Law Enforcement

Crime alerts for Fairfax and 10 other L.A. neighborhoods
Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in 11 L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of LAPD data by the Los Angeles Times' Crime L.A. database. Three neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Fairfax was the most unusual, recording eight reports compared with a weekly average of 1.4 over the last three months. Elysian Valley topped the list of eight neighborhoods with property crime alerts.
Los Angeles Times

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck breaks collarbone in motorcycle accident
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is expected to return to work on Monday after he was injured in a motorcycle accident, officials said on Saturday. Beck, a longtime dirt bike racer, broke his collarbone while riding last week, he told the Los Angeles Times. A department spokesman confirmed Beck was injured, but did not have specifics. "Broken collarbones are the occasional price you pay for racing motocross," Beck wrote in an email Friday to The Times.
NBC LA

Attorney who helped reform LAPD in Seattle to consider job there
Connie Rice, the civil-rights attorney credited with almost single-handedly forcing police reform in Los Angeles, was in Seattle this week trying to get a measure of the work needed to repair decades of mutual mistrust and fractured relationships between the Police Department and minority communities. "I'm looking at this as a quest for trust," Rice said in a recent interview. "How do you help a community that has been at war with a police department? How do you get anyone to understand that the future isn't in warfare, it's in trust."
Seattle Times

Learn how to install child's car seat properly
Police will show the public how to properly install a car seat on Tuesday as part of National Child Passenger Safety Week. The LAPD's Valley Traffic Division will conduct a child safety seat presentation. For those parents interested, trained technicians will be on site to inspect the installation of the child seats in the vehicle and check the seat for defects or recalls. A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has found that 3 out of 4 children are not as secure in the car as they should be because their seats are not being used correctly.
Los Angeles Daily News

Traffic

Endeavour flight delayed, but arrival in L.A. remains on schedule
One leg of the space shuttle Endeavour's final journey has been delayed because of bad weather, but the craft will still arrive in Los Angeles on schedule Thursday, NASA announced Sunday. Endeavour was to travel from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to Houston on Monday but the flight was pushed back one day because of stormy conditions. Despite the delay, the shuttle - mounted on a Boeing 747 aircraft - will still do low-level flyovers in Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Northern and Southern California before touching down in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Times

The Courts

Prop. 83 violates sex parolees' rights
A state appeals court says a voter-approved California law that prohibits paroled sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park violates the constitutional rights of parolees whose housing options are so limited that they end up living on the streets, with little access to health care or social services. Wednesday's ruling was in response to a suit by four ex-offenders in San Diego County who said it was virtually impossible to find affordable housing in the county that complied with the 2,000-foot restriction imposed by the 2006 ballot measure, Proposition 83.
San Francisco Chronicle

Ballot Propositions

Death penalty ban seeks to answer doubts
It's the nightmare of capital punishment, for supporters and opponents alike - an innocent person condemned to death and executed. As Californians prepare to vote in November on Proposition 34, which would reduce all death sentences to life in prison without parole, both sides on the issue agree that the state has never executed a prisoner who was later proved to be innocent.
San Francisco Chronicle

Conservative organization gives $4 million to Proposition 32
With a single donation, a conservative group with ties to the Koch brothers has doubled the money backing a ballot measure that would hamper union's political fundraising. The Des Moines, Iowa-based American Future Fund gave $4 million to a new committee backing Proposition 32, the California Future Fund for Free Markets. The American Future Fund is an organization affiliated with the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which in turn has reported ties to billionaires Charles and David Koch.
Sacramento Bee

City Election 2013

Eric Garcetti says as L.A. mayor he'd create jobs, reform City Hall
In one of the first major policy speeches in a mayoral campaign that so far has been dominated by fundraising pitches, Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti laid out a plan to create jobs and reform a City Hall system he called "broken." Garcetti said that if elected he would put an emphasis on expanding the green technology sector and on "growing the shores of Silicon Beach."
Los Angeles Times

Rick Caruso's interests may be hurdles in a run for L.A. mayor
Will the mayor of the Grove run for mayor of Los Angeles? With the deadline for entering next year's contest to replace Antonio Villaraigosa only weeks away, billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso is closing in on a decision. The shopping center mogul has flirted with the idea for years, but interest in his intentions has intensified after another potential front-runner from outside City Hall, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, announced he was staying out.
Los Angeles Times