Law Enforcement

Judge strikes down LAPD car impound policy
A judge struck down a Los Angeles Police Department policy Monday that makes it easier for unlicensed drivers to keep their cars instead of having them impounded after the drivers are stopped by police. After an hour-long discussion and voluminous briefs from both sides, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry Green sided with the police union and a conservative watchdog group challenging the policy, and agreed that the policy violates the state's vehicle code.
Associated Press

Police Protective League pleased with Special Order No. 7 ruling
The Los Angeles Police Protective League received declaratory and injunctive relief this morning from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green regarding LAPD's controversial Special Order 7, which removed the discretion vested in Police Officers by the state Vehicle Code to impound vehicles driven by persons on revoked or suspended licenses, or who had never been issued a license.
LAPPL News Release

Police seek Land Rover driver in deadly hit-and-run in Crenshaw
Los Angeles police are looking for a driver involved in a fatal hit-and-run in the Crenshaw District on Monday morning. About 1 a.m., a 37-year-old man was crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Nicolet Avenue when he was hit by a vehicle, said Sgt. Daniel Ellerson. The driver continued on after hitting the man, police said. Based on pieces of the vehicle left at the scene, police believe that the pedestrian was hit by a 1999-2000 champagne-colored Land Rover Discovery, Ellerson said.
Los Angeles Times

Man wanted for taking upskirt photos at Topanga Mall
Los Angeles police on Monday publicized images of a man suspected of taking upskirt videos of girls at the Westfield Topanga Mall. The mother of a 7-year-old girl who had a camera pointed under her dress ran off the suspect -- a white man believed to be in his 60s with light-brown hair -- on July 20 about 3:45 p.m., police said. The mother followed the suspect and saw him taking upskirt photos of three teenage girls, police said.
City News Service

LAUSD back to school Tuesday with increased security after Newtown
When students in the Los Angeles Unified School District return to school on Tuesday, they'll be met with beefed-up security in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. For the upcoming year, the nation's second-largest school system has amped up the number of campus security aides monitoring elementary schools, funneling $4.2 million into 1,000 new positions, officials said.
Los Angeles Times

Don't turn off cell phone Amber Alerts, California officials say
California emergency officials and the leader of the state Assembly are urging Californians not to disable emergency alerts from their cell phones, saying the rescue over the weekend of 16-year-oldHannah Anderson proves how useful the text messages can be. An FBI agent rescued the teen from a remote wooded area of Idaho on Saturday and killed her abductor after officials had issued Amber Alerts with information about the car they believed the suspect was driving.
Sacramento Bee

Many 911 cellphone calls lack location information, study finds
Cellular phone networks across California are failing to properly deliver the location of 911 callers to emergency rescuers in a growing majority of calls for help, according to a report released by advocates for the state's emergency dispatchers. Although the cause is unclear, the report notes that the networks of AT&T and T-Mobile have seen severe declines in location deliveries while other cellular carriers' have been on the rise.
Los Angeles Times

NYPD's 'stop-and-frisk' practice unconstitutional, judge rules
A U.S. judge ruled on Monday the New York Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" crime-fighting tactic was unconstitutional, dealing a stinging rebuke to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who vowed to appeal the ruling. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin called it "indirect racial profiling" because it targeted racially defined groups, resulting in the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics while the city's highest officials "turned a blind eye," she said.
Reuters

New Laws

State takes away cities' power to ticket at broken parking meters
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Monday that will prevent local municipalities from ticketing drivers who park at broken meters. The new law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2014. The Los Angeles City Council recently reversed its own policy allowing ticketing at broken meters, making plans to revisit the issue in six months. There are concerns that that acts of vandalism and intentional jamming of parking meters might increase if broken meters aren't ticketed. The passage of AB 61 means the city cannot return to penalizing drivers at inoperable meters, even after assessing rates of vandalism.
KPCC

City Government

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti seeks bilingual volunteers for crisis response team
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is seeking volunteers -- especially bilingual residents who are fluent in Spanish, Korean, Armenian, Farsi, Chinese or Tagalog -- to join his crisis response team. The team responds to emergency scenes to offer guidance and emotional support to people who are
grieving a death or have just suffered through serious injury, violent crime or other traumatic situations.
City News Service