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Just before 4 p.m., Hector Alaniz’s mother called police to “report that her son was suffering from mental illness and may be a danger to others,” Officers saw that he had what appeared to be a black pistol, and as he entered a driveway, he pointed the gun at officers, prompting the use of a 40 mm less-lethal launcher and at least one officer to open fire, police said. “Despite the suspect being struck by both gunfire and 40mm [less-lethal] projectiles, he again continued to flee until an officer discharged a TASER, incapacitating Alaniz, allowing officers to take him into...

A $1,000 reward is up for grabs for whoever leads Los Angeles police to a TikTok user they say is responsible for a stunt gone wrong involving a Tesla. A viral video posted to YouTube shows a black 2018 Tesla S-BLM launching 50 feet into the air before crashing into parked cars in the Echo Park neighborhood. It happened Saturday night, according to FOX 11 Los Angeles.

Sanitation workers collected more than 35 tons of trash while cleaning the closed Echo Park Lake, which a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles parks department said the city is hoping to reopen by the end of the month. This comes more than a month after the city cleared a large homeless encampment of more than 170 tents from the park amid large protests by activists in the community. The timing of the park’s closure was kept secret by city officials until the last minute. Once it was closed, city workers began to clean the park, pack and store belongings that...

Clashes broke out Thursday night between officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and at least 100 protesters who were trying to stop police from clearing out Echo Park's homeless encampment. A newly installed fence surrounded the popular Los Angeles park Thursday after authorities moved in to evict residents of the large homeless encampment despite protests by the people who live there and their supporters. Only a few tents and about a dozen people remained by evening along the grassy banks of Echo Park Lake, where tents had proliferated for months during the coronavirus pandemic, sparking concerns about trash, drugs...

The remaining homeless people living along Echo Park Lake were given 24 hours to leave their encampment after protesters clashed with police Wednesday night. A heavy police presence was still in place on Glendale Boulevard and Park Avenue Thursday morning as a fence was put up to close off the park. Roughly 30 to 40 tents could still be seen scattered behind the fencing but the people living in those tents were told they would have to leave. LAPD later declared two unlawful assemblies and gave an order to disperse from Santa Ynez Street and Glendale Boulevard. Police said officers...

The number of tents at the park has swelled in recent months...Near the intersection of Glendale Boulevard and Park Avenue, at one corner of the park, a crowd of people was gathering around 7 a.m. Wednesday to stop officials from forcing homeless individuals out. O’Farrell has said he plans to close the park but did not say when, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. A source with direct knowledge of the process told the newspaper the city plans to fence off the park and clear it of the homeless encampment on Thursday. However, the Times reported the source spoke on...

Under a veil of secrecy, Los Angeles city officials and homeless services providers are rushing to move as many homeless people as possible from Echo Park Lake this week in advance of an expected sweep to remove more than 100 tents and fence the entire park for repairs. City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who has said he planned to close the park, has declined to confirm the timetable, but a source with direct knowledge of the process told The Times that the city plans to clear the encampment Thursday, fence the park and close it for renovations. O’Farrell spokesman Tony Arranaga...

On four separate occasions in October 2017, the informant entered Echo Park United Methodist Church with a hidden recorder and captured audio of meetings held by the Los Angeles chapter of Refuse Fascism, a group which has organized a number of large-scale demonstrations against the Trump administration in major U.S. cities, according to court records reviewed by The Times. ... part of an ongoing case against several members of Refuse Fascism who were charged with criminal trespass for blocking a downtown section of the 101 Freeway during two separate anti-Trump demonstrations in September and November of 2017.

Ricardo Nunez was trimming a tree outside his Echo Park home on a Sunday morning last month when a white truck pulled up and a person inside opened fire, killing the 35-year-old father. Ray Martinez, the LAPD detective investigating the case, is seeing fewer such fatal drive-by shootings. When Martinez goes behind the yellow tape, he's more commonly working on cases where a gunman has walked straight up to the victim — a walk-up shooting. As gang culture has become less overt, the killings have become more targeted — and at the same time more chilling. "They get to see...