Police promised a crackdown on tailgaters at the Dodger’s home opener — and they delivered.
A total of 132 people were arrested Tuesday, with most accused of drinking in public, said Capt. William Murphy of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Several more were arrested on suspicion of scalping tickets and illegal vending, he said. More than 50 traffic and parking citations also were handed out.
“Overall, it was a far better day than last year,” Murphy said. “No major incidents.”
Tailgating — with or without alcohol — is not allowed in the Dodger Stadium parking lots. In years past, fans say, security officers looked the other way unless they were unruly or drunk. Last year, the Dodgers made a pointed effort to crack down on drinking in stadium parking lots.
"It’s always been a rule, but it’s only recently been enforced in the last couple of years," said Carol Mitchell, an off-duty Los Angeles police officer working Monday as a security officer for the Dodgers. She said people had been generally calm and cooperative so she has tried to be equally low-key.
— Kate Linthicum
Photo: Terry Romero, who has been to every opening day since Dodger Stadium was built, criticized the effort to curtail tailgating. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
A top Hollywood producer was arrested in Cancun on Thursday after his wife was found dead, the Associated Press and Mexican media are reporting.
“Survivor” producer Bruce Beresford-Redman told police his wife, Monica Beresford-Redman, vanished on Monday from the luxurious Moon Palace Hotel where they staying.
The woman’s family filed a missing person’s report with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, said Det. Diane Harris.
“They believed it had something to do with foul play,” Harris said.
The investigation is being handled by Mexican authorities. Calls to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico were not immediately returned.
In an aggressive new tack in the city’s crackdown on drug-dealing on skid row, L.A. prosecutors on Wednesday announced a criminal injunction targeting "commuter dealers” who come into downtown from other parts of town to sell their goods.
The L.A. City Attorney’s Office said this is the first time they have aimed an injunction at drug dealers rather than gangs. The injunction would ban 80 drug dealers from entering skid row, and would allow prosecutors to ban up to 300 additional dealers who police identify in the future.
The 80 men and women already identified are affiliated with 31 gangs and have come to a “mutual understanding” to forgo rivalries, keep the peace and share business, according to Peter Shutan, the deputy city attorney.
The ban still requires a judge’s OK, but it has already reignited the debate over the role of police on skid row, where distinguishing between addicts and dealers can be difficult.
Critics say that some of the people included in the injunction may be addicts themselves who sell drugs to support their own habits. Skid row is the last stop for many, they say, and the bans could end up separating addicts who sometimes carry or sell drugs from the rehabilitation services they need.
Of particular concern to the activists is the part of the injunction that would allow police and the city attorney to ban up to 300 more people — now identified in the injunction simply as “John Does” — so long as they can prove to a judge that the people targeted are dealing drugs.
“If you see a guy committing a crime, you arrest him, you don’t put him on a list and say, ‘I think this guy is going to commit a crime,’ ” said gang expert Alex Alonso. “Now if a ‘John Doe’ is hanging out with one of the 80 people on that list, he better watch out. He could get served, he probably will get served.”
Alonso said the injunction would give the police too much discretion in skid row, an area that has been home to the city’s most concentrated police presence since 2006, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and then-LAPD Chief William Bratton deployed 50 extra officers there as part of the controversial Safer City initiative. Dozens of undercover narcotics officers were deployed to the same area.
In 2009, the LAPD made 3,638 drug arrests on skid row, according to the LAPD. Roughly 38% of those were for sales activity, and 45% were for possession.
The city attorney’s office says the injunction is designed to protect people like Iris Mingo, a skid row resident and former crack user who says she has been sober for 18 months. Mingo says she faces temptations every time she walks out of her door because dealing is so rampant in the neighborhood.
“Now I’m free, but don’t think it don’t come up on me,” said Mingo, 56. “It can be very trying.”
Several social service providers welcomed news of the injunctions. Although banning the 80 alleged dealers will likely create “a vacuum” that new dealers will fill, getting current dealers off the street will give former drug addicts a better chance at recovery, said Andy Bales of the Union Rescue Mission.
“This is the best news we’ve had in a while,” Bales said.
Although skid row arrest rates have soared and most crime rates have plunged — LAPD statistics show that property crime dropped 44% and violent crime dropped 40% between 2005 and 2009 — the drug problem persists.
At the Union Rescue Mission early Tuesday morning, one man died of a suspected heroin overdose in the shelter’s overflow dormitories. The same morning, another man died of a suspected overdose at the Midnight Mission across the street.
Much violence on skid row is drug-related.
Last year the area was rocked by a double homicide that police say was linked to the drug trade inside the Lamp Lodge, a respected facility that provides shelter and counseling to the homeless. Commander Blake Chow of the LAPD’s Central Division called drugs “probably the biggest threat to the community right now.”
The injunction, Chow said, would help police “protect the homeless from the predators coming from other parts of the city.” Of the dealers, he said, “we can arrest them and arrest them and arrest them, but what we need to do is keep them away.”
Gary Blasi, a UCLA professor who studies homelessness, said injunctions might allow police to stop anyone on the street without probable cause so long as they look like one of the 80 people on the the list.
The ban if approved, would not take effect for months. The people listed in the junction will have a chance to challenge it at a preliminary hearing that will be held in the next few weeks or months, said Bruce Riordan, the city attorney’s director of anti-gang operations.
Another two to three months after that there will be another hearing in which a judge can choose to make it permanent.
Violating the injunction would be a misdemeanor offense.
A day after Jaime Escalante’s death, President Obama issued a statement praising the maverick math teacher.
“Throughout his career Jaime opened the doors of success and higher education for his students one by one, and proved that where a person came from did not have to determine how far they could go,” Obama said.
Escalante, a Bolivian immigrant whose tough standards and charismatic teaching style inspired the film “Stand and Deliver,” died Tuesday at age 79.
Several tributes are planned. A memorial service for Escalante will be held at 7 a.m. Thursday outside Garfield High School, where he taught.
Here is Obama’s statement:
"I was saddened to hear about the passing of Jaime Escalante today. While most of us got to know him through the movie that depicted his work teaching inner-city students calculus, the students whose lives he changed remain the true testament to his life’s work. Throughout his career Jaime opened the doors of success and higher education for his students one by one, and proved that where a person came from did not have to determine how far they could go. He instilled knowledge in his students, but more importantly he helped them find the passion and the will to fulfill their potential. Jaime’s story became famous. But he represented countless, valiant teachers throughout our country whose great works are known only to the young people whose lives they change. Michelle and I offer our condolences to Jaime’s family, and to all those who knew him and whose lives he touched."
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department released new details Wednesday about a burning body discovered near Compton High School.
A woman was driving home from work about 3:15 a.m. Wednesday when she spotted what she thought was a mannequin engulfed in flames, said Lt. Liam Gallagher of the Sheriff’s Department.
When rescue workers from the sheriff’s office and the Compton Fire Department arrived, they realized it was a body, Gallagher said. Firefighters put out the blaze, and the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
It was unclear if the person had been dead or alive when he or she was set on fire.
It was previously reported that the victim may have been an adult African American male, but Gallagher said the burns were so extensive that the body’s gender and race could not be determined. Homicide investigators were waiting on the results of an autopsy to identify the victim and determine the cause of death, he said.
The body was found on the side of a street just south of Compton High School, near the football stadium. Deputies set up barriers around the crime scene and redirected students to a different school entrance to prevent them from seeing the body, Gallagher said.
A burning body believed to be that of a man was discovered early Wednesday morning near Compton High School.
L.A. County Sheriff’s Department officers were called to the 300 block of West Cocoa Street at 3:15 a.m., said Sgt. David Infante, a spokesman for department. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
The body was burned beyond recognition, but a preliminary investigation suggested it was an African American adult male, Infante said.
Homicide detectives are investigating the incident, Infante said.
— Kate Linthicum
Photo: Scene in Compton where burning body was found. KTLA News
Two young men were killed when their SUV swerved off a Santa Fe Springs freeway embankment, flew into the air and landed on its roof, authorities said Wednesday.
The pair were traveling north on the 5 Freeway in a Nissan Xterra about 11:25 p.m. Tuesday when their vehicle veered onto the shoulder near the 605 Freeway for an unknown reason, said CHP Officer Jake Richter.
The SUV collided with a row of trees and shrubs before swerving onto a raised embankment near the Florence Avenue on-ramp. It became airborne, soared over the on-ramp and landed on its roof, Richter said.
The passenger, a 19-year-old Lakewood man, was ejected from the SUV, and the driver, an 18-year-old Cerritos man, was partially ejected, Richter said. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Emergency crews responded Wednesday morning to a simulated toxic spill in Carson as part of a training exercise for first-responders.
The training exercise began at 9 a.m. when officials called 911 with news of an overturned truck leaking chlorine gas on the eastbound 91 Freeway, according to inspector Frederic Stowers of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
In response to the hypothetical emergency, fire crews, public health officials and volunteers from the American Red Cross set up a command post at the Home Depot Center sports complex at 18400 Avalon Blvd., where they planned to organize an evacuation of neighborhoods downwind from the hypothetical spill.
Stowers said they will not actually evacuate the neighborhoods. But otherwise, he said, the simulation is "going to be as close to real-life as we can make it."
Commuters passing the downtown L.A. stretch of the Metro Blue Line on Wednesday morning should encounter a large traffic enforcement operation.
More than 40 motorcycle officers from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD were deployed to the area to ticket jaywalkers and drivers caught using cellphones and making illegal left turns, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The crackdown is a response to a recent string of deadly accidents involving Blue Line trains, cars and pedestrians.
MTA spokesman Jose Ubaldo said the operation will end at 11 a.m. The Metro Blue Line runs from downtown L.A. to Long Beach.
One man was killed and another injured when they were run over by a car in an apparent gang-related attack in Koreatown, police said Wednesday.
The victims were struck by a gang rival in the 2800 block of West Pico Boulevard about 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, said LAPD spokesman Bruce Borihanh. When police arrived, they found the victims in the street. The driver of the gray car had fled, Borihanh said.
Police later tracked down the 24-year-old man on the roof of a nearby home, where he was taken into custody.
Both victims were taken to a hospital. One, a man in his early 30s, was pronounced dead, and the condition of the second man, in his early 20s, was unknown, Borihanh said.
— Kate Linthicum
Map: The location of the killing. Click for the Times’ Homicide Report interactive map and database.
Los Angeles Fire Department medics were called to Dockweiler State Beach several times to treat people who suffered burns at a Persian New Year celebration, officials said Wednesday.
Medics responded to four calls near the beach between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tuesday and took three people to local hospitals, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott. No serious injuries were reported.
The new year’s celebration of Nowruz drew from 7,000 to 10,000 revelers to the beach, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
As a part of the festivities, participants leap over small bonfires, an act that symbolizes the transition into a new year. Because of Los Angeles’ strict fire codes, Iranians living in Southern California often celebrate at local beaches, where fires are allowed.
A 17-year-old girl walking home with a friend in Pomona was shot and killed Tuesday night, police said.
The girl and teenage boy were confronted by two men about 11 p.m. at the corner of Olive and Glenroy streets, said Sgt. Robert Baker of the Pomona Police Department.
The men asked the girl and her companion if they had a gang affiliation, Baker said. When the pair said they did not, one of the men of the men pulled out a handgun and started shooting.
The young man ran away and was unhurt, but the girl was hit and died at the scene, Baker said.
— Kate Linthicum
Map: There have been 21 homicides within two miles of this location since Jan. 1, 2007. Click for the Times’ Homicide Report interactive map and database.
Los Angeles city officials scrapped plans for downtown’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade this year because of budget cuts, but revelers looking to celebrate the Irish holiday have other options.
A Saint Patrick’s Day festival at downtown’s L.A. Live entertainment complex will be held Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., including a beer garden, traditional Irish food and performances by bagpipers.
And then there are the city’s Irish bars. Two of them in the Fairfax district, Tom Bergin’s Tavern and Molly Malones, opened at 6 a.m.
City officials have said they thought it would appear unseemly to spend money on traffic control for a parade in the midst of a growing budget crisis.
— Kate Linthicum
Photo: Tommy O’Farell, left, and Kathleen Merideth get into the sprit at L.A. Live on Wednesday. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
A Beverly Hills historian was perusing old newspapers when an article caught his eye. It was a story about city officials burrowing a time capsule inside the walls of the Beverly Hills post office in 1933.
The news was timely. The old post office is going to be a part of of the new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and construction crews are in the process of preserving it.
The city decided to retrieve the time capsule, said Amy Phillips, a spokeswoman for the Wallis Annenberg Center.
Hidden in a cubbyhole behind the cornerstone of the an ornate Italian Renaissance building they found a narrow copper box. Inside of that, they found a curious collection of objects.
Among them: Four newspapers (none of which was the Los Angeles Times), an assortment of business cards (including one for a real estate agent to the stars) and paperwork having to do with the National Recovery Act, the Depression-era legislation credited by many with lifting the United States out of economic trouble.
It seems then, as now, that the economy was forefront in many people’s minds.
Beverly Hills Mayor Nancy Krasne and other city officials will gather outside the old post office at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday to show the 76-year-old contents of the time capsule to the public for the first time.
A man who worked at Los Angeles Air Force Base has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for taking more than $70,000 in kickbacks from subcontractors, authorities said Wednesday.
Alejandro Rivera, 39, pleaded guilty in December to eight counts of accepting kickbacks and three counts of mail fraud. Rivera, a civilian, admitted that he asked for and received compensation for awarding four subcontractors lucrative plumbing, construction and painting contracts at the Air Force base hospital.
One of the subcontractors was an FBI source who contacted authorities in 2008 after Rivera solicited bribes.
A federal judge on Tuesday also ordered Rivera, of Los Angeles, to pay more than $38,000 in restitution.
The Air Force base is located in El Segundo, near Los Angeles International Airport.
The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition plans to hold a bike ride Wednesday afternoon to call for justice for victims of hit-and-run accidents and to protest what it says is unfair treatment of cyclists.
The ride is scheduled to start at 12:30 p.m. at Melrose Avenue and Heliotrope Drive in Hollywood and end at Los Angeles City Hall, where participants will attend a meeting of the City Council’s transportation committee.
The ride will trace the route local cyclist Ed Magos used to take on his daily commute to City Hall, where he works in the information technology department. Magos was injured Jan. 6 when he was struck from behind while cycling on 2nd Street near Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles.
The driver who struck Magos "stopped, got out of her car, looked at Ed’s prone and injured body lying in the street, and ignoring Magos’ cries for help, got back in her car and drove away — leaving Magos lying helpless until the LAFD paramedics arrived to take him to Good Samaritan Hospital," coalition leaders said in a statement.
The motorist, who later went to an Los Angeles Police Department station, was not charged with a crime.
"I think that anyone can agree that when a person hits someone from behind and leaves the scene, it’s a hit-and-run," said Aurisha Smolarski of the coalition. "We’re seeing a large amount of hit-and-runs just being swept under the rug and disappearing."
An LAPD spokesman could not be reached for comment.
Magos was unable to attend the bike ride because he is still recovering from his injuries.
About three dozen Silver Lake residents and business owners met with police Tuesday night for what organizers touted as a town hall meeting “to discuss the escalating gunfire, violent crime, burglary and physical violence in our neighborhood.”
The gathering was prompted by a string of recent incidents in the Sunset Junction neighborhood, said business owner Jeff Castelaz, including an armed robbery at a 7-Eleven convenience store, an attempted robbery that left a man dead on Manzanita Street and a shooting Monday afternoon outside of Castelaz’s record label, Dangerbird Records.
No one was injured in Monday’s shooting, which police believe was gang-related. But Castelaz said bullets struck his building and an employee’s car and almost hit a member of one of the bands signed to his label.
"We’ll do the best we can to piece this together,” said LAPD Capt. William Murphy, commanding officer of the Northeast Division, which claims much of Silver Lake as its territory.
Murphy said crime is down in the area this year with the exception of rape and burglary. There have been 35 burglaries so far in 2010, which is 48% higher than last year, he said.
Local business owners pleaded with police to do more to combat crime.
“I do think that crime is going up in the area,” said Irma Gonzalez, the owner of Tacos Delta.
She complained that police were unresponsive after a recent attempted break-in at her taco stand. The fact that Silver Lake is patrolled by two LAPD divisions, Northeast and Rampart, contributes to the problem, residents and business owners said.
“On our end it’s confusing and frustrating to be in the middle of these borderlands,” said resident Thaddeus Herrick, who has lived in the area for 10 years. "I’ve always felt safe. But I’m really concerned about these escalations and spikes in crime.”
A burning body believed to be that of a man was discovered early Wednesday morning near Compton High School.