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From the LA Times

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Two killed, three wounded in South L.A. shootings

Two people were killed tonight and three others wounded earlier in the afternoon in a pair of apparently unrelated shootings in South Los Angeles, police said.

Two men were killed in a shooting shortly after 8 p.m. at 101st and Main Streets , the Los Angeles Police Department said. The cause of the shooting was under investigation.

In the afternoon, three men were wounded in a shooting at 81st Street and Gramercy Place in the Manchester Square neighborhood, police said. Several suspects were seen fleeing in a dark, newer-model sedan.

The shooting was possibly gang-related, said LAPD Officer Karen Rayner.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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LAPD officer sentenced to prison for altercation on Redondo Beach Pier in 2008

August 25, 2009 |  8:35 pm A Los Angeles Police Department officer who threatened a restaurant patron with a knife and semiautomatic handgun was sentenced today to state prison, authorities said.

David Woon Chong, 39, was sentenced to four years and four months for his role in a March 2008 incident at the restaurant on the Redondo Beach Pier, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

Chong threatened a restaurant patron after getting into an argument with two men. Chong kicked some food out of the man's hand, then pulled out a .45-caliber Glock handgun and pointed it at the man's head, the district attorney said.

Chong left the restaurant and was pulled over by Redondo Beach police. He allegedly had a 0.11 blood alcohol level at the time of his arrest, according to the district attorney.

The district attorney said Chong was sentenced after pleading no contest to one count of making a criminal threat and admitting to the gun use allegation.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Two Jackson employees want to tell police what they know about his death

LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck refused to respond to Douglas' charges, saying that the department would not comment on any aspects of an ongoing investigation.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Sheriff's contract with cities approved

Los Angeles County Supervisors today unanimously approved a new contract with 40 cities that pay the Sheriff's Department to patrol their streets, agreeing to split the costs of any future claims against deputies convicted of sexual assault.

The association that represents the cities had demanded changes to their contract after supervisors used the cities' liability trust fund to pay $5.6 million in claims against former Deputy Gabriel Gonzalez, convicted in 2006 of raping three women while on duty in the Compton area.

Last spring, the association appealed to the county to recoup the payout and threatened to sue, arguing that it violated the terms of their contract. The dispute over who should be held liable when an on-duty sheriff's deputy commits serious misconduct hampered contract negotiations for months.

“This was a compromise in lieu of going to court,” said Anna Pembedjian, Supervisor Mike Antonovich's justice deputy.

Sam Olivito, executive director of the Paramount-based California Contract Cities Assn., called the compromise "satisfactory" even though they will not recover the money paid out over the Gonzalez case.

"We believe that's the best thing for everybody," he said of the decision to split the cost of future payouts.

The new contract takes effect Sept. 1.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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LAPD to beef up anti-gang activity in South L.A.

 Although overall rates of violent crime and gang-related crimes in the city have continued to fall this year, July and August were violent months in parts of South L.A. During those two months, the LAPD's Criminal Gang Homicide Group, which investigates gang-related killings in the department's 77th Street, Southwest and Southeast areas, responded to 30 killings.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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L.A. County supervisors agree to explore system to check immigration status of employees

Supervisor Mike Antonovich proposed the motion, which said that the program helps ensure that companies have a legal workforce and avoid prosecution.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Hernandez to 'tweet' from Discovery in space

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2009/08/hernandez-twitter-discovery.html

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Opinion

Stigma of lung cancer stymies research funds

Two bills making their way through the Legislature have the support of many Californians as a legitimate way to help ease the state's budget crisis while also discouraging smoking. One would raise the tobacco tax by $1.50 a pack, and the other would increase it by $2.10.

The justification for the tax increase is the negative effect smoking has on public health. I do not object to a tobacco tax. Yet little, if any, of the revenue generated under these bills would actually go toward lung cancer research for early detection and a cure.

Under one bill, 85% of the revenue would go to the state's general fund to help with the current fiscal disaster. The remaining 15% would go to a "tobacco tax and health protection fund" that would be used to offset decreases in state funding for various healthcare and school programs -- such as the California Children and Families First Trust Fund, the Hospital Services Account and the Breast Cancer Fund. The other bill calls for revenue to go into a newly created account in the general fund, with money to be allocated for lung cancer research, among other needs, but without specifying how much.

Lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, kills more people than breast, prostate, colon and pancreatic cancers combined and is considered one of the most significant effects of tobacco use on public health. Yet lung cancer remains the most under-funded and under-researched cancer, resulting in an overall 15% five-year survival rate that has remained virtually unchanged for 40 years, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance. This staggeringly small number becomes amplified when compared with the progress made with other cancers. The overall five-year survival rate for breast cancer, for example, is 88%, and for prostate cancer, it is 99%, according to the American Cancer Society.

Because lung cancer still carries the stigma that somehow you brought the disease on yourself, tobacco taxes rather than direct funding remain the perennially popular government source of funding to make up for the shortfalls in general spending.

The bottom line is that all cancer victims should be treated equally regardless of personal habits; all cancers are the direct result of genetics, environment and behavior. Do colon cancer patients deserve their disease because they did not get enough fiber in their diet? Should singer Natalie Cole have been denied her new kidney because her old one was damaged by her previous drug use?

Of new lung cancer diagnoses, 60% are in nonsmokers, a combination of people who have never smoked and former smokers, many of whom quit decades ago. The former smokers did the right thing for themselves and for society -- they quit. But they are still at risk for lung cancer, and just like lung cancer victims who have never smoked, they will be shocked to discover how few treatment options are available to them.

Because of the stigma associated with lung cancer, and because there are relatively few survivors to fight for a cure, lung cancer is one of the least-funded cancers for research in the public and private sectors. In fact, in terms of federal research dollars, lung cancer receives only $1,553 per death. Compare that with $14,400 per breast cancer death, according to the National Cancer Institute. In fact, the NCI has reduced the amount of lung cancer research dollars by 71% since 2005 while increasing breast cancer research dollars by 4% during that same period.

I am not suggesting that breast cancer should be denied those research dollars. In fact, the breast cancer community's success is a wonderful example of effective grass-roots advocacy.

The Lung Cancer Foundation of America was founded for the purpose of increasing funding for lung cancer research. We support increasing tobacco taxes as long as a fair share of the money, commensurate with lung cancer's effect on public health, is used for lung cancer research.

Current public and private funding mostly focuses on prevention, which is only one part of the equation. Early detection and treatment are just as critical, especially because it is estimated that in this year more than 214,000 people in this country will be diagnosed with lung cancer and more than 157,000 will die from it. There are currently no officially agreed-on early detection methods. Once lung cancer becomes symptomatic, it is usually in its late stages, making treatment nearly impossible.

What makes lung cancer so insidious is its long incubation period. Even if we were to ban tobacco today but did not develop early detection methods or effective treatments, we would not see a corresponding reduction in lung cancer mortality for another 30 to 40 years. That is too long to wait for lung cancer to receive the attention it so desperately needs.

Kim Norris is the president of the Lung Cancer Foundation of America (lcfamerica.org).

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-norris24-2009aug24,0,3277034,print.story

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Innocent and in jail

Whatever their views about capital punishment, most Americans probably assume that a convicted defendant will be released from prison if he can prove that he didn't commit the crime. In fact, the Supreme Court has stopped short of endorsing what lawyers call the "actual innocence" doctrine. But an unexpected order in a Georgia death penalty case may indicate that the justices are coming around to a common-sense view about the due process of law.

Last week, they ordered a federal court in Georgia to reconsider the case of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer 18 years ago. Since then, seven prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony, and dignitaries including former President Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI have pleaded for clemency, with the pope's representative providing Georgia officials with a detailed critique of the evidence used to convict Davis.

A new hearing for Davis is welcome as a matter of individual justice, though it raises the question of whether similarly wronged prisoners will be denied relief because they don't have the support of prelates, politicians and movie stars. But the broader significance is that the court said a lower court should "receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes petitioner's innocence."

In dissenting from the order, Justice Antonin Scalia (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas) complained that the court "has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent." The dissenters are right about the history of the actual innocence doctrine, which is one reason the ruling in favor of Davis is so surprising.

The order confounded expectations in two other ways. As recently as October 2008, the justices declined, with no explanation, to hear an appeal by Davis. In June, the court refused to hold that a convicted defendant in an Alaska case had a right to a DNA test that might clear him. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted that 46 states already provide such access, but he also cavalierly contended that a state's refusal to afford a prisoner DNA testing didn't offend "some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental."

It's hard to imagine a legal right more fundamental than the opportunity to prove one's innocence, especially when the alternative is execution. If the reprieve for Davis indicates the court's acceptance of that principle, he is not the only winner in this case.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-innocence25-2009aug25,0,2406704,print.story

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Republicans and Democrats should be working together to solve the prison-cutting problem. There should be compromising, a lot more give and take.

Or lawmakers can be safe and wait for federal judges to do their jobs for them.

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_13202017

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