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Two Los Angeles police officers were killed Sunday morning in apparently unrelated traffic accidents about ten miles apart on the 101 Freeway, officials said. The first accident occurred around 3:30 a.m. in the Hollywood area when Detective George Selleh, 52, collided his motorcycle into a disabled car, California Highway Patrol Spokesman Alex Delgadillo said. Selleh, who was on his way to a movie set where he was providing security when the accident occurred, died at the scene Delgadillo said. At least 10 other drivers also swerved to miss the car and became involved in the accident, he said. The entire...

A key committee recommended Monday that the Los Angeles City Council add 44 counterterrorism officers to the LAPD, even as two council members warned the move could strain the department's ability to fully train and equip patrol officers. The council's Public Safety Committee voted 4-0 to fund the homeland security initiative, expected to cost $1.27 million this year, and pay for extensive surveillance activities. Councilman Dennis Zine, who voted for the initiative, voiced his dismay after learning that the Los Angeles Police Department would pay for the program using money originally earmarked for the purchase of 1,250 new Tasers. And...

Los Angeles police officer was arrested Saturday in South Los Angeles in connection with a sexual assault, police said today. Police said Officer Hector Villalta was arrested on July 7 after he allegedly sexually assaulted a female companion at his home after he and the woman returned from a nightclub in South Los Angeles. After the assault, the woman ran from the residence to a local gas station where she called police. Villalta was booked on suspicion of sexual assault. He was released on $100,000 bail the following day, police said. He is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles...

VAN NUYS - A 27-year-old Los Angeles police officer who worked at the Valley Traffic Division was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, police said this morning. Brian Lawrence Gossh was booked into the Los Angeles County Jail on misdemeanor DUI charges and released, said LAPD Officer Karen Smith, a spokeswoman. He was arrested in Van Nuys after noon Sunday, police said. Details about the arrest were not immediately available. Police declined to say whether it was drugs or alcohol. A call placed to Gossh's West Hollywood home seeking comment was not immediately returned. In 2000, the Daily...

LOS ANGELES -- Decrying the police actions that marred a May 1 demonstration, thousands of immigrants and their advocates on Thursday marched peacefully down 10 blocks to a candlelight vigil at MacArthur Park in support of immigrant rights. Led by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, the march began with community leaders calling for a probe into Los Angeles Police Department tactics at the earlier demonstration, now being called the May Day Melee. Several people, including seven journalists, were injured that day by officers in riot gear firing rubber bullets and wielding batons on crowds of...

The clash between LAPD officers and demonstrators at a May 1 immigration rally will likely result in multimillion-dollar legal judgments that will be a "waste" of taxpayer dollars, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said today. The mayor's comments came during an appearance on KNBC and nearly two weeks after a televised altercation showed police wielding batons and firing rubber bullets at protestors and journalists in MacArthur Park. As the LAPD and Police Commission investigate the melee, the city has asked participants and witnesses to come forward with information and any video or photos. Villaraigosa said evidence provided by bystanders will be a...

LOS ANGELES - The Police Department's violent response at the end of an immigrant demonstration is the latest incident highlighting what critics describe as the force's "warrior culture." It's an ethos that's been on display before — the use of clubs and tear gas to disperse 15,000 peaceful anti-war protesters in Century City in 1967, the Watts riots, the Rodney King beating in 1991, the harsh crackdown on demonstrators at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

It’s another fine, sunny day in Los Angeles, where being a cop means always having to say you’re sorry. I already mentioned the MacArthur Park May Day riot in my last installment. Since then, the mayor of Los Angeles, the Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa, with a little help from the LA Times, has stirred the pot. Mayor Villaraigosa made an appearance at an inner city Catholic church last Saturday (Cinco de Mayo, which is now a bigger deal in LA than Independence Day ever was) to promise “There will be consequences.” The LA Times chose to report this under a headline...

The first scapegoats in the May Day melee walk the plank. By Jack Dunphy On Friday, word circulated through the Los Angeles Police Department that a protest rally was being planned for the following day in MacArthur Park, the scene of last Tuesday’s May Day melee. A colleague asked me if I would be interested in adjusting my schedule and working crowd control at the rally. I declined. The rally turned out to be a spectacular dud, as it happened, attracting far more cops and reporters than protesters, but staying clear of it was nonetheless the wiser course. In fact,...

The highest-ranking offical at MacArthur Park immigration rally has been demoted from deputy-chief to commander, officals announced today, as the fallout continued over the clash between police and demonstrators

In a show of solidarity with families confronted by police during Tuesday's immigrant rally at MacArthur Park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told Cinco de Mayo audiences around Los Angeles on Saturday that action would be taken against officers found to have violated the law. The mayor stepped up to a downtown pulpit Saturday night and vowed, "There will be consequences.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton on Sunday offered his strongest apology yet for the actions of an elite platoon of Metropolitan Division officers who swarmed a May Day immigration rally in MacArthur Park, and said that those officers are off the streets until he finds out what went wrong. Saying he watched extensive videos of Tuesday's incident, which left several reporters and rally attendees injured by batons and rounds of foam bullets and sock-like projectiles, Bratton called the officers' conduct indefensible. "I feel comfortable apologizing…. Things were done that shouldn't have been done," Bratton told a group of...

LAPD Acts Against Elite Police Squad Los Angeles Police Chief Says Elite Officers In May Day Melee Off The Street, Will Face Consequences LOS ANGELES, May 7, 2007 This video image provided by KVEA/Telemundo shows KCAL cameraman Carl Stein on the ground during a police response during an immigrants rights rally, Tuesday May 1, 2007, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/KVEA/Telemundo) (AP) Police Chief William Bratton said Sunday that up to 60 members of an elite squad that swarmed into a park and fired rubber bullets during a May Day immigration rally are no longer on the street. Bratton said he spent...

The FBI will open a civil rights inquiry into the Los Angeles Police Department's actions at an immigration rally where officers cleared a city park by wielding batons and firing rubber bullets. The preliminary inquiry seeks to determine "whether the civil rights of protesters taking part in the May 1st immigration rally were violated," according to an FBI news release issued on Thursday. Police Chief William J Bratton had said earlier on Thursday that he planned to meet next week with the FBI to see whether a bureau probe of Tuesday's clashes at MacArthur Park was possible. "I have no...

LOS ANGELES -- Police Chief William J. Bratton said Thursday he would meet with the FBI to discuss the possibility of a federal inquiry into his officers' use of force to break up an immigration rally this week. Bratton told a news conference he had talked with the head of the FBI's Los Angeles office Thursday morning and would meet with him next week to "speak to the issues that occurred May 1 and also the idea of possibly having the FBI take a look at this." The chief said he hoped a federal review would show the department has...

Los Angeles (AP) -- William Bratton, the nation's most famous man in blue, was tapped to lead a Los Angeles Police Department shamed by scandal and to win public trust while stamping out crime in the gang-ridden neighborhoods most distrustful of police. Five years later, he is up for another contract and on an offensive to show his progress to a public shocked by images of police violently clashing with protesters Tuesday at an immigration rally. Bratton's bid for a new contract has earned endorsements from key groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and most City Council members. And...

POSTER'S NOTE: This has been edited to remove, per FR rules, solitications from ANSWER.The ANSWER Coalition unequivocally condemns the brutal, unprovoked Los Angeles Police Department attack on immigrant families, media reporters and camerapersons and others in MacArthur Park on May 1. The LAPD’s racism and violent nature has been displayed once again for the world to see.  We demand that Mayor Villaraigosa and all city officials take immediate action to bring the officers involved to justice. We also demand that the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners fire LAPD Chief William Bratton. On May 1, tens of thousands of protesters...

Draw your own conclusions. In part one you will hear the cops talking about being pelted with rocks and bottles at around the 11 minute mark. People were throwing stuff from apartments too. At around the 14 minute mark someone starts a fire. Note that the media ignored many of these facts. Police Intercept #1: http://www.alhambra-insider.info/rad...pts/LAPD01.mp3 In part two the rowdiness starts around the 05:30 mark. Some jokes around 10:50. At around 14:10 there is talk of people throwing bottles at cars. At 16 minutes they start going after some of the mobsters. Police Intercept #2 http://www.alhambra-insider.info/rad...pts/LAPD02.mp3

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Police Chief William J. Bratton said Wednesday that some of the police tactics used to clear immigration protesters from a park were inappropriate, as news videos showed officers striking people with batons and firing rubber bullets into crowds that included children. Images showed police hitting a television cameraman to the ground and shoving people who were walking away from officers at Tuesday's demonstration. Some injured people were seen in the videos, including a Hispanic man with a bleeding welt on his stomach and back.

Rallies draw a fraction of last year's crowd as activists ponder the movement's future. Clash erupts in evening. Waving U.S. flags and demanding citizenship for undocumented immigrants, tens of thousands of jubilant protesters marched through the streets of Los Angeles on Tuesday during a mostly peaceful day that ended with clashes between police and demonstrators in MacArthur Park. Fifteen police officers were among those hurt. About 10 people were taken from MacArthur Park by ambulance to hospitals for treatment, said d'Lisa Davies, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. She said the injuries mainly were cuts, including head and...