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The car chase capital of the world is going high-tech to end dangerous pursuits across Southern California. Police Chief William J. Bratton unveiled a strange new weapon in the police department's strategy to halt high-speed pursuits -- adhesive darts with a global positioning system that are fired at fleeing cars by police. Once fired from a patrol car, the GPS dart is designed to stick to a fleeing car, allowing squad cars to back off the chase. "Instead of us pushing them doing 70 or 80 miles an hour," Bratton said, "this device allows us not to have to pursue...

By using a compressed air cannon, LAPD can blast a RFID tag onto a suspect's car, and track it with radio-transmitted GPS from a distance. The company behind the technology, StarChase, calls it "real-time tagging and tracking pursuit management." Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton calls it "incredible technology," according to a report on NBC4.tv. "Let them run, we'll just basically track them to wherever they finally dump the car," Bratton said in an interview with the station. StarChase said on its website there are more than 100,000 high-speed chases each year, which endanger everyone in the area of...

"labels GPS" to fight against the hit and run offences Los Angeles - the police force of Los Angeles will obtain a launcher of "étiquettes GPS" to track the motorists in hit and run offence. She thus hopes to reduce the risks incurred by her men at the time of track races at high speed. According to the chief of the police force of the city, William Bratton, the police cars of the Californian megalopolis will be equipped soon with launchers compressed-air, which will project adhesive "labels" on the vehicles of suspects taken in hunting. These "labels" contain a...

LAPD detectives are investigating whether a driver used his cellphone to call gang members to the scene of a police stop early Wednesday where gunmen shot up a cruiser with an officer inside. Ramon Pereyda and Victor Ledezma, who authorities identified as gang members, were later arrested and booked on suspicion of attempted murder. The driver, who remains at large, allegedly displayed gang signs and yelled at police as he drove his beige Honda Accord down a South Los Angeles street about 2 a.m., authorities said. A 27-year-old officer from the 77th Division followed the car onto the Harbor Freeway...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2006 – When Sgt. Brandon Valdez, a Marine Corps Reservist, was wounded by a roadside bomb during convoy duty in Ramadi, Iraq, in November 2004, his civilian employer, the Los Angeles Police Department, supported him to the fullest. In addition to continuing to make up the difference between his military and police pay and providing him his full employee benefits, the LAPD had a full-time military liaison officer available to help Valdez through his recovery. In an arrangement unique among police departments, Officer Dennis J. DeNoi, a retired Marine master sergeant, was on duty as the department's...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A man's death this summer has been ruled a homicide - nearly 40 years after he was shot and wounded. Los Angeles police shot 23-year-old Malcolm McWilliams during a confrontation on March 7, 1966. He was paralyzed from the waist down but lived for 39 more years, settling in a Dallas suburb. The coroner examined McWilliams' body and medical records and determined that his ailments - bowel and bladder problems, bed sores, gangrene that cost him some toes - were textbook examples of injuries suffered by somebody rendered a paraplegic from a shooting. The determination doesn't...

Even though Los Angeles is considered the epicenter of the fake ID trade, for years the problem didn't register as a high priority for an already burdened police force. The lack of consistent enforcement allowed the underground industry to build up until it was "out of control," said LAPD Officer Fernando Flores. [snip] "When you first get here, you don't know where to go," said Flores, 25, who lives in Huntington Park. "The people who have been here a long time tell you. Everybody knows you can buy papers in MacArthur Park." [snip] Mica [slang for laminated ID cards] mills...

The Los Angeles Police Department has instructed its officers to stop using Glock 21 pistols because of concerns that the weapons could misfire. According to Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell, the LAPD's Armory discovered that there may be a mechanical flaw with about two percent of the guns. Officials with Austria-based Glock Inc. are expected to investigate the matter with the LAPD next week, he said. The moratorium is being taken as a safety precaution for officers. The lighter-weight, easier-to-shoot Glocks were approved in August 2003. About 70 percent of law enforcement agencies across the country use Glocks, a futuristic-looking plastic...

Los Angeles police officers have been ordered to stop using Glock 21 semiautomatic handguns in the field after recent reports that the weapon misfired dozens of times during training and firearms qualifying sessions, department officials said Friday. The .45-caliber gun, favored by law enforcement for its power and accuracy, has been purchased by 1,600 of the roughly 9,100 Los Angeles Police Department officers for both on-the-job and personal use. The weapon also is popular with some of LAPD's elite units, including Metro K-9 and the Special Investigation Section. LAPD officials said they took the unusual step of ordering the gun...

CalGunLaws.com reports another example of how the natural right of self defense is infringed by the city of Los Angeles. In this case it's LAPD chief William Bratton's application for a concealed carry weapon permit, which you can view here.(pdf format) "Chief Bratton needed a permit because when he became Chief of LAPD he was not a sworn California peace officer legally entitled to carry a firearm. Bratton got a CCW, despite the fact that his 'good cause' justification for needing a CCW was completely inadequate under LAPD's current standards as applied to ordinary citizens." It's true that California law...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2005 – Representatives of the nation's top organizations in supporting their Reserve and National Guard employees are here today to meet President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and to receive the 2005 Secretary of Defense Freedom Award. The award, to be presented here during an Oct. 15 ceremony, publicly recognizes employers for exceptional support above what the law requires. The Freedom Award is the highest in a series of Defense Department employer awards that include the Patriot Award, the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Above and Beyond Award, and the Pro Patria Award....

Claims Are Precursor To Multimillion-Dollar Civil Lawsuit POSTED: 7:49 am PDT September 27, 2005 UPDATED: 7:59 am PDT September 27, 2005 LOS ANGELES -- The family of toddler Suzie Pena, who was killed when she was allegedly used as a shield by her father during a shootout with police, has filed claims against the city and police department, their attorney said. The claims, filed late Monday, are the precursor to a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit. They name police Chief William Bratton, the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department as defendants. "The claims specify the negligence of Chief...

Whenever Army Reservist Tom Deluccia went on assignment into the streets of Baghdad, developing informants and getting tips about insurgent networks, he worried about losing a limb to a roadside bomb. So the LAPD officer found it ironic that, after coming home unscathed from a year's deployment in the war zone, he was shot in the hand by a gang member in Cypress Park. "That's what's so crazy: I made it through a year there without a scratch, and I come back here and get shot," said Deluccia, one of about 500 officers and civilian employees of the Los Angeles...

Accidents will happen. But, as any insurance company will tell you, most accidents could have been prevented. That’s what allows an accident to become a tragedy. Consider Michael Sprinkles. The 37-year-old paramedic was riding his motorcycle home from work on Sept. 6 when the California Highway Patrol says a car crossed the double-yellow line and killed him. Sprinkles’ death could easily have been prevented. The driver of the car shouldn’t have been behind the wheel -- or even in this country. Suspect Juan Bibinz is an illegal alien. This isn’t Bibinz’s first brush with the law. He’s been arrested a...

KFI NEWS has obtained a copy of a flyer that's been circulated in South Los Angeles, calling on members of two violent street gangs to join the Nation of Islam in a jihad, or holy war, against the LAPD. The telephone number listed for the Nation of Islam's Los Angeles mosque near 87th and Vermont has been disconnected, but a check of a reverse directory reveals the phone number on the flyer is connected to the mosque at the same address. The NOI's Los Angeles leader Minister Tony Muhammad has claimed he was the victim of an unprovoked attack by...

IT HAS NEVER BEEN more dangerous to be a Los Angeles police officer. The danger lies not only in the risk of being shot, stabbed or otherwise injured. We train and mentally prepare for those times when we are called to put our lives on the line. But there is a danger, more difficult to prepare for, and it is more evident today than at any time in my two decades with the LAPD. [...] I accept these risks each day as I put on the uniform of my profession. What is much more difficult to accept, and all but...

LOS ANGELES - A Nation of Islam leader suspected of assaulting a police officer disobeyed orders during a vigil for a shooting victim, according to a transcript of the incident. When an officer asked Minister Tony Muhammad to "back up," during Thursday's vigil, Minister Tony Muhammad twice said "make me." A spokesman for the Nation of Islam had no comment on the transcript. The LAPD released the recording and transcript Saturday amid accusations that police beat up Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's western regional director. The audio recording that picked up the words had been a conversation between an officer...

L.A.’S NEW POLICE COMMISSIONER CAN’T BE TRUSTED Black Minister Calls For The Removal of John Mack As L.A. Police Commissioner Los Angeles- Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, today called for the new president of the Los Angeles Police Commission John Mack, to step down after allowing protestors to disrupt and take over the commission’s meeting Tuesday. About 200 mostly Black and Hispanic activists led by members of the Nation of Islam interrupted the meeting, shouting “No justice, no peace.” Protesters intimidated board members into moving the meeting to a...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version August 17, 2005, 8:08 a.m. Bratton? No. The police chief has some work to do before the rank-and-file will want him back. Once again, I have a bone to pick with the Los Angeles Times. In an editorial in Sunday's edition, the Times made the early case for retaining William Bratton as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department when his five-year contract expires in 2007. Bratton may indeed prove deserving of another term when the time comes, but for now many LAPD officers are unpersuaded. Granted, when compared to...

Serve and protect with one arm tied behind their back Why would anyone want to become a police officer when even self-defense is now deemed "excessive force" and "racist?" Those charges have been hurled at Los Angeles police officers, who, on July 10, shot to death 19-month-old Suzie Marie Pena -- because her father Jose Raul Pena held the child as a human shield as he fired a stolen semiautomatic handgun toward police. Pena had wounded one officer during a two-and-a-half-hour standoff. What's more, police had managed to rescue Suzie Marie's 17-year-old sister, who had called the police because Pena...