Law Enforcement

Crime alerts for Beverly Grove and 12 other L.A. neighborhoods
Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in 13 L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of Los Angeles Police Department data by the Los Angeles Times' Crime L.A. database. Eleven neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Beverly Grove was the most unusual, recording six reports compared with a weekly average of 1.6 over the last three months. Venice topped the list of two neighborhoods with property crime alerts.
Los Angeles Times

Disregarding state law continues to prove deadly
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 several people. On Friday, Feb. 3, at the corner of Florence and Halldale avenues, Moreno Valley resident Tenina Calhoun, stopped one month earlier for unlicensed driving, killed three of her passengers in a crash. Because her vehicle had not been impounded for 30-days on the prior stop, Calhoun was driving that same car in Friday's crash. On that same day, two Los Angeles police officers were injured when an unlicensed driver in Jefferson Park hit their patrol car.
LAPPL Blog

Woman killed In fiery Boyle Heights crash allegedly by unlicensed driver
A woman was killed Friday in a fiery hit-and-run collision in Boyle Heights - allegedly by an unlicensed driver - prompting an outcry for the review of current vehicle impound procedures. California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles police officers responded to the collision, which happened around 3:10 a.m. at Fourth Street and Boyle Avenue, according to the watch commander at the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollenbeck Station. One of the vehicles caught fire, he said.
CBS2

Woman killed in hit-and-run near Forest Lawn cemetery
Authorities are seeking information about a hit-and-run accident that killed a 66-year-old woman as she stopped to care for an animal lying in the road near Forest Lawn cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. Zina Feeley, 66, had parked her 2006 Lincoln Town Car along the north shoulder of the 6000 block of Forest Lawn Drive about midnight Saturday, City News Service reported citing authorities. While she was walking toward the animal, she was struck by a car traveling eastbound, LAPD Officer Cleon Joseph told City News Service in a statement. Feeley was thrown into the westbound lane, where she was hit a second time by a car traveling eastbound.
Los Angeles Times

LA police capture escapee who stalked Madonna
Police say they have captured a man who was convicted of threatening to kill Madonna and walked away from a Los Angeles-area mental hospital last week. Los Angeles police spokesman Richard French says Robert Dewey Hoskins was apprehended Friday near the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk where he escaped last Friday. He had been committed there last year and was returned to the facility after his arrest.
Associated Press

Gunman opens fire in Hollywood club, wounding at least five
A gunman opened fire on the dance floor of a Hollywood night club early Sunday, wounding at least five people, authorities said. The shooting occurred at about 1:50 a.m. on the 5200 block of Sunset Boulevard, police said. The wounded were taken to hospitals. It is unclear what prompted the shooting, police said. The gunman remains at large.
Los Angeles Times

Police seek help to find suspect in Reseda woman's death
Officers found a 36-year-old woman dead in her Reseda home and police asked the public's help in finding the suspect responsible for her death. Sharilit Monique Matthew's family and friends had not been able to contact her for a week, and called police Friday to check her apartment in the 17800 block of Sherman Way. Officers found Matthews dead in her bed, and it appeared that she had been dead for several days, according to an LAPD statement. A coroner's representative at the scene determined that her death was a homicide.
Los Angeles Daily News

US government looks to mine social media to combat terrorist attacks, uprisings
The U.S. government is seeking software that can mine social media to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings, according to requests posted online by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Hundreds of intelligence analysts already sift overseas Twitter and Facebook posts to track events such as the Arab Spring. But in a formal "request for information" from potential contractors, the FBI recently outlined its desire for a digital tool to scan the entire universe of social media - more data than humans could ever crunch.
Associated Press

Pardons

Gov. Jerry Brown handing out more pardons
Andre Mouton plans to write Gov. Jerry Brown a thank you. He might like to run for elected office one day, and the pardon Brown gave him - one of 21 granted last year - could make his years-old burglary conviction less awkward to explain. "It's kind of like a degree," said Mouton, 51, a youth mentor in Oakland. "You've been forgiven." Brown is more inclined than previous governors to forgive. Pardons announced by the Democratic governor this week total more in one year than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger granted in seven. Schwarzenegger's predecessor, Gray Davis, granted none.
Sacramento Bee

Prisoner Early Release

Prison press policy stirs debate; state's approach changed after shift of inmates
A Redding.com story about a homeless ex-prisoner who died last month behind a local liquor store didn't sit well with state prison officials. A few hours after the story was posted on the Web, a prison spokeswoman called the Record Searchlight to complain. She said its online headline, "Homeless man found dead in alley was one of first ex-inmates released under realignment," was unfair. Although no connection between realignment and the death was made in the story, she said the state's plan that transfers responsibility of thousands of recently released inmates and prisoners to county officials was not responsible for the man's death.
Redding Record Searchlight