Law Enforcement

Getting it wrong: Continued misreporting on the Rampart scandal
NPR reporter Mandalit del Barco's recent story, "Finance Probe Raises Ire Among Some LAPD Officers" is wrong when it comes to the Rafael Perez scandal. Del Barco claims, "Rafael Perez was the central figure of the 1990s LAPD corruption scandal. He and more than 70 anti-gang unit officers in L.A.'s Rampart Division were found to be planting evidence, framing and even shooting alleged gang members." The truth is that, after all was written and investigated, the Rafael Perez scandal resulted in only four convictions - and only two of which were for corruption. And, as a result of Perez's lies, a federal court upheld a $15 million jury award for three Los Angeles police officers who were falsely arrested and prosecuted.
LAPPL Blog

Reward for information about suspect who shot LAUSD police officer increases to $100,000
Rewards totaling $100,000 were available today for information leading to the gunman who shot a Los Angeles school police officer near El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills. The Los Angeles City Council put up a $75,000 reward. The following organizations each contributed $5,000 to the reward effort:
-- the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank- and-file LAPD officers;
-- the Los Angeles School Police Officers Association;
-- and the Los Angeles Retired Fire and Police Association.
Los Angeles Daily News

LA gang-narcotic officers quit over financial disclosure
Full Disclosure Network presents an exclusive 11-minute Video News Report featuring the Legal Counsel for the LA Police Protective League, Hank Hernandez, who predicted that Gang and Narcotic Officers would choose to leave their jobs rather than provide their personal financial and banking records to the City. In this "flashback" video originally recorded in 2007, Hernandez describes the consequences that have come to pass following the enactment of a Federal Consent Decree mandate to the Police Commission.
Press Release Watch Video

Official in Mayor Villaraigosa's gang-reduction office arrested after fight at downtown nightclub
A staffer with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's gang-reduction office was arrested early Sunday after authorities said she assaulted a police officer who had responded to a report of a fight at a downtown club. Blanca Martinez-Navarro, the Rampart program manager for the mayor's gang reduction and youth development office, was booked on suspicion of misdemeanor battery around 1:40 a.m. after police were called to the Conga Room at 800 West Olympic Boulevard within the downtown L.A. Live Complex, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the case.
Los Angeles Times

Southern California generated bulk of state's 2010 'crime guns'
Police in Southern California last year traced nearly 22,000 guns used in crimes, two-thirds of the state's total firearms haul. Los Angeles County accounted for by far the largest number of "crime guns." But it came in second to its neighbor, Orange County, on a per capita basis. Federal and state law enforcement agencies run traces on firearms recovered from criminal incidents to determine the guns' points of origin.
California Watch

Targeting the police
To see what lies ahead for the nation's police, one need look no further than the Los Angeles Police Department's past and present travails with the Justice Department. The LAPD consent decree was a power grab from day one. The first thing DOJ demanded as part of its new authority over the LAPD was the collection of racial information on every stop the L.A. officers make—even though the corruption scandal which provided the pretext for the consent decree had nothing to do with race or alleged "racial profiling."
The Weekly Standard

State Budget Crisis

Lockyer warns IOUs likely if budget talks fail
The state could begin issuing IOUs in April or May if Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature fail in their budget negotiations, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer said this afternoon. IOUs could be required if the state is "unable to meet the self-imposed deadlines by the governor and the Legislature to adopt a budget in a timely way," he told academics and political consultants at a conference in Berkeley. Brown is seeking to have a budget deal in place by March, proposing massive spending reductions and a ballot measure to extend temporary tax increases to resolve California's yawning budget deficit.
Sacramento Bee

Healthcare

California forging ahead with Obama's healthcare plan - but only with federal money
California is leading the pack nationally when it comes to implementing federal health care reform, and has already passed legislation and allocated federal resources to do so. But what if the GOP is successful in its effort to dismantle, even partially, the hard-won reform? The state stands to lose tens of millions in federal grants directed at improving the health of Californians and see progress it has made toward a health care exchange dismantled.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Prisons

States face shortage of key lethal injection drug
The sole American manufacturer of an anesthetic widely used in lethal injections said Friday that it would no longer produce the drug, a move likely to delay more executions and force states to adopt new drug combinations. The manufacturer, Hospira Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., had originally planned to resume production of the drug, sodium thiopental, this winter at a plant in Italy, giving state corrections departments hope that the scarcity that began last fall would ease.
New York Times