Free Republic

Confirmed: Demoralized Cops Equal Higher Crime Jack Dunphy Gentle readers, fasten your seatbelts. We are about to embark on a virtual tour on which you will join me in a Los Angeles Police Department patrol car cruising some of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. We will be patrolling the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, which year after year ranks at or near the top in violent crime among the city’s 21 patrol divisions. The Los Angeles Times tracks crime in more than 200 communities across L.A. County, and five of the top ten on the list are in 77th Street Division....

A construction worker found a blood-stained knife buried on OJ Simpson’s property “years ago” — and gave it to an off-duty cop who kept it in his home before finally turning it over to police, a report says. Law enforcement sources told TMZ that the blade is a folding buck knife, which is now being tested for hair and fingerprints after being handed over to the L.A.P.D.’s Robbery Homicide Division in January. It will be tested for DNA and other biological evidence at the department’s Serology Unit next week, sources told the site.

Two former Los Angeles police officers who fatally shot an unarmed motorist from behind, on live TV, were fired and now are suing to get their jobs back. Michael Ayala and Leonardo Ortiz were among about two dozen officers who pulled up behind 51-year-old Brian Beaird’s mangled Corvette after he crashed in downtown Los Angeles in 2013, ending a long, high-speed pursuit. As TV news helicopters circled overhead and water from a damaged fire hydrant rained down, adding to the chaos of the scene, Beaird stumbled around the back of his car, turned away from officers and appeared to be...

ight Los Angeles police officers who mistakenly opened fire on Los Angeles Times newspaper delivery women thinking they were rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner in 2013 will not be criminally charged, the L.A. County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday. The officers opened fire in the predawn hours of Feb. 7, 2013, as Margie Carranza and her mother, Emma Hernandez, were slowly cruising though a Torrance neighborhood in a pickup truck delivering papers. Law enforcement officers around the region were on edge during the massive manhunt for Dorner, the ex-LAPD officer who sought vengeance against police officials he blamed for his firing....

The Los Angeles Police Department misclassified an estimated 14,000 serious assaults as minor offenses in a recent eight-year period, artificially lowering the city's crime levels, a Times analysis found. With the incidents counted correctly, violent crime in the city was 7% higher than the LAPD reported in the period from 2005 to fall 2012, and the number of serious assaults was 16% higher, the analysis found. When presented with the findings, top LAPD officials acknowledged the department makes errors and said they were working to improve the accuracy of crime data reporting. "We know this can have a corrosive effect...

Ted Rall, a noxious left-wing political cartoonist who has advocated violence against conservatives and on more than one occasion revealed himself as a racist, finally went too far, even for the same LA Times that champions those who threaten Jews with curb-stomping. According to the Times, in a May 11 article, Rall outright lied about a 2001 experience he had with the LAPD. Ted Rall — a freelance cartoonist whose work appears regularly in The Times — described an incident in which he was stopped for jaywalking on Melrose Avenue in 2001. Rall said he was thrown up against a...

Officers are responding to a man with a gun call with possible shots fired in the area of Ventura Boulevard and Vantage Avenue in Studio City, according to Los Angeles police. Firefighters responded to a shooting call at 3:28 p.m. in the 12000 block of Ventura Boulevard. Further details were not immediately available. Shoppers in the area were evacuated from businesses. A long line of cars could be seen leaving a parking lot.

LOS FELIZ, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A man attempting to flag Los Angeles police officers down with his arm wrapped in a towel was shot in the head Friday in Los Feliz. The man was shot at about 6:35 p.m. on Los Feliz Boulevard and Tica Drive. He was allegedly raising his arm wrapped in a towel, possibly holding a gun. "The officer exited the vehicle and quickly said, 'Drop the gun, drop the gun,'" LAPD Lt. John Jenal said. Moments later, the officer opened fire. It was unclear if the man had a gun, but the officers believed the...

Jihad in Los Angeles? The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has arrested a suspect, Dawud Abdulwali, 56, on arson charges connected with the massive downtown fire last December that consumed the Da Vinci apartment complex. The Los Angeles Times reports that Abdulwali was arrested Tuesday morning during a traffic stop, and after a lengthy investigation. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the arrest Wednesday, saying: “This arrest illustrates that crime will not be tolerated in Los Angeles.” Abdulwadi’s alleged motive has not been revealed. He was arrested by the LAPD’s anti-terrorism unit, though officials say that there is no reason to suspect...

I bring you shocking news, gentle readers. If you take thousands of incarcerated felons and turn them loose on society, and you then allow the federal government and cultural elites to demoralize the police officers charged with keeping these liberated hoodlums in line, you end up with higher crime. Who would have dared imagine it?This is the state of affairs in California, where a succession of imprudent decisions by judges [1], lawmakers [2], and the electorate [3] have combined to throw open the prison gates to swarms of men who in a sane world would have remained locked away...

LAPD Officer Accused of Trying To Smuggle Mexican citizen Across Border By JOSEPH SERNA LAPD officer arrested at Otay Mesa border on suspicion of human smuggling is 10-year veteran LAPD officer charged with trying to smuggle man into U.S. A 10-year LAPD officer and a second person were charged by federal prosecutors Monday with trying to smuggle a Mexican citizen into the United States in the trunk of a car at the Otay Mesa border crossing. Officer Carlos Curiel Quezada Jr., 34, and Angelica Godinez, 31, were stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers Saturday evening when they drove...

A search is underway for two male suspects who opened fire in South Los Angeles Sunday, leaving two LAPD officers injured. The shooting was reported in the area of 65th Street and Broadway just before 6 p.m., police said. The officers, who were in plain clothes at the time of the shooting, were treated at the scene and are in good condition.

The homeless man who was shot to death by Los Angeles police in a confrontation that was captured on dramatic cellphone video was a convicted bank robber living in the U.S. under a stolen French identity, authorities told NBC News on Tuesday night.

The Times asked four use-of-force experts to review the autopsy of Ezell Ford, a mentally ill black man killed by police in South Los Angeles in August.SnipMerrick Bobb, who for years was the civilian overseer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said he didn’t see anything “particularly remarkable” in the autopsy report that would color his opinion of the officers’ actions.SnipEd Obayashi, an Inyo County sheriff’s deputy who is also an attorney and a legal expert on police use of force, said he found nothing in the autopsy to contradict the police version of events.SnipSid Heal, who was the...

A Los Angeles Police Department patrol car was fired on in an “unprovoked attack” Sunday night that put police officers around the city on tactical alert. The shooting took place late Sunday in a neighborhood in South Los Angeles as two officers were responding to an unrelated radio call. “A couple of officers were rolling down the street when they observed the muzzle of a rifle firing in their direction,” LAPD Sgt. James Shray told MyFox LA. “They responded to the muzzle flash.” LAPD spokeswoman Officer Nuria Venegas told The Associated Press Monday that one man was under arrest and...

The Los Angeles Police Department has declared a citywide tactical alert after two suspects fired at a patrol car with a rifle Sunday night. The incident occurred at 62nd and Hoover streets at around 9:20 p.m. Police say every available officer has been sent to the area. One suspect is in custody. A perimeter was set up as officers searched for the second suspect.....

NEWS LAPD declares tactical alert citywide after 2 suspects fire at patrol car By ABC7.com staff Updated 42 mins ago LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Los Angeles Police Department has declared a citywide tactical alert after two suspects fired at a patrol car with a rifle Sunday night. The incident occurred at 62nd and Hoover streets at about 9:20 p.m. Police say every available officer has been sent to the area. One suspect is in custody. A wide perimeter is set up from Gage Avenue to 61st Street and between Hoover Street and Vermont Avenue as officers search for the...

Bill Cosby has hired a battalion of private investigators to dig up dirt on his many accusers, The New York Post has learned. The comedian, fighting an onslaught of accusations that he sexually assaulted more than two dozen women over many years, is paying six-figure fees to private investigators for information that might discredit his alleged victims. Multiple sources confirmed that Cosby, through his Hollywood attorney Martin Singer, is implementing a scorched-earth strategy in which anything negative in his accusers’ pasts is fair game. At least one Glendale, Calif.-based firm with a half-dozen former LAPD detectives on staff is muckraking...

Someone in a party was heard in a recording making fun of Michael Brown, 18, who was shot by Ferguson police Officer Darren WilsonLos Angeles police said Tuesday they are conducting a preliminary investigation into a party apparently hosted by a retired officer that included a parody song mocking Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. A video of the song, which was sung during a Dec. 15 party at the Elks Lodge in Glendale, was obtained by the website TMZ.com.

A former Los Angeles cop who had allegedly warned he would target law enforcement in retribution for being fired is now suspected of shooting three officers early Thursday, killing one, The shootings -- which come a day after Irvine, California, police named Christopher Jordan Dorner as the suspect in a double slaying there Sunday be on the lookout for the onetime officer and Navy lieutenant. The manhunt stretched from Los Angeles to San Diego He worked for the LAPD from 2005 until 2008. Multiple law enforcement agencies linked Dorner, 33, to the shooting of two Riverside police officers in...