January 13, 2012, 8:36 AM
The fatal police shooting earlier this month of a Texas middle school student clutching a BB gun – the latest in a series of incidents involving imitation firearms – spotlights how localities and states have struggled to identify and control both look-alike toys and guns that fire...
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November 16, 2011, 12:05 AM
California hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation bucked a national trend and rose by 25 percent – nearly all of the increase coming from cities. The most dramatic shifts took place in Palm Springs and San Francisco – both cities with significant gay and lesbian populations. ...
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September 29, 2011, 12:05 AM
Maywood is a small industrial city east of Los Angeles that shut down most of its local government last year, including its police department. No matter: The U.S. Justice Department is giving the city $428,788 to pay for one officer. Maywood’s grant is part of $71.9 million being awarded...
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August 19, 2011, 12:05 AM
Law enforcement efforts to obtain cell phone location data and Internet records have prompted privacy rights advocates to launch a nationwide investigation. This month, the American Civil Liberties Union of California filed Freedom of Information Act requests asking more than 50 police agencies to...
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May 9, 2011, 12:05 AM
Studies of the health effects of Taser International’s stun guns are 75 percent more likely to deem the weapons safe when researchers have ties to the company, a new report concludes. Cardiologists at UC San Francisco's medical school examined 50 published studies that tried to...
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January 24, 2011, 12:05 AM
Police in Southern California last year traced nearly 22,000 guns used in crimes, two-thirds of the state’s total firearms haul. Los Angeles County accounted for by far the largest number of "crime guns." But it came in second to its neighbor, Orange County, on a per capita...
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January 19, 2011, 12:05 AM
Los Angeles Police Department detectives who specialize in gang investigations are reportedly leaving their street crime units in large numbers to avoid disclosing a wide range of personal financial information to the agency. However, their counterparts in San Diego have been divulging much...
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January 3, 2011, 12:06 AM
California is carrying the weight of decades-old public safety woes into the new year. Not that the state is becoming a more dangerous place. To the contrary, crime rates across nearly all major categories and in almost every region are retreating, as they have for several years. Many of...
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December 3, 2010, 12:05 AM
Along with lights displays, sales on electronics and good cheer, in California the winter holidays bring a slew of sobriety checkpoints. The California Office of Traffic Safety is wrapping up its “year of the checkpoint,” during which it funded a record 2,500 such operations....
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October 14, 2010, 12:05 AM
For the second time this year, Oakland is pursing an injunction to prevent gang members from operating in a part of the city designated a “safe zone.” City Attorney John Russo and Police Chief Anthony Batts announced the planned legal action yesterday. It targets 42 alleged members...
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September 28, 2010, 12:05 AM
In addition to San Francisco's roughly 2,500 sworn police officers, the city is watched over by another dozen "Patrol Specials" - private guards who are funded by local businesses and individuals but regulated by the city's Police Commission. Now, however, that 160-year-old...
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August 2, 2010, 12:05 AM
Rage. Protests. Investigations. Resignations. Cries for reform. “Firestorm” is an overused word in the context of public response to scandal, but it describes the reaction to the Los Angeles Times’ report on how officials of the city of Bell, in Los Angeles County, population...
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July 23, 2010, 12:05 AM
During normal times, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department hears from two to three small towns a year wondering how much taxpayer money they’d save by hiring deputies to replace their own police officers. These are not normal times. LASD’s Contract Law Enforcement...
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July 6, 2010, 12:05 AM
In her campaign to become California's next attorney general, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris may be facing a big blue wall. Few endorsements are more coveted by politicians than those from police and law enforcement groups. But they are particularly important in the attorney general...
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June 28, 2010, 12:05 AM
Apparently yet another industry is shrinking amid California’s economic crisis. Based on figures released last week in Crime in California 2009 report, state Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office found that virtually all manner of criminal offenses are in decline. The data...
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