Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 489
Courts & Rulings A court upheld the firing of 2 LAPD officers who ignored a robbery to play Pokémon Go An appeals court in California has upheld the firing of two former Los Angeles Police Department officers for playing Pokémon Go rather than responding to a nearby robbery. Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell, who were fired after the 2017 incident, had argued that the city violated the law by using their police car's digital in-car video system recording as evidence and by denying them p...
Citing the surge in Covid 19 infections caused by the kinder and gently Omicron variant, the LA Superior Court has extended criminal deadlines two weeks. Unlike Civil litigants, criminal defendants have the 6th amendment constitutional right to a speedy trial. In California, that ordinarily means a criminal case must go to trial within 70 days of the time it is filed. The presiding judge has declared an emergency, and extended that by two weeks. Is this important? Well considering it affects...
Video released by a local TV news station shows FBI agents storming the Beth Israel synagogue to rescue the hostages Saturday night, 1/15/22. In it, four or more men from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team swarmed the building and moments later, four single gunshots ring out. The gunshots are followed shortly by a loud explosion. British Terrorist Malik Faisal Akram died in the rescue, which may be seen on the WFAA website at https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/uncut-video-hos...
January 11, 2022 - On Saturday evening about 5:30 pm, Santa Monica police officers were conducting a routine patrol of the Santa Monica pier when they approached a group standing near a pickup in Parking Lot 1 North. The pickup truck was loaded with the vending carts that are illegal to operate on the pier, lacking pier licenses and health permits. A male in the group near the truck lifted his arms and the police officers noticed the black handle of a handgun protruding from above the male's...
January 11, 2022 - On Saturday evening, SMPD were able to arrest a female suspect in a vendor altercation incident that occurred in November. The original incident on November 21 involved two female illegal vendors at the base of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. stairs. The female victim told arriving officers that she had been challenged by another female vendor to fight. The victim took out her cell phone to record her antagonist's actions. The challenging female, later identified as Michelle...
Courts & Rulings California Supreme Court rejects early releases for violent crime The California Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that corrections officials need not consider earlier release for violent felons, even those whose primary offense is considered nonviolent under state law. The ruling stems from inmates' latest attempt to expand the application of an initiative championed by former Gov. Jerry Brown and approved by nearly two-thirds of voters in 2016. AP Maglula beats Amazon in...
Hello 2022!! Goodbye to the single worst Christmas I've ever seen in or out of prison! It all kicked off Christmas Eve with the death of a prisoner, to start things off. The woman died of an apparent heart issue. She recently had open heart surgery. She had been sick. She woke up, and collapsed. Medical staff take forever to respond in here. So in the case of a cardiac arrest, you don't want them to be your first responders!! Anyway, the dead woman had a heavy drug history. I knew who she was....
The excuses are numerous but the problem is singular. Not enough correctional officers to run the prison. When officer levels fall below a minimum number, things begin to close. The inmate population was told to expect this in October 2021. However, now the reality and the results are devastating. The list of excuses is endless. Holidays, retirement, early retirement, scheduled vacations, and my all-time favoritem the Covid-19 positives among staff (Whom still get their pay while out sick at...
Courts & Rulings Judge halts California earlier releases for repeat offenders A judge on Wednesday temporarily halted California's plans to speed the potential prison release dates for repeat offenders with serious and violent criminal histories under the state's "three strikes" law. California corrections officials had filed emergency regulations to boost good conduct credits for second-strike inmates serving time for nonviolent offenses who are housed at minimum-security prisons and camps. AP...
Not one, but two jurors have admitted that they failed to disclose a personal history of sexual abuse, when questioned by counsel in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex abuse trial. This is sufficient to win a Motion for Mistrial, legal experts say. In December, Maxwell, 61, was convicted of five counts of sexually abusing minors with Epstein. If granted a new trial, it would be difficult to continue to imprison Maxwell. She would then have been locked up continuously for a year. Without a conviction,...
Citing a "holiday surge due to Covid", the Los Angeles Superior Court has announced that it will delay all criminal trials 2 weeks. The Court also urged counsel to meet and confer on civil jury trials, and stipulate to continue them. This announced in a press release on the Superior Court website, https://www.lacourt.org/ In relevant part, the press release from the LA Superior Court reads as follows: PRESIDING JUDGE ERIC C. TAYLOR ISSUES GENERAL ORDER TO DELAY CRIMINAL TRIALS FOR TWO WEEKS AS...
Courts & Rulings The Supreme Court found a Sonoma County man's arrest illegal. A state appeals court upheld his conviction anyway Six months ago, a North Bay man who was pursued into his garage by police scored a rare defense victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, which limited officers' authority to enter a suspect's home without a warrant. That meant the entry into Arthur Lange's garage was illegal - but because the officer couldn't have known that in advance, Lange's drunken-driving conviction...
Dane Elkins's mother and friends have been searching for him since he abandoned his car around 8:20 pm near the 5 Freeway and Templin Highway in Castaic on December 20. Deborah Elkins, Dane's mother, says her son suffers from mental health issues and she believes he is going through a paranoid and suicidal episode. A student at UC Santa Cruz, Dane is 20 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall, 170 pounds with brown hair and green eyes. He was possibly spotted in Reseda at a gas station on Christmas,...
Vindicated! She's officially back! Unfair decision reversed! The prison population rejoiced at the news! Her presence and her talent are back. The drug program students, including myself, are so happy. Many times the prison makes mistakes. Rarely does anyone right any wrongs. So, this is a special blessing for the population. And we are so glad to have her back. Friday we got word from other drug program staff that she would be back on Monday. We were all happy and excited. She's able to reach...
Courts & Rulings Judge stops LAPD union's request to nix COVID vaccine mandate The union representing LAPD officers lost a round Monday in its lawsuit alleging unfair labor negotiations related to the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for municipal employees - with a judge denying its members' request for a preliminary injunction against the directive. The Los Angeles Police Protective League alleges the city failed to negotiate in good faith by withholding information about the city's testing...
Santa Monica Police have towed away a van assisting non-permitted vendors on the Santa Monica Pier. Any day, 10 vendors with rainbow colored umbrellas, can be seen in front of the 120 year old wooden pier. The vendors have previously been allowed to sell food without any sort of health department monitoring, to the consternation of restaurant owners who are of course, heavily taxed and regulated. Two or three young women tried to "interfere with an ongoing police investigation," snapping picture...
Erik Charles Maund, 46, allegedly paid hitmen $750,000 to kill his ex-girlfriend Holly Williams, 33, and her estranged boyfriend William Lanway, 36. This in Austin Texas. Then he left a review on Yelp. More on that momentarily. Williams and Lanway were kidnapped and fatally shot before their bodies were found in Miss Williams' car, which ran down an embankment and into a tree. Maund, who is married, previously dated Williams - he allegedly sent her text messages when he was planning to visit her...
Courts & Rulings Judge Ito spurns DA's entreaty to vacate death sentence Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roger Ito on Friday rejected a stipulation by the Office of District Attorney George Gascón and the defense that a death sentence be vacated, saying that this is the first time as a bench officer that he has not accepted a proposed stipulation between the parties. The California Supreme Court ordered a hearing as to whether the defendant, Samuel Zamudio, who was convicted on Nov. l7, 1997,...
3/111/21: "Man Overboard!" came the 3:30 am call on the loudspeakers of the Carnival Miracle cruise ship off the coast of Baja California. A woman fell or was pushed from the 5th floor, and fell into the Pacific ocean. A fall from that height would ordinarily result in injury. If the person was not pulled out of the water quickly enough, hypothermia would set in. Passengers were in the midst of a three-day voyage from the Long Beach Cruise Terminal to Ensenada. “Someone has lost their life, whe...
Courts & Rulings 'Inventory search' of lawfully parked car was pretextual The exploration by sheriff's deputies of the content of an automobile, in the absence of a warrant, cannot be justified as an inventory search incident pursuant to an impounding of the vehicle being driven by an unlicensed driver where that vehicle was in a public parking lot, the Third District Court of Appeal has held. Acting Presiding Justice Coleman Blease wrote the opinion, filed Wednesday and not certified for...
Direct Action Everywhere burst into the scene a few years ago by being so radical they make PETA look reasonable. The Berkeley, CA-based animal liberation group made a name for themselves by harassing people eating in restaurants, heckling grocery shoppers, and even stealing animals from farms. And it's the last bit that has landed them in some legal trouble. Following a criminal trial in North Carolina, DxE founder Wayne Hsiung was found guilty of two felonies by a jury this week. The charges...
WASHINGTON, DC, Dec 3 – Tis the season to be jolly and for seniors to beware of fraudsters who target the elderly this time of the year. What makes older folk more susceptible to becoming targets for scammers during the holiday season? The consensus is that the older we get the more charitable we become, says the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. The National Institutes of Health calls it "positivity bias." It's a condition that makes "older adults draw more positive affect from bo...
Yes, a woman, excuse me, a "trans man," who is on the t-shot, broke down the cell door. No, I'm not exaggerating. This happened in my own housing unit yesterday. Down the hall from myself. That cell is now unoccupied while it waits for repairs. Just anoter pleasure of being in prison with people on a variety of steroids to make their bodies transform into something it's not meant to be. The entire prison population was locked in for covid-19 testing yesterday morning. When a MAN wants out, HE...
A quick-thinking security guard has thwarted a "potential smash and grab robbery" at Santa Monica Place on Black Friday, said local police who are on high alert due to the recent spate of "flash mob robberies" in California. At 5:30 p.m. on November 26, the Santa Monica Place guard noticed seven vehicles – containing 28 individuals – park in the fire lane in front of Nordstrom, located in the 200 block of Broadway, said Santa Monica Police Department in a statement. "The security team mem...
2/28/21: At about 7:15 PM, Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) Officers respond to the 900blk of Ocean Ave. regarding a suspicious vehicle. When officers arrived, they located the vehicle, a black Jeep, leaving the area. An officer witnessed the vehicle commit several vehicle code violations. When the officer attempted to initiate a traffic stop, the vehicle fled at a high rate of speed and crashed, striking several parked vehicles and a tree in the 1000 block of 2nd Street. The two...