Tag: los angeles

Sheriff orders deputies to obey watchdog request to reveal gang tattoos

Less than a week after the county watchdog ordered dozens of deputies to show their gang tattoos and answer questions about violent cliques within the department, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna on Thursday sent a department-wide email commanding his staff to comply with the inspector general’s request.

“Please be advised that all Department personnel who received such a request are hereby ordered to appear and cooperate in such interviews,” Luna wrote in the firmly worded email. “All statements made by Department personnel shall be full, complete, and truthful statements.”

Any employees who obstruct or delay an investigation, the email went on to say, could be disciplined or fired under current county policies.

Luna’s response represents a major shift from the prior administration, which was often at odds with oversight officials and consistently resisted outside investigations. Before he was voted out of office last year, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva defied subpoenas from the Civilian Oversight Commission, blocked independent oversight of department databases and made Inspector General Max Huntsman the target of a criminal investigation.

Huntsman — who signed the 35 letters sent Friday to deputies suspected of sporting Banditos or Executioners gang tattoos — lauded the change of direction that Luna’s email represents.

“We appreciate the support of the sheriff and look forward to continuing with our investigation,” Huntsman told The Times.

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Healthcare Non-Profit Supplies L.A. Homeless With Government-Funded Meth Pipes

Los Angeles nonprofit workers passed out boxes of government-funded crystal meth pipes to the homeless population living on Skid Row, allegedly assuming it helps prevent fatal drug overdoses.

Bodycam footage reported by local media shows workers from the Homeless Health Care Los Angeles nonprofit organization distributing the drug paraphernalia while driving around the neighborhood in a golf cart, which witnesses said only enables addicts.

“If you walk down Skid Row and see the people that are on methamphetamine … and got sores all over their body, their teeth falling out, bumps all over their face, running down the street butt naked, that’s no safety,” Tony Anthony, resident, told Fox 11 Los Angeles. “They don’t need to be coming down here passing out these glass pipes.”

The news outlet reported that the nonprofit’s executive director turned down an interview and has yet to issue a statement.

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Excessive force, cover-ups: LAPD whistleblower expands ‘SWAT Mafia’ allegations

Anthony Soderberg was wounded, no longer armed and positioned precariously on a steep embankment when Los Angeles Police Lt. Ruben Lopez radioed to the surrounding SWAT team that the mentally ill man they’d just flushed from a nearby home remained a threat and must not be allowed to leave.

SWAT Sgt. Tim Colomey, a crisis negotiator standing next to Lopez in the command center, was stunned — interpreting the remark, as he knew other officers would, as a kill order.

“What the f— did you just say?” Colomey asked Lopez, just before the barrage of gunfire erupted.

“It was like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,” Colomey recalled. Officers outside “just started blasting away.”

In a frank and far-ranging legal deposition in March, the former SWAT sergeant offered extensive new details in support of allegations he first made in 2020 that the LAPD’s most elite tactical unit — a model for similar units across the country — is deeply corrupt and controlled by a violent inner circle known as the “SWAT Mafia.”

The 27-year LAPD veteran, who speaks quickly in a thick Boston accent, provided the deposition under oath as part of a lawsuit against the department and the city, in which he alleges he was transferred out of SWAT as retaliation for whistleblowing about the violence. He is seeking unspecified damages.

The city has denied Colomey’s claims in court; Lopez declined to comment on the allegations.

It is the SWAT team’s job to confront the most dangerous situations, and its members are specifically trained to end threats to the community. They are equipped and armed accordingly — and, department officials have said, rarely use force.

The Los Angeles Police Department as a whole has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, including over its multibillion-dollar budget and its use of force. Colomey’s allegations and other recent scandals involving SWAT members have intensified the spotlight on the team.

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‘Defund the Police’ LA City Council member asks LAPD for EXTRA patrols around his office after his car broke down and had to be left in the parking lot overnight

A newly-elected Los Angeles city councillor who campaigned on a pledge to abolish the police has been left red-faced after a staff member rang the LAPD to request protection for his broken-down car. 

Hugo Soto-Martinez, a trade union activist and member of the Democratic Socialist party, was elected in December.

Soto-Martinez campaigned against ‘armed militias occupying our neighborhoods,’ saying that the existing policing system was ‘completely corrupt, immoral, and needs to be changed drastically.’ 

On Thursday night, a member of his team placed a call to the LAPD just before 10pm requesting assistance, because Soto-Martinez’s white Lexus had broken down.

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LA Turns To A “Mansion Tax” To Try And Solve Its Homelessness Problem

Believe it or not, California thinks it has a solution to the homelessness problem that can be solved with additional taxation! Go figure.

A new measure in Los Angeles, called Measure ULA, is set to generate $900 million in taxes that will then be used for housing subsidies and tenant protections. The tax is essentially a levy on all property sales of more than $5 million, according to Bloomberg.

This “mansion tax”, if it passes, will look to “speed new construction and deliver a way out of the city’s spiraling homelessness crisis”, according to Bloomberg. It could generate some $900 million per year to provide infrastructure like affordable homes and tools like counsel for tenants in eviction courts. 

Laura Raymond, director of the nonprofit Alliance for Community Transit–Los Angeles, told Bloomberg: “This would be the biggest investment in tenant protections in the history of LA.”

Yes, and it would be another reason on a long list of reasons for Californians to continue their exodus from the state to greener tax pastures like Florida and Texas. 

She continued: ““We want to make sure that once this has passed, the housing experts, community organizations, community leaders and people who’ve been doing this work for many years are at the forefront of implementation.”

Meanwhile critics of the bill say it could ultimately wind up causing costs for developers and, subsequently rents, to rise. The city had tried to issue a bond in 2016 to provide the same type of relief, but that measure was “lackluster” in its success, the report says. 

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LAPD officer who died in training was targeted because he was about to blow the whistle on four other cops he was investigating for gang rape, lawyer claims: At least one of them was present when he was injured

LAPD officer Houston Tipping who died during police training was targeted because he was investigating fellow cops for an alleged gang rape, his lawyer has claimed.

The 32-year-old suffered a fatal spinal cord injury after he fell down while holding another officer in a ‘bear hug’ grappling exercise on May 26 at the Police Academy in what a coroner ruled was an accident.

But Brad Gage, the attorney for Tipping’s mother Shirley Huffman, has made the bombshell claims that the officer was a whistleblower in an assault case that involved four other officers 10 months before his death.

Tipping wrote a report on the alleged assault and one of the cops said to be involved was present when he died, Gage said.

The department said at the time that Tipping, a five year veteran of the LAPD who also served as a bike instructor in the City of Angels, was injured while ‘grappling’ with another officer and referred to his death as a ‘horrible accident.’  

But in her lawsuit, Huffman alleges he was ‘repeatedly struck in the head severely enough that he bled’ during the training activity.

An autopsy found Tipping suffered broken ribs that suggested the use of a LUCAS device, an automatic CPR machine, suggesting there were attempts to revive him.

Bu Gage said: ‘The problem with that is other medical reports show the LUCAS device was never used.’

He has also raised questions as to why no security footage was available.

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L.A. Schools Push Childhood Obesity In Bizarre Video Promoting Donuts As Healthy

The Los Angeles Unified School district promoted a video to encourage childhood obesity last week featuring a nutritionist who represents the processed food industry, according to the L.A. Parents Union.

The video, apparently published on the Human Relations page of the district’s Instagram account, aims to dismiss the idea of “bad” food no matter its nutritional value as “based on a false standard of ‘health.’” The clip, which no longer appears posted, begins with a woman offered a plate of iced donuts who recoils at their presentation.

“Those are so bad for you,” she claims, as her friend suggesting the sugary snack appears perplexed at the reaction.

“Oh no! Are they moldy? I mean, are they poisoned? Are you allergic?” the presenter asks while holding up the plate of dough and sprinkles. “Hm, you’re judging my food choices based on a false standard of health again, aren’t you.”

“Guilty.”

The conversation is followed by Kéra Nyemb-Diop, whom the video identified as the “Black Nutritionist,” encouraging students to abandon conventional standards of “good” and “bad choices.”

“Diet culture, fatphobia, and systems of oppression have created false hierarchies of food and show up everywhere,” says Nyemb-Diop. “Remember that you do not need to ‘earn’ food… Eat without guilt, regardless of what society says.”

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Los Angeles Public Health Offers Free COVID-19 Testing for Pets After City Records Zero Pet Cases

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is giving free COVID-19 tests to animals that are thought to have the virus even though there have been no COVID positives among tested animals.

Los Angeles health officials announced the program on Saturday, citing new funding for free COVID-19 testing for pets from the CDC.

“Veterinary Public Health has received funding from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in animals in Los Angeles County,” a statement on LA Public Health read.

“SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.  This project will help us to learn more about COVID-19 from a One Health perspective, meaning that we can learn more about the significance of COVID-19 in human, animal, and environmental relationships.

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LA Spends Billions to House a Fraction of Homeless Population

According to watchdog group Open the Books, the city of Los Angeles dedicated $1.2 billion in 2016 to try and fight homelessness through building affordable housing units. 

Since the program was approved, about 1,200 units have been completed – with some units costing taxpayers over $700,000 each, according to a city audit. One project currently underway is estimated to cost almost $837,000 per unit.

“The plan was to get the homeless people in Los Angeles into permanent housing to get them off the street and make no mistake, Los Angeles has a big problem when it comes to the homeless,” said Open The Books’ Adam Andrzejewski to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “In 2016, that $1.2 billion ordinance passed. It was a bond proposal for permanent housing for the homeless. And today, there are more people that are unhoused than ever before in the city of Los Angeles.”

While the homelessness crisis continues, Andrzejewski said a “bureaucratic culture” sprung up in the city.

“In city government, there are about 750 employees dedicated to housing and community development, and the top employee in that department makes more than a White House cabinet official,” said Andrzejewski.

According to polling by The Los Angeles Times and the L.A. Business Council Institute, nearly 40% of voters in the city feel “signi​ficantly unsafe”due to homelessness in their neighborhoods.

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As Los Angeles Comes Apart From Soaring Crime, Demand For Safe Rooms Skyrockets

As Los Angeles comes apart with soaring crime, wealthy homeowners have surged in their demand for “safe rooms” so they can be protected from potential invaders of their homes.

Dean Cryer, the vice-president of international operations at Building Consensus/Panic Room Builders, told The Hollywood Reporter, “Our influx of inquiries has increased more than 1,000 percent over the past three months. … It’s gone insane.”  He added, “Hidden rooms are definitely trending right now.”

“Building Consensus/Panic Room (which consulted on the 2002 movie Panic Room) builds various safe spaces ranging in security levels from one through eight. Safe rooms at level three may be protected with Kevlar, while a level eight is encased in thick steel,” The Hollywood Reporter noted. Cryer explained, “Just the doors can be 2,000 to 3,000 pounds. And then we’re installing steel within the room. So, we’re generating up to 10,000 pounds in a room. … You could kit out a small closet for about $100,000, $150,000. And then it’s north of there. We’ve done one in London that had two rooms, full suites … and that was over a million dollars.”

To enter the rooms, biometrics such as a finger or retina scan are primarily utilized; they can be hidden behind a bookcase or hidden wall and include panic buttons that automatically call security services.

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