Law Enforcement

LAPD officers demand pay hike at City Council meeting
More than 300 Los Angeles Police Department officers and family members packed a City Council meeting Tuesday to demand across-the-board pay increases, warning that the department will lose officers to other cities if a raise isn't provided. Nearly a month after officers rejected a one-year contract offer from the city, officials with the Police Protective League said the LAPD's starting salary has fallen behind at least 13 other Southern California law enforcement agencies. LAPD employees are already heading to other departments, they said.
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New Denver police contract: 10% in raises over 3 years
Denver police officers began voting Monday on a new contract that will call for them to reap 10 percent in salary increases over the next 3 years; increases one Denver police patrolman called "a gold mine." The voting will continue through the week. Multiple police sources say the new collective bargaining agreement calls for the department's approximately 1,500 officers to receive a 2.5 percent salary increase in 2015, a 3.5 percent pay raise in 2016, and in 2017, a 2 percent increase in the first 6 months of the year and a 2 percent increase in the last half of the year.
CBS Denver

4 teens charged with capital murder in beating death of USC student
Four teenagers, including two juveniles, were charged Tuesday with capital murder in connection with beating a USC graduate student to death with a bat as he walked near campus. Jonathan DelCarmen, 19; Andrew Garcia, 18; Alberto Ochoa, 17; and Alejandra Guerrero, 16; each face one count of murder in connection with the death of Xinran Ji, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said. The four also face a special allegation that the death occurred during an attempted robbery.
Los Angeles Times

LAPD investigating recent burglary, robberies
The Los Angeles Police Department Devonshire Division is searching for four men suspected of a burglary in Northridge on Tuesday afternoon. The suspects were seen in the area of Gloria Avenue and Rayen Street in North Hills at approximately 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The same suspects burglarized a house in the area of Petite Avenue and Nordhoff Street in Northridge at 3 p.m. The four suspects are described as black males in their early 20s. They were clean shaven with white shirts, and they were seen in a white model Honda or Toyota vehicle.
Post-Periodical

Child, sex trafficking summit to be held Wednesday in Van Nuys
Hoping to find a solution to the area's endemic cycle of prostitution, the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council will hold a child and sex trafficking summit Wednesday night with presentations by survivors, activists and local and federal law enforcement agencies. "This issue keeps coming up before our council over and over again," said George Thomas, president of the neighborhood council. "It's the number one issue I keep getting asked about as a council president."
Los Angeles Daily News

City Government

City launches cleanup of downtown tent city on 101 Freeway overpass
Los Angeles sanitation workers Tuesday dismantled a downtown sidewalk encampment near Olvera Street, sending more than a dozen homeless people scrambling for a place to sleep. The demolition on Arcadia Street between Spring Street and north Broadway, overlooking the 101 Freeway, launched a weeklong cleanup requested by the Los Angeles Department of Public Health and Councilman Jose Huizar as part of the city's $3.7-million Operation Healthy Streets, a public works spokesman said.
Los Angeles Times

14 L.A. businesses punished for selling tobacco to minors
More than a dozen Los Angeles-area businesses were suspended Tuesday from selling tobacco products for a month after investigators found they had sold to minors, the city attorney's office announced. "Selling cigarettes to our kids is not only harmful, it is illegal," City Atty. Mike Feuer said in a statement. "My office is committed to systematically and effectively curtailing tobacco sales to minors."
Los Angeles Times

UCLA flooding is latest black eye for L.A.'s aging water system
The water main break that flooded parts of the UCLA campus Tuesday marks the latest in a series of problems for Los Angeles' aging water delivery system. Mayor Eric Garcetti said the pipe involved was installed in 1921. Some 7,200 miles of pipe -- moving about 600 million gallons of water each day -- run beneath the city's streets. Much of the infrastructure dates from the 1920s and the years just after World War II, two periods when housing construction boomed.
Los Angeles Times