Free Republic

The LAPD's assault on SWAT Would you rather have an elite fighting force made up of the best cops, or of officers who 'look like L.A.'? By Robert C.J. Parry March 16, 2008 On a Sunday afternoon in the summer of 2005, Jose Peña fueled himself with cocaine and grabbed a 9-millimeter pistol. Waving the gun at the head of his 19-month-old daughter, Suzie, he told the LAPD officers who arrived at the scene that he was Tony Montana -- the character played by Al Pacino in "Scarface" -- and that he was going to kill his daughter and himself....

When Los Angeles cops busted through Mae Phillips' front door last month looking for her grandson, they blew out the door jamb, ripped out casing and drywall, and left the shattered remains hanging by the hinges. But just as sometimes happens in the movies, the suspect wasn't there - and Phillips became the unwitting victim in a real-life police raid seeking members and associates of a Venice street gang. Enter LAPD's little-known "Wrong Doors Unit" - also known as Mark Jenkins. "Mistakes do happen now and then," said Jenkins, a civilian carpenter with the Los Angeles Police Department. "We're just...

LOS ANGELES - A jury awarded a man a $1.3 million verdict, saying deputies used excessive force when they peppered his sport utility vehicle with 66 bullets. Winston Hayes, 46, suffered nine bullet wounds when deputies fired 120 shots at him at the end of a low-speed pursuit on May 9, 2005. More than half the bullets hit Hayes' vehicle. "Justice was done," Hayes said after the verdict. "We do hope this verdict acts as a catalyst for building relationships between the Sheriff's Department and the community it serves," said Brian Dunn, Hayes' attorney. Lawyers for the county declined comment....

MORE THAN 100 YEARS AGO, Drew Street was a beautiful green spot named by pioneer Andrew Glassell after his son, Drew. For most of the 20th century, it was a tucked-away suburban enclave flanked by the Los Angeles River and Glendale's Forest Lawn cemetery. Then, starting in the 1960s, the city built apartments on its dead-end streets and avenues — and a bad element moved in, seeing the isolated little neighborhood as the perfect lair. Drew Street, with its long, straight rise, offered the perfect viewing base from which to espy approaching cop cars. It turned out to be just...

A gunman fired into a crowd of children and adults at a South Los Angeles bus stop Wednesday, wounding eight, authorities said. Three girls, ages 10 to 12, and a woman were in critical condition. The gunman ran away, and streets in the area were shut down as numerous police officers rushed in. Ezequiel Cornejo, 23, a tire mechanic, said he heard about 10 gunshots, probably from a handgun, just after neighborhood schools let out. "After that I saw a little girl running, she was running back to the school, she was holding her arm," he said. The shooting occurred...

Eight people, including five under the age of 15, were shot at a bus stop south of downtown Los Angeles this afternoon, officials said. Witnesses told police that a man opened fire multiple times into a crowd waiting for buses at Central and Vernon avenues shortly after 3 p.m. The gunman exited a bus and argued with someone on the street before firing his weapon, said LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith. "It appears he was shooting indiscriminately into the crowd at the bus stop. It was a busy area and it is not clear who he was shooting at, but he...

Thousands stranded, schools locked down as notorious group battles the LAPD after a drive-by killing. A drive-by attack followed by a wild shootout between gang members and police shut down dozens of blocks of Northeast Los Angeles for nearly six hours Thursday afternoon, stranding thousands of residents, keeping students locked in their classrooms and leaving two people dead. Veteran L.A. Police Department officials described the bizarre midday shootings -- and the widespread disruption they caused -- as highly unusual even in an area known for gang activity. It left the neighborhood littered with shell casings and its residents fearful. Police...

Los Angeles police shot and killed one man and wounded another after a wild incident in northeast Los Angeles that began when one of the suspects jumped out of a car stopped for a traffic violation and began firing on officers with an AK47 rifle, authorities said. Two suspects remain at large. One is believed to be barricaded inside an apartment building in a neighborhood now surrounded by police. A fourth suspect apparently fled the area in a vehicle, officials said. The incident began shortly after noon when officers attempted to make a traffic stop near Drew Street and Estara...

Hello All, I wanted to pass along some observations for people that weren't able to make it to Randy's funeral yesterday. I don't think I ever met Randy, but had heard of him from others following his death. I think like a lot of officers, we wanted to show up to pay our respects. I figured out some years ago that a lot of the funerals are really for the families, since we are really writing the last "chapter" of our officer's professional life, from the perspective of their family. I figured that if a lot officers show up, and...

LOS ANGELES - One veteran SWAT officer was killed and another wounded during a shootout with a man who called police and said he had killed three members of his family, police said Thursday. The standoff with the barricaded gunman continued at 5 a.m., first-assistant police Chief Jim McDonnell said at a news conference. The standoff started at 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man called police and said he had killed three members of his family, McDonnell said. When the SWAT officers arrived, there was a shootout and the pair were shot.

LOS ANGELES, February 8, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An article published today in the LA Times gives new details about five abortion mills in southern California, owned by Bertha Bugarin, that were raided last summer by a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, the Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force (HALT).At the time of the raids Bertha Bugarin and her sister were arrested and then released on bail. They have now been charged with practicing medicine without a license on five patients in February and March 2007. The LAPD charges Bertha Bugarin "with five felony counts of practicing...

Pistol for police marketed to the public City leaders criticize the modified version of a gun originally made for an elite unit of the Los Angeles Police Department that has a history of fatal shootings. By Richard Winton Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 12, 2008 To the dismay of some city leaders, a gun company is marketing a line of high-end pistols named for the LAPD's Special Investigation Section, an elite group of plainclothes detectives with a history of fatally shooting suspects. The guns for the undercover unit were created at the request of the Los Angeles Police Department....

Since yesterday's post about Cardinal Mahony's claim that he was violently assaulted this summer is receiving a great deal of traction, I've decided to post an update. For starters, in today's world you can't simply mention to your priests "Oh, and by the way I was assaulted" and expect it to stay quiet. Indeed, LAPD detectives began investigating Mahony's report yesterday (the same day the story went public): LAPD detectives Tuesday began investigating reports that Cardinal Roger Mahony told hundreds of priests he was assaulted by a man angered over the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal, police said. Police found...

...after 30 years of the institutionalized intellectual vandalism of our city’s most precious and needy children, when will we call it DELIBERATE regularity? If LAUSD was a private company, it would have collapsed a generation ago like the stinking necrotic tumor it is. LAUSD is a criminal enterprise – a $30 billion dollar (allegedly $11B operations, $21B construction) protection racket that extorts tax dollars under the pretext of improvement and higher scores. It makes schools I’ve seen in Calcutta, Rio, and Nairobi look like Cal Tech and MIT. ....LAUSD makes us lament the good old days before Brown v. Board...

A police plan to map out Muslim communities that was sharply criticized and called racial and religious profiling by civil rights groups has been at least temporarily halted, a police spokeswoman said Wednesday. "There was a clear message from the Muslim community that they were not comfortable with it. So we listened," Mary Grady, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, told The Associated Press. Grady said the program hadn't been dropped, but rather had been indefinitely postponed. She couldn't immediately say when it might be resumed. Grady said the police initiative to strengthen ties with Muslim communities would go...

"Civil rights advocates criticized plans by the Los Angeles Police Department to map the city's Muslim communities, calling it racial profiling. The LAPD's counterterrorism bureau plans to identify Muslim enclaves in order to determine which might be likely to become isolated and susceptible to "violent, ideologically based extremism," said Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing on Thursday." "Downing testified about the plan before a U.S. Senate committee on Oct. 30. In his testimony, Downing said his bureau wanted to "take a deeper look at the history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socioeconomic status and social interactions" of the city's Muslim communities....

An extensive mapping program launched by the LAPD's anti-terrorism bureau to identify Muslim enclaves across the city sparked outrage Thursday from some Islamic groups and civil libertarians, who denounced the effort as an exercise in racial and religious profiling. Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing, who heads the bureau, defended the undertaking as a way to help Muslim communities avoid the influence of those who would radicalize Islamic residents and advocate "violent, ideologically-based extremism."

Officers will impound unlicensed drivers' cars under some conditions only, pending a legal assessment of a ruling in an Oregon case. The Los Angeles Police Department has imposed a moratorium on impounding the vehicles of unlicensed drivers amid concerns that the practice may be unconstitutional, officials said Tuesday. The decision touches on what has long been a hot-button issue, because many unlicensed drivers who have their cars towed are illegal immigrants who cannot get driver's licenses. Immigrant rights groups and some legislators for years LAPD officials said they decided to stop impounding until the city attorney's office provides a final...

LAPD is Taking Laws Into Its Own Hands The Police Department shouldn't be able to pick and choose the laws it wants to enforce. Los Angeles, CA -- When federal agents busted down doors raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles in July, Los Angeles Police Department officers were their comrades in arms. The department's assistance in the raids infuriated some City Council members, who chastised them Wednesday for cooperating with the Drug Enforcement Agency and for enforcing federal drug laws that are in conflict with California's medical marijuana law and the will of the public. They even threatened to...

A Lawndale man was arrested by Redondo Beach police Monday, accused of threatening the life of a family member and stabbing a police dog, authorities said. Jimmie Lunceford, 39, allegedly stabbed the dog, apparently in an effort to get officers to shoot him, said Lt. Joe Hoffman, a spokesman for the department. Lunceford was arrested on felony counts of making terrorist threats, inflicting injury on a police dog and attempted burglary, along with misdemeanor evading arrest. Lunceford was taken into custody about 5 a.m. after a short slow-speed chase that ended outside a woman's home on the 2200 block of...