Law Enforcement

Crime alerts for Hancock Park and eight other L.A. neighborhoods
Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in nine 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. Hancock Park was the most unusual, recording four reports compared with a weekly average of 0.5 over the last three months. Elysian Park topped the list of three neighborhoods with property crime alerts.
Los Angeles Times

Rift appears between Beck and Police Commission over discipline
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is under fire from his civilian bosses, who increasingly are troubled by his reluctance to punish officers who are found to have killed or wounded people unjustifiably. The dispute marks a rare point of contention for Beck and the commission, a five-member panel that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department and has otherwise heaped praise on the chief for his performance.
Los Angeles Times

USC students' slayings: LAPD seeks man in dark clothing, dark car
Los Angeles police detectives hope to identify a man in dark clothing and a dark-colored car that sped away moments after two USC graduate students were gunned down on a West Adams street, they said Friday. With a $125,000 reward being offered in the shooting of electrical engineering grad students Ming Qu and Ying Wu, police are hoping they will learn soon who fatally shot the pair early Wednesday as Qu dropped Wu off at her home in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue.
Los Angeles Times

Mayor Villaraigosa wants to bring General Services cops into LAPD
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to propose merging two of the city's law enforcement agencies in a cost-cutting move that would also let him fulfill a campaign promise to expand the LAPD to 10,000 officers. As part of his budget being released Friday, Villaraigosa is proposing to shift the Department of General Services' Office of Public Safety into the Los Angeles Police Department, according to City Council members familiar with the proposal.
Los Angeles Daily News

Venice Beach woman sees threat in posting of her address
Venice Beach resident Karen Wolfe says she will file a police complaint against a community activist and blogger who published on his website her name, address and a photograph of her home as a place where the homeless would be welcome to camp overnight. Mark Ryavec, president of Venice Stakeholders Assn., listed not only Wolfe's name and home address but also those of 10 other activists, journalists and politicians who he said shouldn't mind having the homeless set up tents and sleeping bags outside their doors because they had expressed sympathy for them.
Los Angeles Times

LAPD officer injured while escorting ambulance carrying fellow officer
A Los Angeles police officer is recovering from a crash that happened while he was escorting an ambulance carrying one of his fellow officers. It happened in downtown Los Angeles shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday. The first officer was on his motorcycle when he had a medical emergency and crashed. While he was being taken to the hospital, the officer escorting him got into an accident with another driver. That person was hospitalized. The officer involved in the second crash is expected to be OK.
ABC7

Modesto cop killing highlights spike in violence against police
Two high-profile shootings of police officers in small towns - one on each coast - are highlighting statistics that show a sharp spike in police officer deaths nationwide during the past two years. But experts caution against the conclusion that criminals are ramping up a new "war on cops," instead suggesting that the statistics merely show an end to a 40-year decline in officer fatalities. Killed Thursday in Greenland, N.H., was Chief Michael Maloney, one week short of retirement; four other officers were shot.
Christian Science Monitor

Early Prisoner Release

State prison realignment program impacts local crime
The Glendale Police Department has redirected $650,000 to deal with parolees and individuals on probation since the state-mandated release of some prison inmates began two years ago, officials said this week. The department's Special Enforcement Detail has been fully dedicated to monitoring former inmates and identifying related crime trends. That's a far cry from the detail's original duties of preventive patrolling, Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.
Glendale News-Press

Immigration

Random Border Patrol deployment might aid enforcement, study says
A little randomness in deploying Border Patrol agents might work best to prevent illegal border crossings, according to a study from the RAND Corp. The study, which was funded by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, found that combining historical data on illegal crossings with a bit of unpredictability would nab the highest fraction of border crossers.
California Watch

City Election 2013

Mayoral candidates gain hope from poll
For one poll, it sure brought a lot of gifts to ambitious politicians. A survey by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University released two weeks ago offered hope to virtually all the announced candidates for Los Angeles mayor, as well as one who hasn't announced. Perhaps the most important figure in the poll - which basically reflects name identification - was that 58 percent of voters are not paying attention to the mayoral election.
Los Angeles Times