Free Republic

<p>A young man sprayed a police car with bullets from an assault rifle during a traffic stop, wounding an officer before being shot himself, authorities said Sunday.</p> <p>Two police officers pulled over a small black Honda in the Montecito Heights neighborhood northeast of downtown Los Angeles just after 11 p.m. Saturday.</p>

Angeles police officer assigned to the department's scandal-scarred Rampart Division was charged with making false arrests after he was caught in a sting operation, officials said. Authorities said Officer Edward Beltran Zamora arrested two undercover officers for investigation of drug possession, although a surveillance video showed they had no drugs.

A significant victory was won last week by Judicial Watch in its campaign to stop local law enforcement agencies from undermining federal immigration laws. California Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled against the Los Angeles Police Department in its attempt to halt Judicial Watch's lawsuit challenging Special Order 40, a policy that prohibits police officers from inquiring about an individual's immigration status and reportedly restricts police officers from fully cooperating with federal immigration officials. Here's what the Judge Treu had to say about the LAPD's “demurr” (motion to dismiss): “The parties have expended a great deal of energy arguing...

There’s a time and place for intimidation. By Jack Dunphy At about 4:30 in the afternoon on June 30, a dark-colored SUV pulled to a stop on 49th Street, just east of Central Avenue in south Los Angeles. While the driver waited in the SUV, two men armed with rifles got out and began shooting at a group of people gathered in the front yard of a home. Together the gunmen fired 38 rounds, and when they drove off moments later, two young men and a 10-year-old boy lay mortally wounded among the shell casings littering the street. A fourth...

I counted 60 of us, but then about 15 or so people showed up after I counted and a couple Americans walking by also joined us, so we were at least 75 strong!! Many had been at Laguna Beach in the morning. I am so PROUD of those Americans...such troopers!!!! We were plenty large enough to divide ourselves, so half went across the street where the shade was and the rest of us remained on the sunny side. We lined both sides of the streets and it was beautiful to see all the American flags on both sides!! I would...

IT IS LONG PAST TIME to retire outdated stereotypes of the Los Angeles Police Department. Unfortunately, a recent blue-ribbon panel has given them new life. Police Chief William J. Bratton commissioned the Rampart Review Panel in 2003 to evaluate whether his department was still at risk for a corruption scandal like the Rampart gang-unit fiasco of 1999. Ignoring the radical changes in the department over the last four years, the panel, chaired by civil rights attorney Constance Rice, incorrectly concluded that it was. Worse, it recycled old chestnuts about a racially insensitive, overly aggressive LAPD that will only make the...

On July 8th, a group of patriotic Americans marched to defend this great nation. Unfortunately Americans were aggressively counterprotested by illegals and their supporters which included the organization Answer LA. Answer LA members were especially aggressive and threw glass and other objects at us Americans. The crowd even were aggressive and threatening toward the LAPD. In response to their aggression, LAPD made 6 arrests (all the counterprotesters). One officer was hurt during the arrests. Now Answer LA is suing the LAPD for "police brutality and racism" due to the arrests on July 8th. Answer LA is hosting a rally on...

A defiant Police Chief William J. Bratton on Tuesday rejected a call to apologize for criticism of some Los Angeles City Council members, including Bernard C. Parks. Bratton said he had a right to speak his mind because the former police chief turned politician has been attacking him for more than a year. Bratton made the remarks a day after City Council President Eric Garcetti called on the chief to apologize for and recant a statement he made publicly that Parks and Councilman Dennis Zine "don't know what the hell they are talking about" when they criticized changes in LAPD...

LAPD has shut down the Los Angeles Central Library (the Riordan Library) and closed off 5th Street between Flower and Grand. Lots of LAPD and LA Fire on site. Several LAPD Bomb Squad cars and personnel there to.

Tuesday, July 11, 10 am National Lawyers Guild Office at the Peace Center 8124 W Third St, Los Angeles (Corner of Crescent Heights and Third) http://www.answerla.org/ For more info call 323-464-1636 or e-mail answerla@answerla.org. Join the National Lawyers Guild, ANSWER Coalition, Latino Movement USA and other progressive organizations for a press conference to denounce last weekend's attack by the Los Angeles Police Department on the immigrant rights movement. Speakers will include Jim Lafferty and Carol Sobel, National Lawyers Guild; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Ian Thompson, Attorney, ANSWER Coalition; victims of police violence at the protest and other...

An officer was injured and several people were arrested during an anti-illegal immigration march involving the Minuteman Project and other groups Saturday evening in Hollywood, police said. One female officer suffered a minor injury, apparently to her ankle, after clashing with protesters, said Officer Sandra Escalante, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department. KCAL-TV footage showed counter-protesters along the sidewalks shouting as anti-immigration demonstrators, including members of the Minuteman civilian border patrol group, marched along Hollywood Boulevard. Escalante said several people were arrested, though it wasn't immediately clear if they were part of the anti-immigration march or the counter-protest. Police...

. NEVER FORGET After being put on suspension from practicing Law for the 2nd time in his career Civil Rights Attorney STEPHEN YAGMAN told KNX Los Angeles Radio News that he was going to go on vacation for a month on his own Ranch/Farm in Communist Cuba. Yesterday now Federal Grand Jury-indicted Attorney STEPHEN YAGMAN, who has been doing all he can to shut down the Los Angeles Police Department and America's War on Terrorism, had his Passport pulled while paying $100,000 bail on charges Federal Tax Evasion. NEVER FORGET .

Kristina Ripatti, struck by a gunman's bullet and unable to move from the chest down, says she wants to continue to be there for her family. Los Angeles Police Officer Kristina Ripatti didn't hear the gunfire that changed her life. She didn't feel the bullet that plunged through her chest, nicked a rib, tore through a lung and severed her spine. And she never saw the gun in the suspect's hand — the part that bothers her most, she said. Ten years of reflexively watching people's hands for weapons, and she didn't see it. There was only an odor —...

A federal judge rebuked Los Angeles Police Department officials Monday by extending for three years a consent decree that orders reforms meant to counter a decade of corruption and brutality complaints. In a decision that caught leaders by surprise, U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess flatly rejected the city's plea that the five-year agreement — set to expire June 15 — be extended for just two years and narrowed in scope to the 30% of reforms not yet enacted. The agreement was largely born from the Rampart Division scandal in 1999 but included elements that police critics have been calling...

SAN LUIS OBISBO, Calif. - Former Los Angeles police chief and state Sen. Ed Davis, whose tough rhetoric during the turbulent 1970s made him popular with conservatives, died Saturday, a family spokesman said. He was 89. Davis died of complications from pneumonia at a hospital in San Luis Obispo, family spokesman Rob Wilcox said. He had been hospitalized since April 12, and his situation worsened Friday night, Wilcox said. In more than 50 years in public service, Davis rose through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department from street cop to chief from 1969 to 1978. Known for his...

a recent predawn roll call at the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division was emblematic of the profound changes that the LAPD has undergone in recent years. As two dozen officers were briefed on crime in their area, they were aided by computerized maps showing hot spots in the division's neighborhoods. Most telling, however, were the people themselves. Of the morning patrol officers who took their places on wooden benches — some things don't change — fewer than half were white. There were at least as many Hispanic officers as whites, and in the parking lot outside, an Asian...

The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave City Journal ^ | Winter 2004 | Heather Mac Donald City JournalThe Illegal-Alien Crime WaveWhy can’t our immigration authorities deport the hordes of illegal felons in our cities?Heather Mac Donald Winter 2004 Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as...

Even as it struggles to expand, the Los Angeles Police Department will face a dramatic departure of seasoned veterans when a special retirement program enacted four years ago to keep senior detectives and commanders in the ranks begins pushing them into mandatory retirement next year. The exodus will be caused by a deferred retirement program meant to give the LAPD time to fill veterans' shoes and build its ranks over several years. Budget problems kept that expansion from going as planned. Now, more than 1,600 officers and city firefighters will be required to retire over the next five years, and...

O.J. Simpson's daughter is expected back in court today. Sydney Simpson, 20, was granted a continuance last month on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct stemming from an incident at Everglades School last year. She was arrested in January 2005 after refusing to stop yelling at officers outside the school. Witnesses said that Simpson got into a scuffle after she thought someone had made negative comments about her mother.

(Sylmar, CA) -- Traffic on the 210 foothill freeway was blocked for four hours Monday while the LAPD Bomb Squad and military bomb experts dealt with a 400-to-500 pound device that turned out to be harmless. The device, which was discovered along the roadside of the 210 between Polk Street and Yarnell, was finally removed after military personnel identified it as a Mark 84, a dummy bomb used in military exercises. Officials do not know how it got there.