Author: Andrew Blankstein

Larry Fetters, a former LAPD deputy chief who was federal security director for Los Angeles International Airport since 2003, has unexpectedly retired from the high-profile job, officials said Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration said the retirement was effective Saturday.

The move came as a surprise to some at LAX, and a spokeswoman did not offer a reason for Fetters’ departure. One source said he had been planning his exit for some time.

The resignation follows the arrest in January of three TSA employees in connection with an investigation into counterfeited parking passes at an LAX employee parking lot. During the probe, investigators found a videotape that allegedly showed TSA employees using illegal drugs.

Marshall E. McClain, who heads the union representing 425-member LAX police force, said he was shocked by the resignation, which he said leaves a void at the airport that is all the more disconcerting given that it has been identified as a major terrorist target.

“It’s very concerning to the airport police officers that an identified terrorist target is [without a] security director,” McClain said. “It’s compounded by the fact that TSA has been without a leader on the national level for 13 months.”

–Andrew Blankstein

A reputed Inglewood gang member has been arrested on suspicion of rape after police said he befriended a 14-year-old runaway from Northern California and held the teenage girl against her will at Venice Beach, authorities said Thursday.

Kevin Escobar, 20, is being held on $175,000 bail for a parole violation after his arrest by Los Angeles police detectives Wednesday night. Police investigators believed he held the girl for several weeks by threats and other means.

"This guy is a classic predator and he was looking for a certain type," said Kurt Wachter, the detective who oversees the LAPD’s sexual assault detail for the West Bureau. "Unfortunately, he found her. But I’m really glad she had the strength to come forward and disclose this."

Wachter said the girl arrived at Union Station three weeks ago after running away Jan. 7 from her Menlo Park home — a highly publicized case in the Bay Area.

It was there she met and befriended Escobar, a transient and gang member from Inglewood who had a long criminal record, police said.

Playing on the girl’s naivete and her lack of familiarity with the area, Escobar took the teen to Venice Beach. Escobar also plied her with drugs and alcohol while threatening to hurt her or commit suicide if she left him, Wachter said.

Escobar took the girl around the beach area and when necessary sought shelter in the pagodas, bathrooms and under the lifeguard towers.

Eventually, she realized "how bad things were," Wachter said and went to the Culver City Police Department, which called her family. They were reunited Jan. 30.

Los Angeles police detectives were contacted Tuesday by Menlo Park police, and within a day Escobar was arrested without incident and held on a parole violation for allegedly carrying a concealed weapon. He could be charged as early as next week.

— Andrew Blankstein

Authorities were investigating Tuesday why a 40-year-old man apparently plunged 14 stories to his death from a high-rise condominium in Westwood.

Los Angeles police detectives were called to the 10600 block of Wilshire Boulevard about 12:30 p.m., department officials said. It was not immediately clear how the man, who had not yet been identified, ended up falling.

Police said they were looking at all possible scenarios, including accident, suicide or homicide.

— Andrew Blankstein

Los Angeles police said Tuesday that they have arrested a teenage tagger suspected of fatally shooting a veteran gang interventionist after he confronted the youth over graffiti.

The suspect, who is 16, is a Los Angeles resident but police declined to identify him, citing his age. Police noted the boy was not affiliated with a street gang, contrary to a department news release that stated investigators believed the shooter belonged to a gang.

"He’s a tagger, not a gang member," said Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Andrew Smith, who said investigators received help in identifying the suspect by Los Angeles Unified School police.

Police said the boy fatally shot Ronald Lamonte Barron, who worked for the interventionist organization Amer-I-Can.

Barron and his girlfriend were leaving a bar Sunday night in his old neighborhood in the Mid-Wilshire area when he noticed a tagger defacing a wall on Pico Boulevard. Detectives said Barron confronted the tagger, who fatally shot him as his girlfriend and others looked on.

Surveillance video appeared to show a gunman wearing dark-colored clothing arguing with Barron in front of "numerous witnesses." The suspect then pulled out a pistol and shot Barron, 40, multiple times at point-blank range before calmly walking away from the scene.

Barron’s death was mourned not only in the gang intervention world but at City Hall and LAPD headquarters, where the reformed Mansfield Crips gang member was seen as an honest broker in the effort to reduce the grip of gangs in some neighborhoods.



The LAPD’s Smith said that in addition to more police, gang intervention workers would step up their presence in the neighborhood to reduce tensions.

— Andrew Blankstein

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LAPD beefs up patrols in Mid-Wilshire area after fatal shooting of
gang intervention worker [Updated]

A former Crips gang member, who police said transformed himself by working to steer others away from lives of violence, was fatally shot after he confronted a tagger in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles police said Monday.

Ronald Lamonte Barron, 40, was leaving the Cottage Bar in the 5000 block of West Pico Boulevard about 9 p.m. Sunday with his girlfriend when he noticed a tagger applying graffiti to a nearby wall, police said.

Barron confronted the tagger, who pulled out a pistol and fired once, hitting Barron in the chest.

Barron had once been a Mansfield Crips gang member but had made a successful transition to gang outreach and intervention work, authorities said. Barron continued to use his former gang name, "Looney" and worked for Amer-I-Can, a gang-intervention program founded by Football Hall of Fame member Jim Brown. Barron was known for his gang outreach work in the L.A. County jails.

— Andrew Blankstein

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