238 Child Predators Arrested In SoCal During Spring Sweep
Investigators with the Internet Crimes Against Children nationwide task force team announced they arrested 238 child predators in Southern California. The task force, currently in its third year, conducted Operation Broken Heart during the months of April and May. Officials said the charges ranged from child pornography to child prostitution. "For charges such as possession and distribution of child pornography, sexual exploitation of children, child prostitution and sex tourism," Matt Blake, chief of detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department said.
ABC 7

Task Force Arrests Hundreds For Internet Crimes Against Children
A tourist who came from overseas with the alleged intent to enslave a child for sexual abuse is among 238 suspects arrested in the Los Angeles area during the past two months by the the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, officials said Monday. The man had engaged in online communications "to buy" a 6-year-old boy, according to John Reynolds, acting special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office of Homeland Security Investigations. Others arrested during the crackdown operation included a monk allegedly in possession of child pornography at a Riverside monastery, Reynolds said. At Monday's news conference, he did not name the monk or the man from overseas.
NBC 4

Man sentenced to 7 years in prison for assault
A Porter Ranch man pleaded no contest Monday to driving off with an undercover LAPD narcotics officer hanging onto the side of his SUV, crashing the vehicle in Granada Hills and leaving the officer with broken bones. Grant Anthony Muldrow, 22, pleaded to one felony count of assaulting a police officer causing great bodily injury and was immediately sentenced to seven years in prison. The officer was trying to arrest Muldrow on Jan. 15, 2015, and had his hand on the steering wheel when Muldrow took off, dragging the man alongside the vehicle as it reached speeds of up to 45 mph, authorities said.
MyNewsLA.com

L.A. Apartment Owners Charged With Evicting Tenants, Renting Their Units Via Airbnb
The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has filed criminal charges against the owners of a rent-controlled apartment building in the Fairfax district, alleging that they evicted tenants and converted the units to short-term rentals on Airbnb. Owners of three other properties are facing civil suits that they illegally operated rent-controlled buildings as hotels. It marks the first time City Atty. Mike Feuer has prosecuted landlords on suspicion of operating illegal short-term rentals and is meant to send a signal to other landlords breaking city laws at a time when L.A. is facing an affordable-housing crisis.
KTLA 5

Man Sentenced to Prison for Theft of Special-Needs Boy's Tricycle
A homeless man was sentenced Monday to four years in prison for stealing a tricycle custom made for a 13-year-old boy with special needs, officials said. Carlos Andres Lopez, 47, pleaded no contest to a first-degree burglary charge stemming from the theft of a 13-year-old disabled boy's $5,300 tricycle from the parking garage of a Burbank apartment complex. Lopez was immediately sentenced to four years in prison by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stanley Blumenfeld. Two related counts were dismissed.
NBC 4

Across L.A. County, law enforcement looks for resources to deal with the mentally ill
A slender young woman with brown hair stood on a Commerce street in early March, ignoring a driver’s pleas to move. She reached down and bent his front license plate, asked him for money and then yanked his windshield wiper off. She appeared agitated – from drugs, mental illness or both. As Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies prepared to use physical force to subdue her, a plainclothes deputy and a social worker, both specially trained in mental health intervention, arrived.
Los Angeles Times

L.A. County district attorney looks into alleged beating by staff at Sylmar juvenile hall
Los Angeles County's perennially troubled Probation Department is under scrutiny again over an alleged beating of a youth by staff at a county juvenile hall, which was captured on video. The district attorney’s Justice Integrity Division is reviewing an April 24 use-of-force incident at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said Monday. The Probation Department referred the case on May 26, she said. The incident became public last week, after the blog WitnessLA obtained a leaked copy of the security camera video and wrote about it.
Los Angeles Times

Former LA County Sheriff Leroy Baca has early stages of Alzheimer's disease
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Baca's diagnosis was confirmed in court filings submitted Monday by the U.S. Department of Justice. Prosecutors said Baca is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and while he's able to function in his everyday life, his long-term prognosis is bleak. Baca served as sheriff from 1998 to 2014. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal charges of lying during an investigation into civil rights violations at the county jail -- and is still facing a six-month prison sentence.
FOX 11

State backtracks, says Oakland can go without acting police chief
After a day of confusion, state officials backed down late Monday on an assertion that Mayor Libby Schaaf’s plan to have the Oakland Police Department function without an acting police chief violated California law. Officials at the state Police Officers Standards and Training agency, or POST, had said earlier Monday that Oakland’s plan to have police commanders report to City Administrator Sabrina Landreth was illegal. They cited both California government code and a state attorney general’s opinion backing their argument that the city needed to name an acting chief to head the department, which is embroiled in multiple scandals and has gone through three chiefs in less than two weeks.
SF Gage.com

Amid Orlando shooting investigation, attorney general to visit Fla.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is visiting Orlando to meet with prosecutors, first responders and families of the victims of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The trip Tuesday comes as the Justice Department continues investigating the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub, in which 49 people died and dozens were wounded. Federal investigators who have conducted hundreds of interviews haven’t ruled out charges against others in connection with the shooting and say they’re still trying to determine why Omar Mateen, who died in a gun battle with police, picked as his target a popular gay nightclub.
Boston Globe

Public Safety News

2 Fires Char 4,700 Acres With No Containment In Angeles National Forest Above Azusa, Duarte
Two fast-moving brush fires continue to burn through dry brush in the Angeles National Forest above Azusa and Duarte early Tuesday morning. The fires, dubbed the Reservoir Fire and Fish Fire, have burned a total of 4,700 acres and neither have been contained. The Fish Fire has prompted mandatory evacuations in Duarte and fire officials are considering issuing some for Monrovia. California Highway Patrol officers received a call around 10:57 a.m. about a pickup truck going over the embankment of Highway 39 near the Morris Reservoir Dam. The truck caught fire, which officials believe may have sparked the blaze. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
ABC 7

City Government News

Developers, billboard companies on record lobbying pace in LA
Developers in the midst of a building boom put the city on pace for record spending on lobbyists to influence Los Angeles city council members, commissioners and city staffers.In the first three months of this year, businesses of all kinds seeking support for their projects spent $13.5 million on lobbying, according to a new report from the city Ethics Commission. Nearly half the money was concentrated among ten lobbying firms. The ethics commission analysis of the top-spending ten clients shows nine of them spent a collective $1.4 million on lobbyists to contact city officials about building projects. Clear Channel, a billboard company, spent $155,000 to round out the top ten.
KPCC 89.3

Angelenos First to Try Waze's Difficult Intersections Feature
Navigation app Waze has created a new routing feature aimed at make driving in Los Angeles a little less stressful. The app's difficult intersections feature is designed to calculate the best possible route in an attempt to bypass a crowded or tricky intersection when it's possible to do so, even if it makes the drive a bit longer. That includes hard-to-make left turns where there's no traffic light to help drivers. "The goal of the feature is to reduce the amount of these intersections, not completely eliminate them," Waze said in a blog post.
CIty News Service

Glass Slide Ride Down LA's Tallest Building
Anyone brave enough to plunge down a glass slide 70 stories in the air will get their chance this Saturday when an observation deck off the side of the West Coast's tallest building opens to the public. The 45-foot slide transports riders from the 70th floor of the U.S. Bank Tower 633 West Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles to an open-air observation deck on the 69th floor of the building. Made of clear, 1 1/4-inch thick glass, the slide was airlifted onto the tower in March. The public opening of both slide and deck will be commemorated by an all-day block party on Saturday.
NBC 4