Charges of election fraud are flying in Little Armenia, as council candidates John Choi and Mitch O'Farrell have filed complaints with the district attorney accusing each other of stealing votes. The latest sign that something suspicious might indeed be going on is the above photo -- posted last month on Instagram -- which appears to show a large number of vote-by-mail ballots sitting on somebody's bed.
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Courtesy Tom Ferda

Scores of people, police and, of course, Occupy L.A. hit downtown yesterday for the annual May Day marches and rallies. The streets were clogged with an estimated 10,000-plus people who were there to speak their minds on immigration reform, and -- wait! -- did that sign just say what we think it said?

Of course, it would just be an example of someone exercising their First Amendment rights. The phrase is not unknown to us, right? It has been used in various protests across the world at least since the N.W.A song made the phrase popular in 1988.

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A few days after a pair of cops were credited with saving the life of a woman in a burning tent downtown, two LAPD officers are being praised for helping to save the life of an elderly woman at a pizza restaurant in the Valley.

The duo was flagged down by a restaurant employee Saturday at 1:30 p.m., cops said. The 75-year-old had been choking, according to the LAPD:

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LAPD

An LAPD officer was being praised by the department for bravely going where you or I probably would not have gone:

Inside a burning tent to save a woman's life.

It happened early today on Skid Row as cops on patrol as part of LAPD's Safer Cities Initiative noticed the blaze:

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Frederic Poirot / Flickr

If you're tired of the LAPD killing fish in a barrel with "ticket traps" and other money-making schemes while motorists make atrocious and dangerous moves in your neighborhood, we have bad news for you.

The department has obtained new laser speed-detection guns that can not only pick you out of a crowd but take a photo of your license plate and shake you upside down to ensure the city gets all your money.

Okay, that last part was a joke. But seriously:

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Photo by Ted Soqui

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck trotted out a table full of guns on Thursday and proclaimed that this year's gun buyback was the most successful ever.More »

The Los Angeles Police Department has sent officers to Newtown, Conn., in the wake of Friday's tragedy.

Assistant Chief Michel Moore told the Los Angeles Police Commission this week that the department, alongside L.A. Unified School District police, has sent a small contingent of officers to the violence-wracked town.

The aim, he said, was both to learn what they can from the mass shooting and to ...

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joannontherun / YouTube

Flag on the play?

The videotaped LAPD take-down of college student Ronald Weekley, Jr. has some in Venice's African American community concerned about police tactics.

The department says the West Bureau violent crime task force to which the officers belong has since been reassigned to other areas as the investigation into the videotaped pile-on continues.

Those cops are out of Venice, but not for the reasons you might think:

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A South Los Angeles woman who was treated to a "leg sweep" by an LAPD cop after allegedly struggling with officers died while in custody, police said in a statement tonight. In-car video of the situation, when the suspect was in custody, "revealed some questionable tactics and improper comments," according to an LAPD statement. The Los Angeles Times said the woman was stomped in the groin and possibly called "fat ass."

The department identified the woman as 35-year-old Alesia Thomas, a mother of two children who cops said were abandoned at the LAPD's Southeast Division station. It all happened ...

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@_THATCHICK via Twitter

"RIP to my Day 1 homie Tony Francis."

Friends and family of 22-year-old Compton dad Tony Francis are having a hard time believing the L.A. County Sheriff's account of his death last Friday:

Sheriff's Homicide Detective Holly Francisco told reporters that a deputy from the Lakewood station was forced to shoot Francis after the suspect was observed carrying out a violent robbery near the American Tire Depot on Alondra Boulevard in Bellflower.

Francis "was hitting the victim in the face numerous times and stole an item from the victim," the detective alleged to CBS2. "The suspect then began to run away from the deputy. The deputy followed him..."

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ABC7 / Facebook

Weekley.

It doesn't appear that skateboarder Ronald Weekley, Jr. did anything to deserve getting punched in the face by an LAPD cop, as seen on video of his take-down by police in Venice last weekend.

And those badges involved will have to answer why so much manpower was involved in nabbing a 20-year-old over riding a skateboard on the wrong side of the street. (Kids do it all the time, as did this reporter just the other night -- in front of a cop!).

But you also have to ask Weekley a serious question:

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USC Marshall School of Business

Was 1-percenter Brian Mulligan the latest victim of LAPD brutality?

Deutsche Bank's head of media and entertainment investing here in Los Angeles doesn't have too much in common with the 99 percent. But his recent allegations against the LAPD make him out to be an average Occupite:

According to TMZ, bank executive Brian Mulligan claims he was forced into a Highland Park motel room by LAPD officers, who then beat him to a pulp.

TMZ also says Mulligan plans to sue the police department and the city...

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YouTube

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers, Ismael Gonzalez and Alex Nava, have reportedly been running a rogue boot camp out of a Hollywood school since February. They've recreated the the LAPD's official "Juvenile Impact Program" by slightly changing its name to "Juvenile Intervention Program"-- yet doubling the cost to $200.

And there's video.

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toyhaven.blogspot.com

The world according to an LAPD motorcycle cop.

Update: One of the officers has been fired. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck says: "I do not believe that their intent was evil, just extremely misguided." Read his full statement at the bottom.

Originally posted July 25 at 5:15 p.m.

So badly did two Los Angeles traffic officers want to prove their case against a DUI suspect, says the District Attorney today, that they lied both in a police report and on the witness stand.

Motorcycle cops Craig Allen, 39, and Phillip Walters, 56, have both been charged with "filing a false police report" and "perjury" -- charges that could technically put them behind bars for over four years.

It's unusual for the D.A. to take such serious action...

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Tim Pool via Twitter

"Various projectiles fired at journalists, protesters, and bystanders in #Anaheim"

Approximately 500 protesters, majority Latino, were showered in police beanbags, rubber bullets and pepper balls last night outside Anaheim City Hall as they rioted over two recent officer-involved shootings in the Orange County town. (And the fight wasn't one-sided: Protesters reportedly hurtled bottles, rocks and traffic cones right back in the face of riot police.)

But you know the police response has waxed indiscriminate when two journalists walking along the sidewalk, just doing their job, come under fire:

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CBS Los Angeles

Chaos in Anaheim.

Update at 1:53 p.m Sunday: The suspect shot by cops is dead. Get his ID and more video from our sister publication, OC Weekly (click this sentence), which is all over it. First posted at 11:28 p.m. Saturday.

Cops shot non-lethal rounds toward men, women and children and unleashed a dog who charged toward a stroller during a clash with mostly Latino residents in Anaheim following an officer-involved shooting there.

The confrontation happened about 4 p.m. today in the 600 block of N. Anna Drive, according to the Orange County Register.

That report indicated that another clash brewed around 8 p.m. ...

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Neon Tommy / Flickr

Chief Beck.

The LAPD today said it was sending "undercover" officers to area theaters as a precaution in the wake of the massacre of film-goers at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado.

"In regard to what happened in Colorado, there will be spot checks," an officer told the Weekly.

In a statement the department said uniformed cops would also be a high-visibility presence at theaters and other public events in the wake of the tragedy:

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L.A County Sheriff's Department

Alexis Torres in his post-beating mug shot.

While investigating another story, Telemundo's video team says it caught a brutal L.A. County Sheriff's arrest on tape -- adding to the leaning stack of "excessive force" allegations on some neglected desk at the sheriff's Internal Affairs Bureau.

The video (embedded below) shows a young Latino man being slammed mercilessly into the sidewalk.

Although he does not appear to be resisting the three Transit Services deputies who take him down...

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Tommy Yoon / YouTube

Skater down at Art Walk.

Following Thursday's clash between riot police and the Occupy LA movement downtown during monthly Art Walk festivities, members of the group are headed to this morning's L.A. Police Commission meeting to lodge complaints.

Occupy The Hood organizer Bilal Ali tells the Weekly that his spin-off organization will be joined by Occupy LA members and others as they take their grievances to the LAPD's ultimate bosses, the commission, where ...

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MySpace

Jeremi Carr says he "didn't know what these dudes were about to do."

Just a few months after unarmed black teen Kendrec McDade was shot to death by Pasadena police officers -- we called him "the next Trayvon Martin" -- the Pasadena Police Department finds itself in familiar waters.

An ongoing probe into the investigative tactics of Detective Kevin Okamoto and Detective Keith Gomez has uncovered new allegations that the out-of-control cops beat young black man Jeremi Carr, now 24...

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