NOAH PATRICK PFARR

As if city leaders aren't doing the same.

Michael Anthony Lee, a 12-year veteran of the Department of Recreation and Parks who worked at the Algin Sutton Recreation Center, was jailed along with L.A. resident Shane Anthony Gansterer yesterday.

But what about the $6.9 million in taxpayer-funded city gas that remains unaccounted for?

Frederic Poirot

And you know when an LAPD supervisor steps forward to say at least one lawman acted like the rules don't apply to him, there's got to be a little truth to it. Allegedly.

An LAPD whistleblower's lawsuit claims that a captain was less-than-legal on the road:

Kelly Thomas.

Gut-wrenching security video of the Kelly Thomas beating by Fullerton police was aired in court today.

Officer Manuel Anthony Ramos faced charges of second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter; Corporal Jay Cicinelli, a former LAPD cop, was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Warning: Video, after the jump, is graphic and hard to stomach:

Flickr

Chief Cummings with the mayor.

It was terrifying enough when L.A. Fire Department Chief Brian L. Cummings recently admitted to lying about his department's emergency response times to L.A. City Hall, leading to more dangerous cuts for LAFD.

But the worst possible thing he could do, now that taxpayers have learned that their firefighters are only meeting the national response-time standard 60 percent of the time, is cram the concerning data in a file cabinet and swallow the key.

ACLU of Southern California

Stupid b-movies about crime fighters almost always seem to feature a locker-room / squad room scene in which cops duke it out and / or pull a gun. But this shit is real, at least according to the Los Angeles Times and WitnessLA.com.

Not only that, but the outlets report that the copper in question, Timothy Cooper, is a reputed member of a law enforcement gang. Really:

As if embattled Sheriff Lee Baca needed another headline about an employee gone-bad, department officials today said they arrested one of their own trying to enter the Men's Central Jail with cocaine.

Remington Orr was arrested at 7:30 last night -- get this -- "as he was preparing to enter Men's Central Jail to distribute cocaine."

So goes the allegation in a statement just released by sheriff's officials:

Petelski.

Her family sued the department, alleging that the officer behind the wheel was speeding with no emergency lights on when the black-and-white hit her BMW shortly before midnight near Venice High School.

The city settled with her relatives for ...

KCET

L.A. Housing Authority (center) gets roasted by City Controller (top right).

L.A. City Controller Wendy Greuel scrambled to play catchup with an Earth-shaking investigation by local news station KCET -- revealing swanky dinners, limo rides and overflowing gift baskets at an insulated city department.

And even now that HACLA's top dog has been replaced amid the controversy (for a second freaking time), Greuel refuses to quit. It almost seems HACLA has become her grand finale of a pet project...

KCET

So we paid Ken Simmons an extra $25K per year for a "no comment"?

The rap sheet for taxpayer-money-hungry execs at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles just keeps getting longer.

Over the last year, KCET reporters for "SoCal Connected" have ripped the blinds off the HACLA executive offices. First, in spring, we found out that former CEO Rudy Montiel had been throwing around his city credit card on $400 lunches and the like -- the cherry atop a $450,000 salary. (He was fired when the scandal broke, and later handed $1.2 million by HACLA's Board of Commissioners so he wouldn't blow the whistle on them, too. Double sketch.) Then, this winter, KCET finally obtained documents showing Montiel's underlings had similarly spent hundreds of thousands on travel, meals and gifts. All the expenditures were approved by...

Bakersfield Now

OK, ew.

Wright was accused by former aide district coordinator Fahizah Alim of sexual harassment in the workplace.

A spokeswoman for Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) tells the Times that such secrecy is the norm for "personnel issues" like Wright's.

David Markland

The Teflon Sheriff.

Now Baca is proposing to tear down Men's Central Jail and start over with a $1 billion redux. That's serious money, even for the deep pockets of Los Angeles County government. (Some on the Board of Supervisors want Baca to put it on the ballot if he wants it so bad).

The ACLU, for one, says if you don't rebuild it, prisoners won't come. Or something like that:

LASD / WitnessLA

Tanaka.

We had our doubts when the elected lawman said he really didn't know what was going on in the nation's largest jail system: Headlines have been coming at him since the dawn of the millennium.

But a new report in the website WitnessLA states that Baca is kept away from bad news like Michael Jackson in a Holmby Hills mansion, and that the jails have been run mainly by his right-hand yes man:

YouTube

LAPD gets an assist from purple-shirt-wearing security guards at an Occupy demonstration.

In video of a police confrontation with Occupy L.A. protesters outside a Bank of America branch downtown over the weekend a few private security guards are seen, batons-in-hand, helping the LAPD form a skirmish line.

In fact officers can be seen pushing security guards into strategic positions as they face off against the so-called 99-percenters. The security employees push people back with batons and aim the business ends of the weapons at citizens. At least one guard even appears to participate in the arrest of demonstrator Anthony Loscano.

What gives? Did the LAPD just deputize a group of civilians? LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman tells the Weekly:

David Markland

Lee Baca.

Well, that nonstick coating will be put to the test this week as the County Board of Supervisors' Citizens Commission on Jail Violence gets to work looking into the accusations that Baca has only recently acknowledged.

The commission can't fire Baca, but it's made up of some tough characters, and if we were the county's top cop, we'd be a little scared:

NorCal's Nancy Pelosi finds nothing shady about her convenient investment in Visa.

For anyone else, insider trading is illegal. But Washington's elite have simultaneously avoided passing any laws to hold themselves accountable. After reviewing the trade history of several suspicious congressmen and -women, CBS News named a handful of names last night -- apparent abusers of this privilege.

None who represent L.A. County, though. So we decided to ask all 19 senators and representatives ourselves. Below are their answers...

ACLU

A report issued by the ACLU of Southern California lists some anecdotal evidence that school authorities are searching the contents of students' phones when they're confiscated.

Fine, you say. But some of that information ...

Now comes word that Capt. Daniel Cruz has been relieved of duty as part of the department's internal investigation into the beatings.

Fall guy or bad guy? Journalist Celeste Fremon has unearthed some dirt on Cruz, and it ain't pretty:

Jim McDonnell from his LAPD days.

Now the omnipotent if not low-profile County Supervisors seem to be in a pissing contest to see who can appoint the bigger hard ass to its Citizen's Commission on Jail Violence. Supervisor Gloria Molina showed her cards earlier this week: Her pick would be former state Supreme Court associate justice Carlos R. Moreno.

Not to be outdone, Supervisor Don Knabe upped the ante today with ...

Judge Carlos R. Moreno.

County Supervisor Gloria Molina today announced the appointment to the body that was formed "in response to allegations that Sheriff's Deputies working in county custody facilities engaged in unnecessary use of force--and that complaints about such behavior were systematically downplayed, ignored, or covered up."

Of course, Sheriff Lee Baca, who for years has seemed impervious to the allegations, really has only one boss:

David Markland

Lee Baca, under fire.

Over the weekend the Los Angeles Times pulled that excuse out from under him.

The paper reported that it got its hands on documents that pretty much prove that ...