Law Enforcement

May Day: LAPD seeks suspects in officer attacks
Police called on the public Wednesday to help find several people who attacked officers during a May Day protest in downtown Los Angeles. Chief Charlie Beck shared video images at a news conference of two attacks on officers that occurred after a splinter group broke from the main march on Broadway and briefly skirmished with police. In one video, a man is seen hitting a female officer from behind, smashing what appears to be a metallic-colored drum into her helmeted head.
Associated Press

Veteran of LAPD's gang and homicide division takes Harbor Division reins
A veteran Los Angeles Police Department officer with experience running the agency's criminal gang and homicide division has assumed command of the Harbor Division. Capt. Nancy Lauer takes over a division with a recent spate of gang-related homicides that shocked Wilmington residents, and prompted marches for peace and demands for improved policing. Lauer replaces Capt. William Hayes, who takes the reins of the department's elite Robbery-Homicide Division, which investigates high-profile cases in the city, including those involving celebrities.
Torrance Daily Breeze

$50,000 offered in slaying of San Pedro woman
A $50,000 reward was offered Wednesday for information that would help detectives solve the Christmas Eve slaying of a 60-year-old mentally disabled woman in San Pedro. Buscaino announced the reward outside Hope Chapel San Pedro, where Eva Tice had attended church shortly before someone stabbed her to death as she walked home on Pacific Avenue between 11th and 12th streets.
Torrance Daily Breeze

LAPD announces DUI checkpoints for Cinco de Mayo weekend
The Los Angeles Police Department will begin a series of drunken driving checkpoints and saturation patrols Thursday in connection with Cinco de Mayo, which authorities say prompts an increase in drunken driving. The LAPD will conduct saturation patrols in Van Nuys from 6 p.m. Thursday to 2 a.m. Friday and in South Los Angeles from noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.
City News Service

For LAPD's chief, a transformation
My two children and my son-in-law are all LAPD officers. Like any parent, I want their future to be safe, secure and happy. But I also want to leave them with a legacy: I want them to belong to a Police Department that is a force for positive change, and one that brings communities together instead of tearing its city apart.
Charlie Beck/Los Angeles Times Op-Ed

107 charged in Medicare fraud crackdown
Doctors, nurses and social workers from across the country, 107 in all, were charged in what federal officials in Washington called a "nationwide takedown" of medical professionals accused of fraudulently billing Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars. The amount of bogus Medicare claims, totaling about $452 million, was the highest in a single raid in the history of a federal strike force combating rising fraud in the medical industry, according to the Justice Department. Arrests were made in seven major cities.
Los Angeles Times

Immigration

A change in police policy has immigrants hoping for more
In March, the Los Angeles Police Department decided that it would no longer automatically impound the vehicles of drivers without licenses. The change was a significant shift in the country's second-largest city, home to thousands of illegal immigrants who, like many other residents, see driving as the only viable way to move around a sprawling metropolitan area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. And it is in marked contrast to debates in other places around the country where local governments are cracking down harder on illegal immigrants living within their borders.
New York Times

Legislation

California poised to bar employers from peeking into private information on social media sites
California is on the verge of becoming one of the first states to bar companies from asking job applicants and employees for their user names and passwords on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites. In the wake of national reports of employers doing just that, the Assembly Labor Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill that would make the intimate details behind password-protected "walls" off-limits to employers.
San Jose Mercury News

California pension reform may take back seat to budget fix
Faced with worsening budget problems, chances are growing that the Legislature won't vote on comprehensive pension reform until the end of the session in August, some officials said Wednesday. Democratic leaders are concerned that with revenue projections falling short, they are going to have to make more cuts that affect unions and others who also have concerns about changes to pension benefits.
Los Angeles Times

City Government

L.A. council approves Buscaino's motion banning reckless skateboarding
In the aftermath of two teen deaths in San Pedro, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a motion aimed at outlawing reckless skateboarding or "bombing." "The fact is kids are dying," said harbor-district Councilman Joe Buscaino, who came up with the idea in February. The ordinance - which is yet to be drafted and makes no mention of in-line skates - would hold skateboarders to the same rules of the road as bicyclists and limit speeds to 25 mph.
Torrance Daily Breeze