Law Enforcement

Crime alerts for Shadow Hills, Tujunga, eight other neighborhoods
Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in 10 L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of LAPD data by the Los Angeles Times' Crime L.A. database. Seven neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Shadow Hills was the most unusual, recording three reports compared with a weekly average of 0.2 over the last three months. Tujunga topped the list of three neighborhoods with property crime alerts.
Los Angeles Times

Man sticks gun in woman's face, flees with 3 children, LAPD says
Los Angeles police Tuesday afternoon were searching the Hollywood area for a man who allegedly stuck a shotgun in his girlfriend's face and fled with their three children. Officers responded to a domestic call about 12:30 p.m. in the 6100 block of Eleanor Avenue and recovered the gun from the apartment, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The woman told officers that her boyfriend had assaulted her and threatened her with the shotgun, Officer Karen Rayner said.
Los Angeles Times

LAPD chief defends handling of profiling claims
Police Chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday that the officer, whose identity he declined to confirm, will be sent to a disciplinary hearing where a three-person board will hear the case and determine whether Smith should be fired. Beck said more than 99 percent of claims that accuse officers of biased policing are unsubstantiated, and he takes such accusations "extremely seriously."
Associated Press

Red-light scofflaws will catch a break
Los Angeles' much-maligned red-light traffic camera program officially ends this week, after the Police Commission on Tuesday ordered a halt to collecting fines from violators caught on film. Eight months after city officials ordered the cameras turned off, the commission voted 3-0 to formally stop collecting unpaid tickets as of Saturday.
Los Angeles Daily News

Skid row street population surges back in Los Angeles
Los Angeles police officers perform monthly counts of the people they see sleeping on the sidewalks. According to their figures, the skid row street population fell from 1,876 in September 2006 to 721 the following March - driven to other communities, according to activists. But as the economy continued to sputter, advocates for the homeless say, more people exhausted their resources, and funding was cut for many of the programs that help keep people off the streets. By December, the number of people on neighborhood streets had swelled to 1,693, even as homeless figures fell across the county as a whole.
Los Angeles Times

L.A. school police officer seriously injured in Blue Line accident
A Los Angeles school police officer was seriously injured Tuesday afternoon after a Blue Line train smashed into his patrol car in downtown, authorities said. Initial reports from rescuers at the scene said that several others appeared to have sustained minor injuries in the accident at South Los Angeles Street and East Washington Boulevard, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Los Angeles Times

City Government

L.A. council committee delays vote on zoning for Hollywood
A key Los Angeles city planning committee on Tuesday put off a vote on a controversial plan to bring denser development to parts of Hollywood. City Councilman Ed Reyes, who chairs the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, said he felt lawmakers needed more time to digest the issues raised during a long afternoon hearing on the proposal. If approved by the full council, the plan would raise size limits on buildings in some parts of the region and offer incentives to developers who build near bus and subway stops.
Los Angeles Times

Capital Punishment

Judge blocks importation of lethal-injection drug
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the importation of a drug used in executions on grounds the Food and Drug Administration ignored the law in allowing it into this country. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon sided with lawyers for death row inmates in Tennessee, Arizona and California who want to keep out sodium thiopental, because it is an unapproved drug manufactured overseas.
Associated Press

Politics

Kinde Durkee: Guilty plea likely in $8M embezzlement
Kinde Durkee, the California political operative at the heart a major embezzlement scandal, is expected to plead guilty later this week to stealing more than $8 million from her clients, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other California Democrats, according to sources close to the case. The stunning amount of money that Durkee took makes it the biggest such embezzlement case in U.S. election history and one that will have impact far down the line on the California ticket this fall.
Politico

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