#lapd

#lapd

A new report from the city controller's office questions the effectiveness of the LAPD's signature crisis response program, saying clinicians trained in de-escalation too often are forced to defer to armed patrol officers. For years, Los Angeles Police Department officials have touted the success of the Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team, or SMART. But critics say the program, which pairs licensed specialists with officers in unmarked cars, is failing in the crucial initial minutes of encounters when multiple police shootings of mentally ill people have occurred.

Smith said the assistant Los Angeles city attorney wanted his signature on a prewritten sworn declaration that described how LAPD officers had no choice but to use force against a volatile crowd hurling bottles and smoke bombs during a 2020 protest in Tujunga. He refused to put his name on it. Instead, eight months later, Smith filed his own lawsuit against the city, alleging he faced retaliation for trying to blow the whistle on a range of misconduct within the LAPD.

Jennifer Forkish, the LAPD's public information director, said she left the department Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell but vehemently denied making any unauthorized disclosures. "Any suggestion that I have ever shared or leaked information to the media is categorically false," she said in a statement. "No one in the Department, including the Chief has ever raised or discussed this baseless allegation with me, because it simply never happened. Anyone claiming otherwise is lying."

Bell found the Apple tracking device under her friend's car while on a weekend getaway in Palm Springs in 2023. The friend suspected her former domestic partner, Alfred "Al" Labrada, who was then an assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, had secretly planted the AirTag to monitor her movements after they broke up. The women contacted San Bernardino County authorities, who opened an investigation.

He described men dressed in all black wearing ski masks, and said one had a knife. They put the knife on me and they grabbed my bag and they took all of my stuff and all of my jewelry, he said.

A man died after Los Angeles police officers shot him with a hard foam projectile during an attempted robbery of a convenience store in San Pedro, officials said. The LAPD said in a news release Thursday that Roger John Nielsen, 34, was taken to an area hospital after the encounter with officers from the Harbor Division, and later pronounced dead.

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers were transported to the hospital Saturday afternoon in Van Nuys, city police and fire officials said. Few details about what happened are available other than it occurred in a McDonald's parking lot on the 7000 block of Van Nuys Boulevard at 4:12 p.m., according to a police spokesperson. Los Angeles Fire Department ambulances were called to the scene to transport officers to the hospital, a fire spokesperson said.

Derek Rodriguez-Hernandez, 2, and older brother Jaden Hernandez left their foster home in the Westlake neighborhood about 1:30 a.m., police said. The boys' foster parents heard the door of their house opening and ran outside, they told KTLA, but the boys were already gone. The LAPD said they'd been taken by their biological mother, Jackeline Hernandez-Torres. An Amber Alert was issued for the trio.

Chief Jim McDonnell reshuffled the upper ranks of the LAPD, promoting three deputy chiefs and reviving a Human Resources Bureau previously disbanded in 2004.

The LAPD reported that around 30 people were injured early Saturday when a car rammed into a crowd outside The Vermont nightclub in Hollywood.

The woman was arrested for vandalism but remarkably managed to escape from custody, stealing a police patrol car and leading officers on a brief chase.

"You have people holding up their press credentials saying, 'I'm press,' and they still got shot. The Legislature spent all this time limiting how use of force can occur in a crowd control situation, and they just all ignored it."

A woman could be seen walking down a sidewalk and faced with a wall of police officers blocking her from walking further.

The police response to immigration protests has intensified, with violence escalating amid tensions between law enforcement agencies and demonstrators, challenging their non-enforcement policies.

The California Department of Insurance accused Eric Halem of providing false information regarding a January 2023 accident, misrepresenting his brother's role in a fraudulent claim.

The man, who was about 65, was turning left from Cleon Avenue onto Saticoy Street when the collision occurred at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The LAPD has faced numerous lawsuits alleging civil rights violations during home raids, paying out over $2 million in settlements since 2018.