A former Los Angeles police chief once observed, “Police work is not always pretty. But in my 36 years of law enforcement, I've learned not to make a judgment until I have all the facts.”
Chief Bratton’s comments echo our views regarding the recent...
Photo by Lawrence K. Ho (Los Angeles Times)
Last week, the jury in a federal civil rights case came to a swift and correct decision on who was responsible for the death of Manuel Jamines; it was 37-year-old Manuel Jamines.
...
We’ve used this space on at least three occasions in the past two years to warn of the dangers of pushing Americans out of traditional defined pensions and into 401k plans. Our point has been that reliable and secure retirement incomes cannot be provided by...
We would like to believe that it is a genuine commitment to putting public safety first that has given L.A. a national ranking it can be proud of. In calling Los Angeles the “safest big city in America,”...
It comes as something of a relief that recent trends in law enforcement fatalities were reversed nationwide in the first half of 2012, even as we continue to mourn the 53 officers who died in the line of duty.
The...
Dramatically overstated “unfunded liabilities” of public pension systems are a cornerstone of the arguments used by public-pension opponents. They deliberately and drastically lower the amounts of money public pensions can expect to receive from their...
On Oct. 15, 2008, a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier flagged down two police officers working the Olympic Area transition team. The mail carrier had been hit in the head by Romeo...
It was a big week for the U.S. Supreme Court. Last Monday, the Court threw out key provisions of Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants, struck down automatic life sentences without parole for juveniles convicted of murder and on Thursday upheld most of...
One would expect a news story questioning the integrity of hard working LAPD detectives to be backed by thorough reporting and years of experience investigating shootings and murders. But none of these things are evident in “...
State Senate Governance...
When the L.A. Kings took a 3-0 lead in the first period of the sixth game of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the New Jersey Devils, the LAPD issued a citywide tactical alert from an abundance of caution. You knew then the Kings were on their way to win their...
One of the low points in the history of victims’ rights was the Rose Bird Supreme Court. Relying on the doctrine of “independent state ground,” the court issued scores of headshaking decisions consistently in favor of criminals. These rulings hampered evidence...
“We’ve given police a simple, common-sense rule to deal with vehicles that are left unattended because the driver has been placed...
AB 109, the state’s new prison realignment law, will go down as one of the worst pieces of legislation ever enacted in California. As the list of its failures continues to grow, the only possible explanation is that either the bill’s supporters actually believe...
The 20th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots has been welcomed by countless news stories and retrospectives on this important event in our city’s history. But many of these retrospectives have included analyses that overstate the riots’ role in the...
To say that Los Angeles Police Commissioner Alan J. Skobin will be missed is an understatement. As many of you may know, the...
You’d think the same state legislators who backed the release of thousands of parolees from state prisons into local communities would at least ensure that local police could know the identity of these convicted criminals. But in its haste to enact prison...
It’s shaping up to be another tough year for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. After being reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 19 out of the 26 cases it reviewed in 2011, the trend appears to continue in 2012 to the benefit of police.
Last month,...
When most people think about the L.A. City Council, they think of its regular meetings at City Hall on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. (televised on L.A. CityView 35). What many don’t realize...
Once again, a driver with a suspended driver's license, whose vehicle was returned to her by the California Highway Patrol, continued to drive and subsequently killed...
The Los Angeles Police Protective League’s objections to the latest proposed changes to the LAPD 30-day hold policy are twofold: the Chief’s proposal does not conform to state law and...
Once again, a ballot initiative purporting to curb the influence of unions and corporations on elected officials has qualified for California’s November ballot. The initiative, pitched by proponents as the “Stop Special Interest Money Now Act,” would ban...
It turns out that its pension funds performed well enough last year to save the City $90 million in anticipated contributions.
The cries of alarm...
Photo: CBS News
It’s no secret that GPS tracking devices have been hot sellers of late to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. Local, state and federal officials...
What do you call a federal court that changes facts to fit its argument and issues rulings so far outside established law that it’s routinely chastised and reversed – often unanimously and without a hearing – by a higher court? You might call that court lawless...
We congratulate LAPD Officer Joe Buscaino, who today was declared the winner in the election to fill the 15th District L.A. City...
SB1399 was aimed at saving California millions of dollars in prison health care expenses by allowing the parole of medically incapacitated inmates. It’s unfortunate and outrageous that this law is being used by cop killers like Gerald Youngberg to seek parole...
For over a year, we’ve been calling attention to the disturbing disconnect between declining crime statistics and rising assaults on police officers. Now comes news that these assaults are up dramatically for the first week of 2012. Twelve serious assaults...
State leaders might have seen an ideal budget fix in their new law allowing felons with prison terms of six years or less to be housed in local jails and then supervised by local law enforcement agencies, but the last 48 hours have already given us two examples...
Anyone hoping we would see a downturn in assaults on police officers – in Los Angeles and nationwide – has to be deeply disappointed by statistics released last week by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.
Chief Beck reported to the Police Commission that assaults...
