L.A. County sheriff’s deputies shot and wounded a Bell man Tuesday when he answered his door armed with a gun, a department spokesman said.
No deputies were injured in the 11:30 a.m. incident in the 6000 block of Bear Avenue, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. The man’s condition was not immediately known.
Details were sketchy, but Whitmore said the deputy-involved shooting occurred as members of the department’s special enforcement bureau were assisting the Bell Police Department with an "armed, assault with a deadly weapon suspect."
As deputies arrived and began taking up positions, the man "came to the door armed with a firearm," Whitmore said.
"A shooting ensued, resulting in the suspect being shot," he said
Los Angeles police shut down streets encompassing a five-square-block area of downtown Monday afternoon after several men were seen on the roof of a hotel with weapons that turned out to be air guns.
The incident was reported about 4 p.m. at the Huntington Hotel. The four or five men, who appeared to be young adults, were on top of the building bounded by Spring and Main Streets near 8th Street, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Video shot from a KABC Channel 7 helicopter showed several men on the roof who appeared to be wielding handguns as they walked around on the roof. After a brief time, they disappeared down a stairwell, appearing to stash the weapons inside.
Police conducted a search and discovered the air guns. Officers at the scene say several youths with toy air guns were questioned at the residential hotel but were not arrested.
"From a technical standpoint, there is no crime," said Lt. Paul Vernon
of the LAPD. "But I would classify this as felony stupid. No one should
be on the roof of a downtown hotel with handguns — real or not."
[Updated 7:26 p.m.: As officers entered the building, an LAPD sniper had to make a quick decision about whether to pull his trigger, Vernon said. The sniper had his sights fixed on one of the men, who was leaning over the roof with his weapon, which appeared to be a Tec-9 sub-machine gun. But it was not pointed at the officers.
"Had he pointed that gun at the officers, he would have lost his life," Vernon said.]
Los Angeles police arrested 19 people on suspicion of trespassing at the Kodak Theatre during the Academy Awards ceremony, officials said Monday.
Those arrested Sunday included two men from Texas who jumped a barricade outside the event and nine students "on holiday" who used fake MTV credentials to gain access to the red carpet.
The students, in their 20s, were detained after they began taking pictures, drawing attention from security personnel.
Also arrested was a Berkeley man in his late 60s who was intoxicated and wearing "a sparkly getup," a police report said. Another half-dozen people were arrested after the ceremony as the theater was being cleaned, LAPD officials said.
Prosecutors charged a trio of suspected identity thieves each with nearly two dozen criminal charges Monday for allegedly taking $2 million by using credit card skimming technology at gas pumps.
Albert Jose Gonzalez, 39, of Lancaster, Josue Gustavo Albizuras, 42, of Los Angeles, and Cesar Vasquez Echeverria, 28, of Santa Clarita were arrested Feb. 25 after a three-year investigation by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and FBI. They face multiple counts of conspiracy, identity theft, grand theft and computer access fraud.
The suspects, who have pleaded not guilty and are being held in lieu of $2 million bail each, are accused of installing sophisticated skimming devices on computerized pay pumps at gas stations to record credit and debit card information and personal identifying numbers from unsuspecting customers.
The defendants later returned "to harvest the information" by downloading it to computers or other digital devices, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.
At the time of the arrests, authorities had recovered 10,000 stolen credit and debit card numbers, as well as computers, cellphones, digital storage devices and equipment designed to make and encode credit and debit cards. They also confiscated $40,000 in cash and luxury vehicles, including a new Porsche and a Ferrari.
If convicted on all counts, the men face a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in state prison.
Prosecutors will not file charges against two paparazzi arrested by security guards during a weekend taping of "The Bachelor" TV show at a Palos Verdes luxury hotel, authorities said Wednesday.
Maximiliano Lopez, 28, of Torrance and Eric Brogmus, 22, of Burbank were booked by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies Saturday on suspicion of misdemeanor battery and unlawful blocking of a sidewalk after a citizen’s arrest.
But the L.A. County district attorney’s office, which handles prosecutions of misdemeanor crimes committed in county jurisdiction, said there was insufficient evidence to charge the men.
The incident unfolded Saturday when the photographers and other paparazzi attempted to snap pictures and video of "Bachelor" participants as they were arriving for the wedding of "Bachelor" couple Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney.
Video posted to the X17online website shows a security guard choking one of the photographers and taking him to the ground on a path leading to the ocean as other paparazzi shout at the men to stop.
Sheriff’s deputies detained the two men after security guards insisted the photographers be booked on a citizen’s arrest.
With deep cuts expected to move hundreds of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies from desk duties to street patrols, don’t be surprised to see the most visible of their ranks cruising in a patrol car or walking the halls of the County Jail.
Sheriff Lee Baca told The Times he plans to "lead from the front" with the rest of his command staff, from the rank of captain and above, to fill possible shift gaps caused by cuts in overtime.
“I will go out into the field and into the jails,” Baca said Tuesday, noting he would be working those assignments once or twice a month and possibly weekend shifts in coming weeks.
Plans call for the Sheriff’s Department to reduce its budget by $128 million over the next 16 months, amounting to about 9% of the nearly $1.3-billion total it receives from the county.
The overtime reduction will save about $58 million, and the department will glean another $26 million in savings by transferring hundreds of inmates from the 1,900-bed detention center in Castaic to other jails in the county system, said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.
The department also will eliminate 300 frozen positions for a savings of $44 million.
Baca said everyone will have to make sacrifices in the tough budget environment.
"We don’t join law enforcement agencies to provide services based on convenience," Baca said. "Police work is the ultimate career of inconvenience."
— Andrew Blankstein
Photo: L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca. Credit: Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Police Department has apologized to the family of the late Robert F. Kennedy and removed items from a homicide exhibit in Las Vegas that included the dress shirt worn by the senator when he was assassinated in 1968, officials said Tuesday night.
The shirt was among a number of items included in the highly publicized display at the 2010 California Homicide Investigators Assn. Conference, which is being hosted by the LAPD. The crime-scene evidence can be seen by the general public for the next two days.
The multimedia exhibit at the Palms Casino Resort features photographs, videos and evidence from the vaults of the LAPD and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
The department bills the 8,000-square-foot display as a first-ever look at homicide evidence from some of the city’s most notorious cases. "Behind-The-Scenes: The LAPD Homicide Experience" was publicized by the department as including materials that have never been seen in or outside a courtroom.
The showcased items were gleaned from the last 100 years. They include the 1997 Bank of America shootout in North Hollywood, the Black Dahlia slaying, the death investigation of actress Marilyn Monroe, the SLA shootout, the "Onion Field" killing and the bloody Manson family murders.
Also on display was evidence connected to the assassination of Sen. Kennedy, who was shot to death by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. Kennedy was mortally wounded in a kitchen pantry moments after declaring victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
Members of the Kennedy family and others were offended that items — including a shirt, tie and jacket — worn by the late senator would be displayed, LAPD officials said.
Those items, which were on display to the media most of Tuesday, were removed and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck apologized to the family.
Reached by phone Tuesday night, Beck said the Kennedy items were removed immediately after he was contacted by one of the family members.
"The last thing we want to do is traumatize a victim’s family and I am very sensitive to that," Beck said. "But at the same time, we want to preserve the history of the city of Los Angeles and improve the quality and understanding about our homicide investigations."
He noted that there were "significant lessons" that law enforcement experts around the world could learn from examining not only the high-profile crimes themselves but the resulting media attention and notoriety connected to them.
— Andrew Blankstein
Photo: Artwork created for the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. Credit: Jennifer Kohnke/TMS.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff”s Department is considering dramatic cuts to its budget that would include downsizing the Pitchess Detention Center in northern L.A. County as well as moving hundreds of administrators and desk-duty deputies into street patrols.
L.A. County officials have told the Sheriff’s Department they want reductions of $128 million or 9% of the nearly $1.3 billion the county budgets for the department, said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore. These reductions would take place over the next 16 months.
"Sheriff [Lee] Baca is working in conjunction with the county supervisors to find the most effective way to make these drastic cuts," Whitmore said. "The sheriff is committed to not laying anybody off. His proposals will protect jobs."
Most of the savings — about $58 million — would be achieved through reductions in overtime, Whitmore said. As a result, Whitmore said, many of the uniformed deputy sheriffs assigned to administrative duties would be "working schedules that otherwise would be worked by deputies performing overtime."
The group would include the sheriff’s command staff and even Sheriff Lee Baca himself.
"He may be a watch commander, he may go back out on patrol," Whitmore said. "Wherever the need is greatest, he will fulfill that role. The sheriff’s message is clear. We’re all in this together, we all have to make sacrifices."
Another significant move will be to transfer hundreds of inmates from the 1,900-bed north facility of Pitchess to other jails in the county system. That would save about $26 million, although the facility would remain open with a significantly smaller inmate population.
Whitmore said the Sheriff’s Department plans to eliminate 300 frozen positions at savings of $44 million.
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Tuesday that a final determination of what caused the death of entertainer Marie Osmond’s 18-year-old son would be deferred pending further investigation.
Michael Blosil died Friday night after authorities said he jumped from the roof or balcony of a downtown residential building in an apparent suicide.
Ed Winter, assistant chief at the L.A. County coroner’s office said an autopsy had been performed on Blosil, the son of Osmond and her ex-husband, Brian Blosil. But an official cause of death would be delayed pending the outcome of toxicology tests, which typically take four to six weeks.
Los Angeles police patrol officers were initially dispatched to the call, but the case was not turned over to detectives as it was determined that Blosil had killed himself.
Investigators believe Blosil fell 15 stories after leaping off the building where he lived. A suicide note was left behind, but officials said the contents would not be released to the public.
Friends and neighbors told authorities that Blosil, who was majoring in apparel manufacturing at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, had been struggling with depression.
Photo: Flowers were left Saturday on the sidewalk outside the downtown apartment building where Michael Blosil died. Credit: Christie D’Zurilla / Los Angeles Times
Security guards at a luxury hotel in Rancho Palos Verdes made a citizen’s arrest of two paparazzi who were trying to snap pictures during a weekend taping of ABC’s "The Bachelor," authorities said Monday.
The photographers were booked by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of misdemeanor battery and unlawful blocking of a sidewalk, said department spokesman Steve Whitmore.
The men were identified as Maximiliano Lopez, 28, of Torrance, and Eric Brogmus, 22, of Burbank. They were cited and released Saturday but must appear in court March 28, Whitmore said. [Updated 11:17 a.m.: Sheriff’s officials earlier said Brogmus was from New York City.]
The incident took place about 2:45 p.m. Saturday at Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes. The photographers were part of a large contingent of paparazzi attempting to get pictures and video of "Bachelor" participants as they were arriving for the wedding of "Bachelor" couple Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney.
Video posted to the X17online website shows a security guard choking one of the photographers and taking him to the ground on a path leading to the ocean as other paparazzi shout at the men to stop.
Whitmore said security guards insisted the photographers be booked on a citizen’s arrest. He added that deputies interviewed witnesses who confirmed the security guard’s version of events but said the investigation into the fracas would continue.
"We will certainly be looking into this," Whitmore said.
— Andrew Blankstein
Photo: Jason Mesnick surrounded by "The Bachelor" contestants. Credit: ABC
[For the record: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to Terranea Resort as Tillanea.]
Los Angeles police said Monday that the investigation into the death of Michael Blosil, the 18-year-old son of entertainer Marie Osmond, would be handled by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Friends and neighbors told authorities that Blosil had been struggling with depression when he jumped to his death Friday night from a downtown Los Angeles apartment building.
"It appears it was a suicide," said LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon. "This is a young man from a close-knit family. It’s very tragic."
Los Angeles patrol officers were initially dispatched to the call, but the case was not turned over to detectives as it was quickly determined that Blosil, a major in apparel manufacturing at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, battled depression before his death.
Investigators believe Blosil, one of seven children of Osmond and her ex-husband, Brian Blosil, fell 15 stories after jumping from a roof or balcony of the building where he lived. He left behind a suicide note, the contents of which were not disclosed.
— Andrew Blankstein
Photos: Flowers were left on the sidewalk, top, outside the Met
apartment building on South Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles on
Saturday night. At right, a banner outside the entrance to the building.
Credit: Christie D’Zurilla / Los Angeles Times. More at Ministry of Gossip.
The executive director of Napa State Hospital, a Northern California mental institution whose patients include convicted child molesters, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of sexually molesting a foster child in his care for more than a decade.
Claude Edward Foulk, 62 had been charged Tuesday with 35 felony counts, including 22 counts of forcible oral copulation, 11 counts of sodomy by use of force and two counts of forcible lewd act on a child, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors asked that bail be set at $3.5 million.
If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 280 years in state prison.
An appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Foulk allegedly began molesting the then-10-year-old boy in the fall of 1992, shortly after taking him in as a foster child. They lived in Long Beach at the time, authorities said.
The molestation allegedly continued through 2003, after Foulk and the youth moved to Walnut.
Prosecutors said there are "numerous" additional victims "who fall outside the statute of limitations." According to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office, they cannot pursue cases of molestation that occurred before 1988 because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Police were alerted to the allegations of sexual assault last year after one alleged victim, now in his 40s, discovered that Foulk was in charge of a hospital in Northern California.
Neither Foulk nor his attorney could be reached for comment.
State officials released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying Foulk had been removed from his job.
[Updated at 3:36 p.m. "Long Beach police served an arrest warrant
at Napa State Hospital today, taking Executive
Director Claude Edward Foulk into custody on
felony charges of child molestation," the statement read. "Foulk served
as executive director at the hospital from 2007 to
the present. The charges are related to incidents
that predate Mr. Foulk’s tenure at Napa State Hospital.
Mr. Foulk’s employment with the Department of Mental
Health has been terminated, effective immediately.”]
Four robbery suspects were arrested early Wednesday after fleeing into the main Los Angeles Times printing plant while being pursued by sheriff’s deputies.
Sheriff’s officials said the suspects, who were captured about 1 a.m. in the 2000 block of E. 8th Street, are suspected of committing two street robberies in East Los Angeles.
The four suspects and two unidentified women, who were questioned and later released, were spotted by deputies at 12:10 a.m. after the second robbery at Atlantic and Olympic boulevards. Deputies pursued them briefly, traversing the Santa Ana and San Bernardino freeways.
The suspects exited near Mateo Street before crashing into a fence at The Times’ Olympic printing plant in the 1300 block of Lemon Street. The suspects fled on foot to the parking lot, into the building and through the packaging department as trucks were being loaded with the morning newspapers.
Times supervisors at the plant were asked by deputies to shut down and evacuate the building. After some negotiations, the presses continued to run. For a short time, no trucks were allowed to leave the property.
Deputies agreed to allow delivery trucks to leave the plant after being searched.
Eventually, three underage males and a 20-year-old man were arrested.
— Andrew Blankstein
Photo: Suspects’ vehicle after it crashed into a fence at The Times’ Olympic printing plant.
Two bike messengers saved the day for a Los Angeles man Monday when they chased a bike thief for five blocks downtown and then knocked him to the ground, causing him to flee, police said.
Tobar returned to the gym to ask if there was any security surveillance video. But two bike couriers had seen his $500 bike being taken and had already set off after the thief.
The couriers pedaled through downtown at high speed on a chase that traversed sidewalks and busy streets, said LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith. Eventually, one of the messengers was able to grab the thief’s shirt and pull him to the ground.
The man then took off on foot and the couriers reclaimed the bike.
"This was a wild, high-speed bicycle chase through crowded streets of the Jewelry Mart," Smith said. "We are now looking for a 30-year-old man with a torn shirt, a possibly sprained ankle, as well as road rash."
Although this case had a happy ending, officials say bike thefts have been on the rise, increasing 29% last year and bucking an overall drop in crime. Los Angeles Police Department detectives believe the increase is in part a result of more people using bikes to get around in some neighborhoods.
A Times analysis of LAPD data found the USC campus area, Venice, parts of Hollywood and downtown L.A. to be hot spots for bike thefts.
As the thefts have increased, some people have taken matters into their own hands. Last month, bike messengers downtown caught two suspected thieves, teenage boys who attended a local Catholic high school, and stripped them down to their boxer shorts before taking their cellphones, backpacks and clothes.
The Los Angeles police bomb squad recovered an inert Civil War-era cannonball Monday in the basement of a Hollywood home, authorities said.
The discovery came nearly two decades after the same homeowner found similar military ordnance in his basement when he moved into the home in the 2900 block of Durand Drive, just east of the Hollywood Reservoir, said Sgt. Sal Ogaz of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The bomb squad was dispatched to the home shortly after 11 a.m. when the homeowner called police. Technicians recovered the cannonball and determined that it was safe, Ogaz said.
Ogaz said two cannonballs recovered at the home 18 years ago were blown up by the bomb squad.
Los Angeles police are investigating a home invasion robbery at a Woodland Hills house used by a rap record label as a temporary residence for visiting recording artists, authorities said Monday.
Officers went to the home in the 22100 block of Mulholland Drive about 1 a.m. Sunday after a report that two men and two women broke into the home during what was described as a "party or gathering."
According to police, two suspects pulled out weapons and pistol-whipped some of the guests. The suspects fled after stealing an unspecified amount of money and jewelry.
More than a dozen people were victims of and/or witnessed the crime, but police said they were uncooperative. Police did not immediately identify the rap label that owns the home.
A judge on Thursday denied a request by the union representing Orange County deputies to end the early release of jail inmates but signaled that the decision would not be the last word on the issue, setting a hearing for further arguments next month.
In turning down the bid to temporarily block the releases, Superior Court Judge Steven Perk noted that Sheriff Sandra Hutchens has the final say in choosing how to address the new state law that went into effect Jan. 25.
The judge set a hearing for March 12 on arguments for a preliminary injunction.
The law reformulated good behavior credits for state prison inmates, accelerating their release. But it also has caused confusion among local law enforcement officials, many of whom have been advised by county counsels to release inmates early, an interpretation that was backed up this week by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.
But some, including Orange County had already interpreted the law to apply retroactively or that inmates could begin earning credit toward release from the time they were originally sentenced. That has resulted in the release of just over 400 Orange County Jail inmates in less than a month and by some estimates, over 1,800 statewide.
Wayne Quint, president of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said the law put the public at risk and said the union was "very disappointed" that the judge did not immediately cease early releases in the county.
"Our opinion is that one inmate getting out early is one too many," Quint said. "We believe that one of these released criminals is going to victimize someone."
–Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton
Photo: Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday that cuts to the department’s overtime would force him to move 350 officers from specialized units to patrol duty around the city
About 170 officers have already been moved from the Metro, Gang and Narcotics units, Beck said at his monthly press availability at Parker Center. An additional 180 will be moved in the coming months as part of a second wave of transfers to fill the ranks.
Beck said the cuts to the specialized units were necessary because for every hour that an officer draws overtime the department must give that same officer 1.5 hours off. That amounts to nearly 8% cut in the workforce.
"We are robbing Peter to pay Paul," Beck said.
Through Feb. 13, serious crime in Los Angeles this year fell by more than 10%. But when asked whether he would set crime reduction goal for this year, Beck declined.
"I’m reluctant to set one at this point," Beck said. "I don’t want to set a goal that is unattainable."
When asked whether the LAPD should stop hiring more officers as some have suggested, Beck said the department was simply trying to keep up with attrition and that further decreases could severely hurt law enforcement activities.
— Andrew Blankstein
Photo: Police Chief Charlie Beck in a file photo. Credit: Los Angeles Times
California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown on Tuesday waded into the controversy over a new law that aims to reduce the state prison population by saying it applies to county jail inmates but should not be read as requiring immediate, large-scale reductions of their jail populations.
The bulletin to law enforcement agencies around the state came as the union representing Orange County Sheriff’s deputies became the second major policing organization to go to court to block use of the law, which appears to speed the process under which county jail inmates can be released by changing the formula used to determine time off for good behavior.
Brown’s spokeswoman Christine Gasparac said it was the job of the attorney general to enforce the law. But at the same time, she said, Brown wanted to reduce confusion about how counties should interpret the law. Brown believes that the formula under which inmates earned credit for good behavior should be calculated beginning when the law went into effect — Jan. 25 — rather than when an inmate began serving time.
"We filed briefs in the courts that argue this position," Gasparac said. "We want all the counties to know that’s how we interpret the law and we hope it will give some guidance."
The clarification appears to have come too late for some.
More than 300 inmates have been released in Orange County in the last few weeks and about 200 in Sacramento County, including a man who allegedly assaulted a woman hours after being released early.
Sacramento, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and other counties have said their legal counsels advised them that the law applied retroactively to county jails, so they created release plans when the law took effect last month. In all, more than 1,500 inmates have been released.
The legislation, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, was designed to reduce the state prison population in the wake of the state’s financial crisis and court rulings on prison overcrowding. Officials have said the law would reduce the state prison population by 6,500 "low-level" offenders over the next year, including inmates incarcerated for nonviolent crimes such as theft and drug possession.
Like many law enforcement officials across the state, the union representing the Orange County Sheriff’s deputies said they were surprised and disappointed by local authorities’ decision to interpret the release as applying to a broad population of their inmates.
“[The] early release program endangers our county and the people who live and work here,” Wayne Quint, president of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said in a statement. “We can’t be releasing drug dealers, car thieves, drunk drivers, spousal abusers and other offenders back into our community early before they serve their sentences. In some instances, we are already seeing some of these individuals immediately turn around and commit new crimes.”
The O.C. sheriff’s union’s decision to go to court comes a week after a Sacramento County judge ordered a temporary halt to that county’s early releases, saying the legislation applies only to state prisons and not to county jails. The judge sided with the local sheriff’s deputies union, which filed suit against the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department to block the releases.
In contrast, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has not released any inmates early because of the law. L.A. County requires that most male inmates serve 80% of their sentence, and officials said they won’t reduce that requirement because of the new law because they don’t believe it applied to local counties.
The discovery of a human skull off a hiking trail in Griffith Park has prompted an investigation by Los Angeles police and the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, authorities said Tuesday.
The skull was discovered about 5:25 p.m. Monday, but police officials said it is only the beginning of the investigation about how the remains got there and whether it was the result of a homicide, an accident or a natural death.
"It does not appear to have been from a person who was recently deceased," said LAPD Capt. Bill Murphy. "Because the death is undetermined, the coroner’s office will be the lead agency and science will play a key role in determining the cause of death."
The skull was found off a steep trail that is generally used by experienced hikers because of its difficulty.
