Law Enforcement

168 South LA arrests in summer FBI/police effort
The FBI and Los Angeles police homicide detectives have joined forces to solve 32 deaths and make 168 arrests during a three-month operation in gang-plagued South Los Angeles. FBI agents joined police investigators in July for the Save Our Streets effort to clear the backlog of unsolved gang killings. FBI assistant special agent in charge Robert Clark tells the Los Angeles Times that it's no longer an FBI strategy or a LAPD strategy. He says it's a collaborative strategy.
Associated Press

Big rig overturns, LAPD officers help clean up spilled potatoes, plums, ready-made cakes from Boyle Heights intersection
A contingent of LAPD officers turned itself into a cleanup crew Wednesday after a big rig overturned, causing no injuries but spilling a load of potatoes onto a Boyle Heights intersection, police said. Officers responded to calls around midnight today that a big rig had overturned in the area of South Downey Road and East Washington Boulevard near Vernon and spilled its load, said Sgt. Titus Tyler of the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollenbeck Station.
Los Angeles Daily News

Police fitting child safety seats in Panorama City
Los Angeles police were helping fit child safety seats in cars Wednesday as part of an effort to remind people that children younger than 6 or lighter than 60 pounds need to be in one. "Be aware of the right way to install the seat, and be aware that some seats have been recalled as unsafe," said Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Arturo Gomez of the Valley Traffic Division. "Don't take it for granted that your children are safe," Gomez said.
Los Angeles Daily News

LAPD asking for public's help in finding missing Palms-area man
Los Angeles police asked for the public's help Wednesday in finding an 88-year-old diabetic Palms-area man who has been missing a week. Melvin Gelfand, who may be driving a gray 2007 Toyota Camry, was last seen at his home in the 2900 block of Tilden Avenue about 8 a.m. a week ago today, according to police and family members.
Los Angeles Daily News

Report: Checks needed on police GPS tracking
A bipartisan group that includes former leaders of the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday called for limits on law enforcement's use of GPS and other powerful technologies to track the movements of suspects. Police should be required to obtain a search warrant for any GPS surveillance that lasts more than 24 hours, said a new report from the Constitution Project, a Washington think tank. And the group says a warrant always should be needed when authorities have to install a tracking device on a vehicle.
Associated Press

Prisons

Jerry Brown plans initiative to guarantee law enforcement funds
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday he will put on the November 2012 ballot a constitutional guarantee of funding for law enforcement realignment, the shift of certain offenders from state prisons to local control. "I'm not leaving Sacramento until we get a constitutional guarantee," Brown told hundreds of law enforcement and local government officials at Sacramento Convention Center. Brown's speech came less than two weeks before the state's shift of some low-level offenders from state prisons to local control.
Sacramento Bee

Inmate loses bid for taxpayer-paid sex-change operation
A transgender California inmate has lost a legal bid for a sex-change operation at taxpayer expense. Lyralisa Stevens, who was born male but lives as a female, is serving 50 years to life for killing a San Bernardino County woman with a shotgun in a dispute over clothes. On Wednesday, the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco denied the 42-year-old prisoner's surgery request, ending - at least for now - her two-year legal battle to force the state to pay for removal of her male genitalia. Her attorney is considering whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Los Angeles Times