on their home phones informing them that the city would be patrolled today by Santa Monica police, while Culver City police attended services for...
Anthony Razo, 49, was attacked as he left his home in City Terrace to play golf about 5 a.m. He is listed in serious condition with a gunshot wound to...
The Culver City Police Department is mourning the death of Sgt. Curt Massey in this morning's wrong-way crash on the Santa Monica Freeway. He was a 17-year veteran and recipient...
Anonymous LAPD cop "Jack Dunphy" says that officers were told not to wear helmets while working the line at last Saturday's pro-Palestinian rally in Westwood — Dunphy says commanders thought...
Samantha Geimer, who was 13 when director Roman Polanski had his way with her in Jack Nicholson's hot tub back in 1977, filed a formal request today that the legal...
Last year at this time, Brent Hopkins was a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and the guild shop steward/blogger called upon to keep the staff informed through waves...
Henry Casas, deputy chief of staff for Councilman Jose Huizar, has been arrested on suspicion of felony domestic violence. Casas, 40, was booked in Van Nuys on New Year's Eve...
Roman Polanski's lawyers argue that the director's bid to have that pesky sex with a minor case from the 1970s dismissed should be moved because the entire Los Angeles Superior...
Andrew Blankstein reports at the Times: Over the weekend, the LAPD opened its emergency operations center in the wake of Hamas rocket attacks against Israel and the Jewish state's bombing...
Randal Simmons, LAPD SWAT "It wasn't until I saw the 10 o'clock news that I fully appreciated how many people lined Vermont and Slauson to greet the procession escorting...
Still no positive IDs released since the bodies were badly burned, but officials think that Bruce Pardo's ex-wife Sylvia and her parents perished in the house. Pardo had not worked...
The victims of Bruce Pardo found in the Covina home he set afire include his ex-wife and her parents, who owned the home. At least two children who were shot...
Bruce Pardo, 45, showed up dressed as Santa Claus at a Christmas Eve party of his estranged wife's family, opened fire with a handgun and set the house on fire....
He's in Pakistan, of course. Baca was reported to have met with officials in Karachi yesterday on a five-day visit in the country. From The News: Sheriff Baca heads the...
California Editor David Lauter rebutted former reporter Anita Busch's comments yesterday in court tying the L.A. Times to convicted private eye Anthony Pellicano. Lauter, who emailed the response to Patterico,...
The Jewish Journal, breaking new stuff on the local side of the Bernard Madoff story, is blogging developments at Swindler's List....
At today's sentencing of Anthony Pellicano, former Los Angeles Times Hollywood reporter Anita Busch — she's also the ex-editor of The Hollywood Reporter — accuses the Times of collaborating with...
Officer Sanders was killed this morning on the eastbound 60 Freeway in Hacienda Heights when struck by a car while he was tending to a traffic accident. Sanders leaves a...
That 15-year-old San Pedro High School girl who reported two men tried to drag her into a truck [see Morning Buzz] has admitted making up the story. "She said she...
Hollywood financier Ryan Kavanaugh's arraignment on fresh DUI and probation violation charges has been put over to Jan. 22. By then, Sheriff Lee Baca's charity hopes that Kavanaugh makes good...
When Danish fugitive Stein Bagger walked into the LAPD's Central Area station on Saturday to turn himself in, the cops were skeptical. Officer Jack Richter, in the LAT: "We've had...
The Hollywood financier was arrested again for drunk driving, speeding and driving on a suspended license — back in October, while still on probation for an earlier conviction, the New...
I think the actual range is 9 to 15 years, but it's kind of fun scanning the first page of Google News headlines: Simpson gets 18 years in prison for...
Esteban Armando Nu�ez, the 19-year-old son of the former Assembly Speaker, was arrested Tuesday in connection with the stabbing death of a 22-year-old college student at a party in San...
SEIU President Andy Stern announced today that Tyrone Freeman, the politically connected head of the union's United Long-Term Care Workers local, would be banned for life and asked to repay...
It's not often you see Hollywood lawyers the prominence of Terry Christensen go to federal prison. He was sentenced today to three years, plus a $250,000 fine, for conspiring with...
Police say a security guard at the Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood shot and killed a man who brandished a sword in the parking lot about noon today. LAPD...
Sergeant Paul M. Weber takes over as president of the LAPD officers' union. He has been a VP and replaces Tim Sands, who will retire from the department next month...
Tomorrow's Daily Journal will report that the City Council did not approve the proposed settlement of legal claims for victims of the LAPD's misbehavior in MacArthur Park last year. The...
Actually, $10 million is just the reported amount of the settlement between victims and the city of Los Angeles that is being brought today to the City Council, says the...
The depleted Los Angeles Times has suspended publication of the Homicide Report, which at this time last year was one of the breakout hits among the paper's blogs. Its success...
First more than a thousand anti-Prop 8 protesters gathered at the Mormon temple in Westwood. Now, after employees reported receiving an envelope filled with white powder, the temple has been...
Anand Jon, the Indian-born fashion designer who has dressed celebutante Paris Hilton and singer Janet Jackson (big photo gallery on his still-live web site) faced a jury on multiple charges...
The two anti-Proposition 8 demonstrators arrested in Westwood yesterday are employees of Buzznet.com. One of them, Mark Oshiro, blogs about his experience while in LAPD custody and his befuddlement at...
I enjoy Los Angeles history as much as the next guy, and probably more than the guy beside him. Yet I haven't felt motivated to read the L.A. Times' seven-part...
LAPD chief William Bratton has given another interview across the pond — to ITV's London Tonight program (pardon me, programme) — and his remarks about British justice caught the eye...
LAPD chief William Bratton's phone message for Barack Obama "challenged Republican John McCain's 'record on policing issues and extolled Obama's,'" he told the L.A. Times. Bratton said he got involved...
A slide show">slide show at the LA Weekly website displays the weapons, bikes and gang colors seized from the Mongols motorcycle gang after a multi-year investigation by several agencies. This...
LAPD chief William Bratton co-authored an Op-Ed piece in the New York Daily News that posits Osama Bin Laden wants to influence the Nov. 4 election: "If history is any...
Controller Laura Chick calls her audit finding a backlog of 7,000 unprocessed rape evidence kits "one of the most startling and important audits " since she was elected seven years...
In April of 2007, a release arrived from the Hermosa Beach Police Department announcing that longtime spokesman Paul Wolcott was leaving his post. He didn't, until now. Wolcott has an...
Russell Mecano, 40 and an eight-year-veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, was taken into custody at the West L.A. station. From the LAT's Richard Winton: Two law enforcement sources...
The former City Hall power broker and commissioner was sentenced today to state prison in connection with the pay-to-play scandal during the Jim Hahn years. In particular, Wong carried water...
The City Council today approved $50,000 rewards for information on sexual assaults against two women near USC in September. And UCLA police announced the arrest of three suspects in a...
The Sun newspaper in the U.K. continues to call LAPD chief William Bratton "a leading contender to replace ousted Sir Ian Blair as London�s Metropolitan Police Commissioner." In a story...
LAPD chief William Bratton attended the London tabloid The Sun's "Broken Britain summit" on crime last week (in conjunction with the Conservative Party), got some attention from the papers, and...
O.J. Simpson was convicted tonight in Las Vegas of all charges — kidnapping, robbery, assault, 12 charges in all. Simpson was handcuffed and taken immediately into custody. Life in prison...
After being told that his wife was leaving him for a younger man, Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy Robert McClain sexually tortured her and her lover for hours and left...
Tibby Rothman's Venice Paper picks up street talk that the murder of a young man Sunday night after the Abbot Kinney Festival was a targeted gang hit. Just talk at...
The city council of Bell Gardens has hired itself a new city manager — and it's Steve Simonian, the former chief of investigations for District Attorney Steve Cooley. What's intriguing...
Fox 11 crime reporter Chris Blatchford is out with "The Black Hand," which Dominick Dunne calls in a blurb, "A gripping, powerful, chilling inside look at a criminal organization that...
Why yes, I believe they did. Terry Christensen's law firm sent out a press release today (via Sitrick & Co.) that says he'll be "withdrawing" from the practice of law...
Signs have begun going up in Downtown advising commuters. A funeral procession for Officer Spree Desha will begin at Parker Center at 8:45 am Thursday and move to the Cathedral...
The LAPD has apparently decided to convene Board of Rights hearings for some of the officers who abused media and protesters in MacArthur Park on May 1, 2007. I know...
The Los Angeles Police Department officer who died in the Chatsworth train collision was identified by the LAPD as Spree Desha, a seven-year veteran who worked in the Office of...
Channel 7 says an unidentified Los Angeles Police Department officer has been confirmed dead in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash. Updates from media monitoring: * Rescue workers have been pulled out...
Poor Linda Deutsch. AP's legendary Los Angeles-based trial reporter is back on the O.J. Simpson beat. She is in Las Vegas for the start of Simpson's latest criminal trial —...
A couple of weeks back I was on a blogging panel with LAist editor Zach Behrens and came to appreciate that he makes more phone calls than most bloggers, often...
It's a long way from Beverly Hills High for disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. LAT story. Previously: Backhanded compliment...
As Mark picked up earlier at LA Biz Observed, prominent lawyer Terry Christensen and former private eye Anthony Pellicano were convicted today of conspiring to illegally wiretap the ex-wife of...
The L.A. Times says it omitted race from the descriptions of three Melrose-area serial robbers by mistake. From the Reader's Representative blog: At least a dozen readers sent a question...
For the eighth time in two weeks, a robber has hit the stretch of Melrose Avenue between Fairfax and La Brea. The latest, at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, occurred just...
Juan Alvarez is sentenced to eleven life terms in the Atwater Village Metrolink crash that killed eleven in 2005. LAT...
The perp is caught on tape at Metblogs....
The South L.A. activist pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe a witness in a criminal case involving his daughter, Jasmin Eskew. Ali's sentence was enhanced because of a 1992 robbery...
A hockey fan who posts at LetsGoKings.com as riseandfall9 describes being shot outside a club in Hollywood and having to call 911 himself even though a half-dozen other people looked...
The funeral for murdered Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Juan Escalante will be held at 9 am downtown at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Burial follows at...
Teams from the FBI, LAPD and other agencies are up on the residence hill at UCLA this morning for a large-scale training drill set in Rieber Hall, an empty dorm....
Back in 2005 we told you about Gene Hughes, creator of the bible of police scanner frequencies. He also volunteered at the desk at the LAPD's Wilshire division. His real...
Juan Abel Escalante, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy assigned to the Men's Central Jail, was shot and killed outside his Cypress Park home as he left for work about...
The former City Hall power player was convicted on 14 counts of bribery, perjury and other charges stemming from influence peddling while he was a commissioner in the Jim Hahn...
Jill Leovy is turning her year as the Los Angeles Times' homicide blogger into a book for Spiegel & Grau. "The Homicide Report: Black Men, Murder and America�s Unseen Catastrophe"...
District Attorney Steve Cooley sent a letter to the chairman of the state Board of Parole Hearings strongly opposing the compassionate release from prison of Manson family killer Susan Atkins....
Christopher Thomas Thompson, who turns 59 today, has been charged with two felony counts each of reckless driving causing injury, battery with serious bodily injury and the special allegation of...
Former deputy mayor (to Hahn) Troy Edwards testified under immunity yesterday at the Leland Wong trial and detailed the gift of sexual favors linked to Wong at a Bonaventure Hotel...
Seventeen officers and two sergeants face department charges resulting from the mishandling of the May Day protest in MacArthur Park in 2007. No details were given, except that Cmdr. Rick...
The LAPD says that in a study it ran in the Valley, DNA samples collected at the scene of residential and commercial burglaries helped identify a suspect in 45 percent...
City Controller Laura Chick wants to audit the City Attorney�s Workers� Compensation Program. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo declined her request to turn over records, so she is using the subpoena...
Roosevelt Dorn is expected to be charged in connection with a low-income housing loan he reportedly received from the city of Inglewood, according to the Los Angeles Wave and contributing...
Anaheim Ducks co-owner Henry Samueli was suspended indefinitely by the National Hockey League after the co-founder of Broadcom pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the U.S. Securities and...
Today is the 50th anniversary of a story hitting the Los Angeles papers that would become iconic in local literature. On June 22, 1958, 10-year-old James Ellroy came home in...
Susan Atkins, center, did the stabbing of actress Sharon Tate during the August 1969 murders in Benedict Canyon that are popularly blamed on Charles Manson. Atkins was the killer who...
The toll is corrected upward after late killings in Los Angeles, Inglewood and Long Beach. Most are believed to be gang related. LAT Previously: 11-murder weekend in Los Angeles County...
At least eleven, says the Times roundup — nine of them in the city of Los Angeles, and four of those in the Valley. Ruben Vives gives some details on...
Did Henry T. Nicholas III, the co-founder of Broadcom, really spike the drinks of other tech executives with ecstasy? The feds say he did that, and a bunch of other...
Mandalit del Barco of National Public Radio wraps up a four-part series on Los Angeles street gangs with a seven-minute piece on All Things Considered about the feds' decade-long fight...
In an interview with Patterico blogger Patrick Frey, the victim of the dead-fish incident that helped spur the Anthony Pellicano prosecution voices concerns about ties between the convicted private eye...
Verdicts are still being read, but former Hollywood private eye and muscle Anthony Pellicano has been convicted of all but one count of racketeering and conspiracy. (So much for being...
NYT bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer talks to the father of slain teenager Jamiel Shaw Jr. about the hole in his life and his crusade to amend Special Order 40: �I...
Vandals even got the tires on the local tow trucks, forcing delays in the Auto Club's response the next morning. Residents in several neighborhoods discovered they had all been victimized...
Jamiel Shaw, the high school athlete whose murder has provided a new rallying cry for the right in the immigration wars, may have been killed because of his association with...
Councilwoman Hahn responds on her blog to the Fox 11 report that sided with two cops suing the city and tied Hahn to the mother of a Grape Street gang...
Regarding yesterday's item from the Daily Mail about LAPD Chief William Bratton advising the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, Bratton says there has been no contact between them: I have...
Looks like LAPD chief William Bratton could be traveling out of the city more than ever. The mayor of London just announced that he has signed Bratton to help advise...
Film financier Ryan Kavanaugh's company, Relativity Media, backed Columbia Pictures� �Catch and Release.� Today's NYT uses that connection to lead into a story about Kavanaugh's lawyer trying to use connections...
The Huffington Post's Allison Hope Weiner means it sarcastically: Jettisoning the whole John Adams "fact is a stubborn thing" quote used by Mr. Saunders yesterday, Mr. Pellicano went with his...
Counts of all major crimes are improved compared to last year — except homicide, which at 132 so far is still up 10%. From the LAPD stats: Homicide 132 119...
Lt. Rick Banks introduces himself to readers as the officer in charge who manages the blog "by approving the postings and reading all of your comments and evaluating which ones...
Ex-private eye to the stars Anthony Pellicano told the judge at his trial that he won't be testifying after all. And the accused got a little testy when the judge...
Sheriff's deputies used tear gas to put down a riot that broke out Tuesday afternoon and involved 400 or so detainees at the Mira Loma immigration detention center in Lancaster,...
Looks like Hollywood fix-it lawyer Bert Fields won't be testifying in the Pellicano trial after all. Huffington Post...
Fox 11 reporter John Schwada has posted quotes from a video where Sheriff Lee Baca tells a mostly black audience in Compton that some Latino youths are indeed killing African...
Veteran Fox 11 reporter Christina Gonzalez filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and the police department, saying she suffered "shock and injuries to her nervous system" and "severe...
Nope, the image is not a scene from a movie. It's something better: real life. It's one in a great collection of 960,000 old LAPD crime scene shots that the...
Former New York Times Hollywood correspondent Bernard Weinraub, who had teamed with Anita Busch at one point, also took the stand today in the Anthony Pellicano trial. Allison Hope Weiner's...
The reporter who started it all — by being threatend via Pellicano and associates to lay off a story about Steven Seagal — took the stand this afternoon. She recounted...
Allison Hope Weiner has more exclusive audio clips from the Anthony Pellicano case, of Michael Ovitz on the phone asking for a meeting with the felonious private investigator and Hollywood...
How many private cars, trucks and other vehicles would you guess are registered confidentially in California, able to escape parking tickets, toll road fees and those red light cameras? Would...
Times City Hall reporter David Zahniser cracks Column One for the first time with a first-person story about his 1989 Toyota Camry being stolen and recovered three times in six...
The Washington state 19-year-old who cracked the phone system and got Orange County dispatchers to sent a SWAT team to a home in Lake Forest was sentenced to three years...
Betty Pleasant, the Wave's Soulvine columnist, has been hammering away that there is a racial aspect to the gang murders sweeping South Los Angeles and the Eastside. LAPD chief Bill...
The firefighter who suffered fatal injuries today in Westchester was identified this evening as Brent A. Lovrien. He was a 10-year veteran assigned to the 'A' Platoon at Fire Station...
The Smoking Gun claims that the L.A. Times relied on FBI documents fabricated by con man James Sabatino for the paper's report last week that the 1994 shooting of Tupac...
A couple visiting from Colorado had their bikes stolen — and their vacation spoiled — by a "mid 30�s well-dressed white couple" in Santa Monica on St. Patrick's Day. They...
Talk about corrections. Months after finalizing Sara Jane Olson's prison release date, five days after letting her out — but two days after police groups started squawking — the California...
The former Kathleen Soliah was released this week from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla after serving six years. Nabbed after two decades in hiding, she pleaded guilty in...
The body of Alexander Merman, 35, was found shot to death in his Montana Avenue apartment last night. Over the weekend, aspiring actress Juliana Maureen Redding, 21, was found in...
Chief Bratton gave his side of the SWAT report controversy, and talked about having women in the unit, this afternoon on "Patt Morrison" on KPCC. (Audio.) Mayor Villaraigosa was also...
The headline above is the first line of Dr. Mauricio Heilbron Jr.'s Op-Ed piece in today's Long Beach Press-Telegram. The boy is the 11-year-old who was cut down Sunday night...
Oscar Medrano Jr., 47, was picked up by sheriff's deputies at his Gardena jewelry store on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl. No charges filed as yet. Worth noting, I...
Journalists turned out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for a press conference where the Girls Gone Wild founder again ranted about being in jail for most of a year. "We...
That audio of O.J. Simpson hollering at sports memorabilia collectors in a Las Vegas hotel last year was worth $165,000 to TMZ.com, reports The Smoking Gun today. TMZ reportedly bought...
The former California insurance commissioner, who resigned in 2000 amid corruption allegations, is now a deputy sheriff in Florida. And he just shot somebody: a domestic violence suspect with a...
* Rewritten at 2:40 pm with better info Brent Hopkins, the Daily News reporter who has been keeping everybody informed about pending cuts via his blog, took the buyout and...
Kazuyoshi Miura never should have posted on his blog that he would be visiting the Pacific island of Saipan. That's where U.S. immigation officers grabbed him. They were tipped by...
OK, more loot than treasure. But when cops followed the map scrawled by burglar Roberto Caveda and dug where the X was marked near White Oak Avenue and the Reagan...
The L.A. Police Protective League took umbrage at Times columnist Tim Rutten's chiding of Mayor Villaraigosa for injecting a bit of politics into his TV time at the funeral of...
At the end of his monthly visit with Patt Morrison on KPCC today, LAPD chief William Bratton pooh-poohed the need for the paparazzi law proposed by Councilman Dennis Zine. He...
Crystal Dillard, a Los Angeles County probation officer, and her boyfriend — a reputed Crips leader &mdash were among 23 people indicted in a Pomona-based drug ring, authorities announced today....
It could be a prank, pulled by a teenager in another state. They call 911 with a report of hostages and guns, hiding their real phone number ID. The cops...
It wasn't until I saw the 10 o'clock news that I fully appreciated how many people lined Vermont and Slauson to greet the procession escorting the remains of Randal Simmons...
Motorcycle officers working the route of the Randy Simmons funeral procession have marked their helmets with the radio designation of his SWAT unit: 41-D. Holy Geography, Batman: Furnell Chatman, holding...
These didn't occur on Valentine's Day, but they hit the Homicide Report en masse. Got my attention. Athens: Antwan Cole, a 19-year-old young black man, was shot multiple times at...
Enough members of the City Council are attending this morning's services for slain LAPD officer Randal Simmons that the regular Friday session was cancelled. TV stations have agreed on pool...
The paralyzed former LAPD officer and her husband, officer Tim Pearce, welcomed Lucas Braedon Pearce into the world yesterday. All are doing well. Ripatti was shot in South L.A. in...
In his last piece left in the can for the LA Weekly before taking his keyboard to Mexico, Daniel Hernandez uses Elizabeth Palacios's troubles with the law to tell the...
The LAT's Al Seib captures the memorable image of a sad day for the LAPD. It's posted on the Times website, along with a profile of slain officer Randal Simmons...
Robert Parry, a contributor to the Daily News' Friendly Fire blog, attended the SWAT team's annual social dinner at the LAPD academy ten days ago. He was struck that night...
SWAT team veteran Randal Simmons, left, was killed this morning during a shootout with a suspect in the Valley community of Winnetka. He is the first member of the Special...
Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton both called in to El Cucuy de la Ma�ana's radio show this morning. A suspicious device ignited a fire at a home owned...
Police were stumped trying to solve a string of nine residential heists pulled off inside Downtown's Orsini complex, a previously impenetrable place dubbed the Tuscan Rock by Curbed LA. Then...
In the midst of a spree of retaliatory shootings that has left two three dead and two other victims injured, the gang situation in the San Gabriel Valley community of...
Celeste Fremon asks if the LAPD went too far in breaking up a USC block party over the weekend. There were thrown bottles, a tactical alert and Tasering: Did the...
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer denied today's latest moves to delay the trial for celebrity private investigator Anthony Pellicano and his co-defendants. It looks more than ever like the trial...
Search warrants were served on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Pasadena's Pacific Asia Museum, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and the Mingei International Museum in San Diego...
Already in jail for having communication with a witness, O.J. Simpson had his bail doubled to $250,000 by an angry Las Vegas judge. Simpson is expected to post the bond....
The February issue of Playboy, on sale starting today, has a long feature by Joe Domanick on LAPD chief William Bratton, or Supercop as the headline calls him. The piece,...
Dianne Ogden, a longtime music talent coordinator, was one of four women who testified in Phil Spector's murder trial (which ended in a mistrial) that he had threatened her with...
Curtis Bernard Harris had pleaded no contest to possessing a firearm after kidnapping his estranged wife, but was freed without bail on Dec. 21 pending his formal sentencing to 16...
Arthur magazine's columnist Dave Reeves is serving time in Men's Central Jail over a bike accident, and his friends aren't happy about it. "A series of bizarro events and idiocies...
A serial robbery suspect was killed in an early-morning gun battle on Sawtelle Avenue in West Los Angeles. The LAPD officer involved was not hurt. * Not much of a...
Unhappy with the LAPD's new financial disclosure rules for drug and gang cops, the L.A. Police Protective League has bought radio time on KFWB and KABC for an ad that...
Colin Brown headed to lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria today and encountered the remains of a robbery at the Bank of America on Broadway. That's red dye from the exploding pack...
Jill Leovy hinted in this month's profile of her in Los Angeles that she would stop writing the Times' homicide blog in the new year. It's one of the most-read...
Question: Where will Mayor Villaraigosa and Chief Bratton drag the media to announce the 2007 crime stats? AKA, a "historic reduction in homicides and violent crime." Presser is Wednesday at...
John Stodder, the former Fleishman-Hillard executive whose wire fraud and conspiracy conviction is on appeal, blogs about the pressure of facing Christmas with a prison sentence hanging over your head,...
The mother of four who took a politically motivated shot at President Gerald Ford in San Francisco in 1975 got out of the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin this...
Five men aged 18 to 27 have been arrested in connection with the Thanksgiving weekend fire that burned 53 homes in Malibu. Authorities said the fire started as an illegal...
Remember the murder last year in Long Beach of off-duty Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Maria Cecilia Rosa? She was apparently surprised by two guys on a morning crime spree...
The District's Rebecca Schoenkopf got to know Sheriff Mike Carona in her OC Weekly days — he once sent her a bottle of wine and chocolate for her son —...
The Times reports, apparently alone, that Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona has been indicted on federal corruption charges. Former Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo already has pleaded guilty and is cooperating,...
Times reporter Peter Hong sat through the whole first act of The People vs. Phil Spector, but he found a way to leave at intermission. He's transferring to the LAT's...
Based on the coverage, the department's long-awaited report blames bad command decisions, gaps in officer training and a small splinter group of trouble-making demonstrators for the May Day melee in...
Just for fun I checked Google News to see how many news websites used "the Juice is loose" in their reports on O.J. Simpson making bail. Surprisingly few: just Access...
Split is 7-5 (but we don't know which way) and the foreman tells the judge he doesn't think they can reach a verdict on Phil Spector's guilt or innocence. Judge...
Pedophile Jack McClellan is staying behind bars, charged with violating a court order to keep away from children. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $150,000 bail. He's...
Reporter Chip Yost simply asked if the self-professed pedophile Jack McClellan wanted to talk after his release from UCLA custody last night — and he did, says Channel 5 executive...
Admitted pedophile Jack McClellan was arrested this afternoon lurking with a camera outside the Megan E. Daly Infant Development Program at UCLA. He is to be released by the UCLA...
The Times has added a whole bunch of filters and details to the new interactive map that goes with Jill Leovy's homicide blog. If you want to just see the...
Man-Ling Williams, 27, was arrested late last night on suspicion of murdering her husband and two young sons in the family home. Neal Williams, 27, had been found yesterday morning...
The jury weighing Phil Spector's guilt or innocence will head out to Alhambra tomorrow to view the foyer where Lana Clarkson died. Special correspondent Linda Deutsch of the Associated Press...
How often do TV stations get to send their nightside crime-and-mayhem crews to a community meeting of angry, frightened citizens at the Hotel Bel-Air? Never! On Thursday night, the rich...
This has been a bad day for the Los Angeles Police Department. Detective George "Mike" Selleh of the Mission station was killed about 3:30 am while riding his motorcycle to...
I'm guessing she won't get any rehab endorsement deals any time soon....
Lindsay Lohan, fresh off a second stint in rehab, was booked in Santa Monica this morning on suspicion of drunken driving and felony possession of cocaine. She also got nabbed...
Two or three men dressed in black and ski masks have targeted Bel-Air, Holmby Hills and Encino in the evenings and on weekends. Their take in the past year includes...
Hector Villalta, a rookie officer in the West L.A. station, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of sexual assault. A female companion complained the assault occurred after they came home from...
In response to the London bomb discovery, Mayor Villaraigosa wishes to reassure us all that Los Angeles is safe. His statement: Scotland Yard's immediate action to discover and dismantle a...
Now that the L.A. Times has given up on the idea of a readable and substantive Sunday magazine, Angelenos have to look elsewhere for deeper, well-written feature pieces out of...
Civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman was just convicted of tax evasion, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud. The possible tab for nineteen counts: 80 months in federal prison. I'll just assume...
LAPD Chief William Bratton was on the panel as KPCC reporter Patricia Nazario brought many in the audience to tears describing her encounter with a Metro Division officer (and his...
Word out of the Santa Monica courthouse is that Michelle Delgadillo came in this morning, pleaded no contest and received twelve months probation on top of paying fines. Stories forthcoming....
The Police Commission vote on a second term is unanimous. LAT, CBS2, DN...
A federal jury acquitted former LAPD sergeant and Fox News reporter Roderick Bernsen of inappropriate sexual contact in a cruise ship sauna. End of the case, though Bernsen said: "My...
Paris Hilton was dragged out the courtroom — weeping and screaming for her mother — and remanded back to the county jail in Lynwood. Unclear to me in all the...
Paris Hilton can phone in this morning's court appearance after all. Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini, who has been speaking for Judge Michael Sauer, gave no reason for the change....
You definitely get the feeling the Paris Hilton backlash is a lot bigger than Sheriff Baca gambled on — and the storm is just beginning. Judge Michael Sauer wants Hilton...
Cynthia Littleton reports on her Variety blog that the LAPD has closed off Wilshire Boulevard outside the Screen Actors Guild, meaning it's also right outside Variety, E!, KNX-KFWB and the...
Paris Hilton was fitted with an ankle bracelet and released to house arrest after serving the four-plus days in county that are more typical for her kind of offense. The...
Paris Hilton turned herself in at the Men's Central Jail downtown on Sunday night — after attending the MTV Movie Awards — and was driven to her temporary new digs...
The former city comissioner, already waiting trial on bribery and other charges, will be arraigned tomorrow on a new conflict of interest felony that stems from his time on the...
Veronique de Turenne at Here in Malibu says signs are posted everywhere about the year-old German shepherd taken by a 50-ish overweight woman with bleached blond hair who drove a...
The L.A. Police Protective League acknowledges "missteps" by the LAPD during the May 1 melee at MacArthur Park and yesterday proposed more and better training for offices and commanders —...
The LA Weekly's Steven Mikulan has been covering the Phil Spector trial like a theater performance, observing the development of characters and scenes. Hey, you may as well. I just...
Four Daily News reporters — Jason Kandel, Brent Hopkins, Rick Coca and Rachel Uranga — are contributing items to It's a Crime, with a Valley bias to the mix. Roll...
A suspicious item in checked baggage has closed part of the airport for the second time in less than 24 hours. The LAPD says its bomb squad is en route....
The L.A. County Sheriff's department now says Paris Hilton won't be treated any differently than other low-risk inmates when she turns herself in next month to begin a 45-day term....
It's Sergio Diaz, Assistant Commanding Officer of the Special Operations Bureau, says LA Weekly contributor Celeste Fremon at WitnessLA. She gives Diaz a strong personal endorsement: "One of the smartest,...
Today's Daily Journal has a front page story by Sandra Hernandez reporting on the forcible drugging and botched deportation of two men by agents for the Department of Homeland Security....
Mayor Villaraigosa, Chief William Bratton and police commission president John Mack have called a 3:30 news conference that the mayor's office bills as "to discuss changes in LAPD command staff"...
Paris Hilton will get no work release, furloughs, cushy suburban jail or electronic monitoring and instead must spend a month and a half locked up at the Century Regional Detention...
With the LAPD yet again giving the city a black eye, Mayor Villaraigosa cut short his trip to Latin America and will return to Los Angeles Friday morning. He broke...
It was just a few months ago that LAPD chief William Bratton argued that the department had learned its lesson and no longer should operate under a consent decree or...
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's statement on the violence against the police, and by the police, during the May 1 rally in the park. Yesterday, across the country, we witnessed a day...
From the Los Angeles Press Club and SPJ after the jump, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at the link, in response to yesterdays injuries by journalists at the...
Those are reporter Christina Gonzalez's words on Fox 11 after she was shoved and laughed at by LAPD riot cops while coming to the defense of the station's camera operator,...
Yesterday's number of marchers was small compared to last year, perhaps 25,000 strong, and peaceful. But the day ended with police moving in to MacArthur Park after reporting that bottles...
Raul Gama, a 20-year veteran Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy on surveillance duty in North Hollywod, died this morning when a van smashed into his unmarked parked car. The...
The father with two kids who tried to stiff the Northridge Claim Jumper last Thursday night sure picked the wrong night at the wrong place to walk out on his...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has charged Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis with one count of misdemeanor sexual battery for allegedly touching an 18-year-old woman on the breast, buttocks and...
The Los Angeles Korean community has been closely following the news out of Virginia Tech, and Radio Korea here is reporting rumors that the father and mother of Cho Seung...
LAPD chief William Bratton did the deed today and requested a second term. "It's been an honor and a privilege to serve as Los Angeles' chief of police," he said...
Good piece in the Sunday LAT that began as a post on Jill Leovy's Homicide Report blog: LAPD officers frequently assign the wrong name to Latino crime victims and arrestees....
KFI News' Eric Leonard reports on his blog that at least two California Highway Patrol officers assigned to the Newhall station were placed off-duty during an internal investigation of allegations...
Jill Leovy asks the question in her Homicide Report blog at LATimes.com: "Are Black-vs.-Brown Racial Tensions Driving Homicide in L.A.?" Her answer is no. Take the four most violent Los...
It's not quite O.J. Simpson-in-a-white Bronco, but it's still a premium-grade L.A. police chase tale. During yesterday's press conference to remember the 1997 North Hollywood police shootout, the cameras —...
Watching this YouTube video of new Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hires reporting for training last July — assuming it's the real thing — made me wonder about claims that...
Former Orange County Superior Court judge Ronald C. Kline — who pleaded guilty to possessing child porn — heard that he was headed to federal prison for 27 months and...
Nemesis of Evil posted tonight at 9:01 pm that the bomb squad was outside the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at Weyburn and Gayley in Westwood Village. Then came the...
Jill Leovy's LAT homicide blog now takes note of 99 killings across Los Angeles county so far this year, about three a day. That's lower than last year's daily average,...
First there was "Jack Dunphy" opining anonymously at the National Review Online. Now there is Sgt. Sunil Dutta writing in the latest issue of The Nation, under his real name,...
Police in riot gear arrived in force tonight at the Ramona Gardens housing project where tensions are running high over the death in custody of Mauricio Cornejo, a 31-year-old parolee...
The now-18-year-old girl got probation and community service like the others, but did not receive sixty days of house arrest. She told the judge she was "truly saddened" by the...
Covering murder and mayhem in Los Angeles for the Times, Jill Leovy has been driven crazy knowing that for every homicide that captures the media eye there are others that...
Judge Gibson Lee gave four more girls convicted in the Halloween attack the same sentence as those juveniles he sent home last week: probation, 60 days house arrest, 250 hours...
The New York Times received a partial transcript of O.J. Simpson's never-televised Fox interview with Judith Regan describing how the 1994 murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman might have...
Former USC gene therapy scientist William French Anderson, one of the world's most acclaimed scientists, received 14 years in prison today for sexually abusing the young daughter of his number...
Ahmed Rashed, a third-year resident at King/Drew Medical Center, pleaded guilty to stealing a hand from a cadaver at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark. That's not the...
Allegations of felony assault against nine juveniles are found to be true, not true for the youngest accused. The hate crime allegations are also found true against eight of the...
Sheriff's deputies are "relatively sure" they have the guy who spilled mercury in the Pershing Square Metro station last month. Armando Bustamante Miranda, 27, was being held on an...
The suspect killed this morning by police was handcuffed at the time he was shot, but had managed to reach a gun in his pants and open fire on officer...
Authorities now are actively looking for the man shown in surveillance video pouring or spilling liquid mercury onto the platform of the Pershing Square Metro station the night of Dec....
Steven Garcia, the LAPD officer who shot and killed 13-year-old suspect Devin Brown, today released the finding of the confidential Board of Rights proceeding that cleared him of wrongdoing. The...
How times have changed. The FBI filled a room at the Westwood federal building yesterday with screenwriters invited in for a seminar on how to realistically portray anti-terrorist efforts. Special...
The suspect was reaching for his waistband as he exited a disturbance at a South Los Angeles Masonic lodge early this morning, the sergeant who shot him told investigators. After...
Times columnist Steve Lopez isn't the only one keeping a literal eye on construction of the new LAPD headquarters on the downtown block where a civic park should be instead....
They got their man. Jorge Arroyo-Garcia, better known as Armando �Chato� Garcia, was extradited from Mexico and turned over to Los Angeles County Sheriff�s Department investigators before dawn at the...
One of the traffic engineers being arraigned today for shutting down four intersections on the day that EAA went out on strike was featured last January in a Downtown News...
What a story. Two high-ranking city traffic engineers, Gabriel Murillo and Kartik Patel, were charged Friday with breaking into the city's automated traffic system and disabling the lights at four...
Noted, since it hasn't been included in the mentions here of Jim Lampley's arrest: "I am innocent of the charge of domestic abuse that has been leveled against me and...
Today's Wall Street Journal front page says that in breaking up an international car theft ring recently, the LAPD interrupted the flow of profits to terrorists in the Republic of...
Five more LAPD officers will hold a press conference Friday to allege misconduct by ex-deputy chief Michael Berkow, Eric Leonard reports at KFI.com. Berkow is the former head of internal...
James Mee, the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who arrested Mel Gibson in Malibu, claims through his lawyer that he's being harassed by supervisors. Mee's arrest report, you might remember,...
Yeah, the former head of LAPD internal affairs cops to the affair with a sergeant under his command — but only for three years! Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally apologized (sort...
Harvey Levin, who covered the O.J. Simpson legal circus for CBS 2, has some observations over at TMZ.com on Brian (Kato) Kaelin, who lived in a guest house on Simpson's...
Chief William Bratton says in the LAT that the department is investigating the former deputy chief in charge of internal affairs over allegations that he exchanged preferential treatment and promotions...
Jill Leovy covers homicide and the police for the L.A. Times, often in South Los Angeles. She writes today at Salon.com that the recent uptick in murder stats and spreading...
Michael Buchanan, the security guard who stabbed an intruder at the Beverly Hills home of celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson, is an ex-Rampart Area officer who was fired from the LAPD...
Records containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of students, faculty, employees and some applicants since the early 1990s may have been accessed. The online intrusion went on...
One day after ABC featured LAPD officer Kristina Ripatti on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Chief William Bratton sent out an update on all the officers who are living with serious...
If you saw the SUV barreling the wrong way in the carpool lane on the 134 early this morning, first, congratulations for not getting killed. Second, the SUV driver who's...
Sean Joseph Meade, 41, was taken from home on order of Chief Bill Bratton after a videotape allegedly showed him choking a handcuffed sixteen-year-old suspect at the Central station. Meade...
Suspected gang members backed into and nearly totaled the car of a black woman who has been testifying for several days in the racially inflamed trial over assaults on white...
Warren Price had been on the run for almost nine years since the 1997 murders of a man and pregnant woman in Kansas City who were innocents in a bungled...
District Attorney Steve Cooley says no charges are warranted in the shooting death of toddler Suzie Peña since the SWAT officers who fired were defending themselves against her father. One...
Two more items today on the LAPD blog take issue with stories in the Daily News. First, a watch commander in the Valley continues the department's high-level bristling at Mariel...
Elderly driver George Weller was given five years probation, fined $20,000 and ordered to pay $24,000 in penalties plus restitution to the families of some of his victims for killing...
A Halloween night attack on three white women by 20 to 40 blacks (according to the Press-Telegram) is causing a lot of community upset in Long Beach. One woman suffered...
Columnist Mariel Garza's recent column about the LAPD prompted Chief William Bratton to reply on the department news and PR blog. Her column described the trouble Garza's Cal State Northridge...
A shouting student inside Powell Library at UCLA was shot with a stun gun at least twice last night, once after resisting police orders to "stop fighting us" when they...
This time it's not Vernon, B.C. but our own city of Vernon. Mayor Leonis Malburg, who has ruled the industrial city for fifty years — that's five-oh — was charged...
Former LAPD sergeant and Fox 11 reporter Rod Bernsen was arraigned today in federal court and said he will fight the charges that he touched two boys inappropriately on a...
Those sex charges against former FOX 11 reporter, KFI host and LAPD spokesman Rod Bernsen aren't going away. He was indicted Thursday on two federal felony counts of "abusive sexual...
The feds have an opened an investigation into the latest videotaped incident involving what looks to be excessive force by LAPD officers. The suspect, gang member William Cardenas, had run...
The last minutes aboard the yacht Well Deserved before Thomas and Jackie Hawks were tied to the anchor and tossed overboard alive makes for a chilling read. The testimony, from...
Jurors in the grand theft trial of Swedish bad boy Bo Stefan Eriksson could not reach a verdict and the judge just declared a mistrial. Prosecutors said they will try...
When the FBI and Santa Monica police served search warrants at the home of Animal Liberation Front supporters Jerry Vlasak and Pamelyn Ferdin this week, they gained entry through a...
That car allegedly stolen by Joel Campos of San Pedro? It belonged to Ramona Hahn, mother of the former mayor and the current city councilwoman. That LoJack system? It worked....
Chief William Bratton opens his latest newsletter with praise for the Glocks and Tasers that LAPD officers are starting to carry, and lists some of the more high-tech tools that...
A powdery substance found this evening sent everyone down to the lobby. A Los Angeles Police Department Hazardous Materials team is on the scene along with the health department. *...
The three-year veteran was killed Sunday morning during a routine traffic accident investigation at Riverside Drive and Hyperion Avenue. He was in the street when struck by a car traveling...
Remember the amazing news that newlywed James Woodson died from a bullet that came out of the air and struck him in the back while he gardened in Sherman Oaks?...
Agents from the FBI's foreign counterintelligence unit have searched the Valley Village home of Abraham Lesnik, a senior scientist on anti-missile systems, looking for evidence that high-security information in his...
ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" demolished the Redondo Beach home of paralyzed LAPD officer Kristina Ripatti last week — and now needs construction workers to finish the rebuild before she...
James Mee, the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy in Malibu who booked Mel Gibson in July, had his home computer confiscated and other records seized last month, TMZ reported this...
Former Fox 11 reporter and KFI talk host Rod Bernsen appeared in federal court today and was ordered released on $850,000 bail. He has a November 13 court date for...
Former Fox 11 reporter and KFI fill-in host (as well as retired LAPD sergeant) Rod Bernsen will be charged in federal court Tuesday in connection with "an investigation into alleged...
Author and former Los Angeles cop Joseph Wambaugh, writing on the Times op-ed page, calls Rossmore Avenue his favorite L.A. street and only partly because James Ellroy lives on it....
LA Observed regulars may remember last year when Will Beall, a homicide investigator for the LAPD in 77th Street Division, sold a novel called L.A. Rex to Riverhead and the...
Eighteen members of the big and notorious 18th Street Gang were indicted on federal charges of "selling" streets in Koreatown and the MacArthur Park district to drug dealers. The ring...
Authorities spent much of the night searching Pier 300 in the Port of Los Angeles after an anonymous bomb threat was called in. A man, reportedly with a Middle Eastern...
On Tuesday, News and Chatter noted that James Ellroy's copies of the Steve Hodel book, Black Dahlia Avenger, appear to be for sale on eBay. In today's CityBeat, Ellroy elaborates...
I haven't checked back to compare his past talk, but it feels like LAPD Chief William Bratton has been cranking up the rhetoric. In his latest monthly missive on the...
The headline is LAPD-ese for "he's in trouble." According to the department news blog, Officer Chris Walker of Pacific Division was at home around midnight when he heard his wife...
Ca Del Sol in Toluca Lake was robbed at gunpoint about 10 pm last night. Two gunmen came in wearing masks and emptied the cash register. Sound familiar?...
TMZ reports that Mel Gibson's lawyer dropped in on Malibu's courthouse today and revealed a deal with prosecutors. He pleads no contest to misdemeanor drunk driving, but counts of driving...
LAPD officer Edward Beltran Zamora has been charged with filing a false police report and making false arrests. He surrendered at Parker Center then was released on $20,000 bail. The...
LAPDBlog.org gets about 2,000 visits a day. Chief William Bratton sees it as mainly a tool for the department to put out its version of events without media interference, as...
John Hatfield contends that Chief William Bratton unduly influenced the LAPD Board of Rights that fired him. Hatfield is the officer who applied a flashlight to the head of auto...
Former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Gabriel Gonzalez assaulted women he stopped while on patrol in the Compton area. He was convicted in federal court earlier this year....
The Valley Inn, just off the 405 freeway in Sherman Oaks, is about the 200th restaurant in the Valley to be hit during a spree that has been especially hard...
Until Mel Gibson's real arrest report leaked out, Steve Whitmore was not the most visible of law enforcement media handlers. Cindy Beavers with the San Bernardino County sheriff's and that...
So much for Mel Gibson wrapping himself in God. When he was arrested Friday on suspicion of DUI in Malibu, a very un-pious Gibson resisted the deputy and threatened repeatedly...
TMZ.com says that Mel Gibson was arrested this morning on suspicion of DUI by the Malibu sheriff's. He made the mistake of speeding in the dark on Pacific Coast Highway....
Sheriff's homicide detectives plan to ask for the public's help in locating 54 women (!) whose pictures were found in the home of multiple murderer William Bradford, who used to...
At gunpoint, no less. Channel 2 News says the actor's Thunderbird jumped the curb, sped into the parking lot of Nina's Kitchen Bath and Hardware at Wilshire and Saltair in...
We bloggers are not supposed to mention the ads that Google AdSense places on our sites, for fear that the mention will trigger click fraud. So I'm not suggesting you...
Back in June when the LA Weekly proclaimed that a serial killer had preyed on ten Los Angeles-area prostitutes, the paper fingered its favored suspect sitting in a Fresno jail....
News and observations from around town, mostly off the police beat today: Chief Bratton told KPCC's Patt Morrison that an internal investigation is looking into reports of overfly forceful LAPD...
KCRW music host Chris Douridas will NOT be charged with kidnapping or a sex crime in connection with his arrest on suspicion of drugging a 14-year-old girl at Santa Monica's...
Civil rights attorney—and long-time thorn in the side of local law enforcement officials—Stephen Yagman has been indicted on nineteen counts of income tax evasion. The indictment dated June 1 was...
Alvaro Luna-Jara, a member of the Dogtown street gang, is suspected of shooting and killing 12-year-old Steven Morales on Avenue 58 in 1998. Luna-Jara fled to Mexico and was nabbed...
An LAPD officer on his way to work at 2:30 am had stopped to help at a wreck near Disneyland when his motorcycle was rammed by an SUV. He's in...
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.
