Los Angeles News Blog

Talk about your cops and robbers. Police say a man with a badge and wearing "plain clothes" has been approaching victims cop-like and shaking them down for cash. They say the man is not a real cop, but rather an impersonator.

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A scary one at that. He's walked up to victims in the late morning and early afternoon and, real officer-like, revealed a badge clipped to a gun belt, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. He patted them down under the guise of a "pedestrian stop" investigation only to pocket valuables including cash and entire wallets.

We'd love to see the "what just happened" look on the victims' faces, but the fact is this guy needs to get got, and with the department's robbery detectives on the case, he probably will go down. (For a little primer on what happens when the LAPD focuses its resources on robbers at large, read this). The suspect is described as a 35- to 45-year-old Latino, 6 feet tall, weighing 230 pounds, and often wearing a dark, polo-style shirt and blue jeans.

In between solving a $500 million budget shortfall, choosing a new Los Angeles Police Department chief and making sure those potholes get filled, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa found time to appear on this week's season finale of Bravo's Project Runway.

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They had a little fun with the city's political leader, letting him ramble about the inherent greatness of L.A. while cutting away to focus on chatter among the designer contestants. When the camera returns to Mayor V, he's still talking, this time about how the city of Angels is something of a fashion capital.

Villaraigosa was in his element among the gleaming white architecture of the Getty Center. He's a natural among celebs and a favorite with the Westside's industry elite, who largely supported his candidacy. But did he have to wear so much makeup? Shots of hizzoner clearly show him donning some serious lipstick.

Neon Tommy, the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism publication, has been rebuffed by several counties in California in its attempt to obtain records of swine flu deaths.

Neon Tommy

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Only after some persistence did Los Angeles County allow the USC journalists to take a peek at its H1N1-related death certificates. The result? According to Neon Tommy 57 people have died in L.A. since the latest outbreak of swine flu in April, including 13 people since early October.

The USC journalists found that in many cases the county had not informed family members of the potential H1N1 cause of death. County officials told the publication that it wasn't their responsibility to notify relatives that the swine flu was near and that it had taken out a loved one.

In his third town hall meeting in as many nights, Los Angeles Police Department chief designee Charlie Beck established some distance between himself and his mentor, former Chief Bill Bratton.

Charlie Beck is establishing some distance between himself and mentor Bill Bratton.

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Beck, responding to a question Thursday night at El Sereno Senior Center about how he would distinguish himself from the mighty Bratton, said, "Bill Bratton was the right chief when he was selected in 2002 ... but we're not that point right now."

Beck was the top choice of Bratton, the star chief who helped reduce the city's crime rate by more than half. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been parading Beck in front of the public all week in anticipation of his city council approval next week, credited Bratton with helping reduce city crime to levels not seen since the mid-1950s.

First, Conan, and now Oprah? Entertainment industry journalist Nikki Finke is reporting that Oprah Winfrey could be moving from her base of Chicago to Los Angeles to be closer to the home of her OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) channel, which would carry her namesake show in 2011.

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John Trav-olta! Er, no. Oprah. And she might be coming to L.A.

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Finke reports that Discover Networks is demanding Winfrey include her trademark daytime talk show as part of the OWN lineup, which is being rolled out in cooperation with Discover.

It's a risky move, as The Oprah Winfrey Show is a cash cow that gives the entertainment mogul mass influence over the buying, reading and movie-going habits of millions of viewers. It also makes her arguably the highest paid person of television (alongside the likes of Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane). But she has threatened in the past to retire.

UPDATED: Whomever says the Westside sees no action hasn't been paying attention this week. On Tuesday night a 20-year-old man was fatally shot in Santa Monica and early Thursday morning Los Angeles police opened fire on a robbery suspect, wounding the boy in the Sawtelle neighborhood of West Los Angeles.

Tuesday's violence broke out about 8:52 p.m. at Virginia Avenue Park at 2200 Virginia Avenue in the Pico Neighborhood of Santa Monica where authorities recently cracked down on two local gangs. Santa Monica police state that a suspect walked up to four males at the park and opened fire. Three fled unharmed but the forth was struck and killed.

Santa Monica Parks

Virginia Avenue Park was the site of a fatal shooting, police say.

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A sergeant who happened to be in the area heard the shots and helped pursue the suspects, four of which were nabbed after a perimeter was set up. We were unable to reach the coroner's office in order to learn the victim's identity.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced that they just recovered a Volkswagen van that had been reported stolen in 1974.

The 1965 Bus was found in at the Los Angeles/Long Beach ports, in a shipping container bound for the Netherlands, Customs authorities said. They ran the van's vehicle identification number and discovered it had been reported stolen from Spokane, Washington in the year of Patty Hearst, Nixon's resignation and an OPEC-led gas crunch.

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"This is a unique case that reflects our strategic approach in utilizing the best of intelligence, training and use of information in enforcing laws and regulations at our ports," said Customs field operations director Kevin Weeks.

Spokane police said the case was still open and that it's current owner, an insurance company, would like the car back.

First AME Church has filed suit against a woman who is claiming in superior court that the powerful congregation's leader, Rev. John J. Hunter, coerced her into having sex with him as part of her employment.

The legal push-back on the part of the South Los Angeles institution came Tuesday and was announced in a statement by high-power public relations firm Sitrick & Company. The church says that Brenda Lamothe "demanded money from the Church and well before she publicly leveled what church leaders consider to be false and spurious accusations."

Rev. John J. Hunter

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While Lamothe's suit alleges Hunter demanded "on-demand" sex from her as part of "God's will" until she was fired from the church in June, First AME contends that she sent a glowing resignation letter to the congregation 10 months earlier. Lamothe now works for the office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

An elite event to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Los Angeles Police Department, to mark the end of Chief William Bratton's tenure, and to provide yet another opening ceremony for the new Police Administration Building will feature Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien as an emcee, Wolfgang Puck as a caterer and Bacardi as a spirits provider.

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Conan O'Brien just moved to L.A. and already he's rubbing shoulders with people who won't even return the Weekly's calls.

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A lawsuit against controversial First AME Church Rev. John J. Hunter claims that he pressured a subordinate for on-demand sex as "God's will."

First AME Church

Rev. John J. Hunter is alleged to have pressured a subordinate to have sex.

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Rev. Brenda Lamothe, who now works for the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, says in a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that the married pastor pressured her for sexual "comfort" as a way to fulfill her church duties.

The relationship began in 2005 and, according to the lawsuit, Lamothe was soon coerced into providing sex on-demand as part of her job. She states in the suit that Hunter called her his "everything."

The trial of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer accused of murdering an arrestee could come to Los Angeles after a state's Administrative Office of the Courts suggested the move following a judge's ruling that the suspect probably can't get a fair jury in Alameda County.

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Johannes Mehserle is charged with famously shooting a seemingly subdued and unarmed Oscar Grant New Year's day at BART's Fruitvale Station. The shooting was captured on video. The officer said he was reaching for his taser and accidentally came up with his gun and pulled the trigger. His attorneys prefer another possible location -- San Diego -- and the family of Grant wants the trial to come to L.A., according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The case has become a cause celebre for minorities who believe the shooting represents the difference between how white people and black people (Grant was black, the officer is white) are treated by cops.

Despite the mayor's insistence that inner-city residents want -- and need -- denser housing developments in their neighborhoods, the locals in one Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood shut down a monstrous housing wart planned for the top of a picturesque hill in their area. In it's place, they're getting 20 acres of open space.

Councilman Jose Huizar helped residents shut down a development.

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Local activists helped to shut down a 24-house luxury development on the top of Elephant Hill in El Sereno by pushing for an extra environmental review report. The developer, Monterey Hills Investors, sued the city over the extra EIR requirment, but it backfired: A settlement just approved by the city council means the hill remains unblemished and the city gets control of 20 acres of open space.

"After a long and hard fought struggle, the residents of this community have been afforded the environmental protections that are rightfully theirs," community organizer Elva Yañez said. "We are pleased that this poorly planned project is not moving forward and environmental justice has prevailed."

Laura Chick, the former city controller who tried to account for tax dollars penny by penny, putting many council members on notice, is the new sheriff in town in Sacramento as a state inspector charged with keeping tabs on federal stimulus money headed to the Golden State.

Laura Chick

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She's already ruffling feathers and today announced that the state has found half a million dollars in questionable spending at one nonprofit group that's getting federal stimulus cash. The Economic Opportunity Council of San Francisco, which bills itself as an organization that addresses poverty through education, nutrition and employment programs, has been misspending tax dollars, according to announcement made by Chick today.

The inquiry by California's Community Services Department found "as much as $542,478.47 in disallowed expenditures including co-mingling funds, board of directors retreats at a luxury casino, coffee services, drinking water and flowers," according to a Chick statement.

A USC journalism student put together an enterprising video report about city parking tickets, and the results probably won't surprise you: He captured Department of Transportation Parking Enforcement officers issuing tickets for parking during street sweeping hours even when street sweepers never came around.

A DOT official gives student Matt Schrader an interview and says that, in fact, policy dictates that tickets should not be issued for parking during street sweeping hours if the sweepers aren't actually cleaning those particular streets.

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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman Eric Garcetti pose with Parking Enforcement officers.

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But Schrader catches Parking Enforcement officers issuing tickets again and again on streets that don't see street sweepers for weeks. Only six of nine streets downtown he monitored over a three week period were actually swept on schedule, but the DOT ticket-makers were there like clockwork.

Tenants at some of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling's more-recently acquired Koreatown properties allege that the basketball magnate weeded out black and Latino residents in favor of Koreans who were perceived as being people who don't "complain" as much, according to one fair-housing advocate.

Illustration by Mr. Fish

Donald T. Sterling allegedly pressured blacks and Latinos to leave his buildings.

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It looks like the Clippers organization loses again, though: A discrimination lawsuit against Sterling was settled for $2.725 million, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday. The settlement doesn't mean that Sterling admits to actually barring certain minorities from his buildings, but it is "largest monetary payment ever obtained by the department in the settlement of a case alleging housing discrimination in the rental of apartments," according to a statement from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.

Frankly, it doesn't make the NBA team owner, whom player Elgin Baylor accused of having a "vision of a Southern plantation-type structure" in his organization, look good at all. Those big one-page advertisements in the Times trumpeting his New York-style highrises along the Wilshire Corridor are windows to a world of alleged bigotry of the worst kind.

Charlie Beck will be Los Angeles' next police chief. The mayor is expected to announce his choice at a press conference at 11 a.m. this morning at the Getty House in Hancock Park.

Charlie Beck

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Beck headed the LAPD's Detective Bureau and oversaw the testing of thousands of untested rape kits. He was also credited with overseeing the rehabilitation of the Rampart Division after its corruption scandal became a nightmare for the police department.

Beck, 56, has been with the LAPD for 32 years. His son is about to graduate from the LAPD's Police Academy, and his daughter is an officer who works out of Hollywood Division station. His father was a deputy chief.

"Chief Beck will serve the city well," said Paul Weber, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. "In our conversations with him, we have emphasized the concerns of the rank-and-file police officers as well as the community, and we are confident he will be responsive to the needs of both. We reaffirm our pledge to work with the new Chief and his command staff to continue improving the Department and combating crime....He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table, having started his career as an LAPD Reserve Officer before going full time and working his way up to Deputy Chief."

Beck beat out 1st Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell and Deputy Chief Michel Moore for the coveted post.

The saga of the crypt above Marilyn Monroe's resting place in Westwood added a new chapter over the weekend when it was revealed that zero bidders weighed in on the auction for the spot, which was valued at more than $500,000.
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Widow Elsie Poncher wanted to sell the crypt that is the site of her husband's resting place in order to pay off the $1.6 million mortgage on her Beverly Hills home. Her husband purchased the spot from Joe DiMaggio after the baseball great and the actress divorced. Fred Poncher's body has been there for 23 years but, pending a sale, Elsie Poncher planned to move it.

But selling the crypt by Halloween turned out to be a cursed proposition. In August, another eBay-auction attempt failed when a Japanese man who had pledged $4.6 million to buy it was unable to follow through with the money.

That city deal to take on Google's free email services as a cost-cutting measure will actually cost the taxpayers $1.5 million more next year than if City Hall would have stayed with its old email system.
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In what seems like bizarre math, Google competitor Novell points out that the cost of training employees and migrating the city's thousands of workers to gmail will cost an additonal $1.5 mil. Indeed, the city is actually paying out $.7.2 million as part of a deal with Computer Sciences Corp. to help employees migrate to the Google services. It's apparently more than the cost of maintaining its old email system.

Novell, which was bidding to take of city email services, is mad: "With the City facing a massive budget deficit, the speculated budget benefits of switching to this untested application are enticing, but as a recent independent Los Angeles City Administrative Officer report has stated, the proposed system under consideration will actually cost taxpayers an additional $1.5 million in the first year. There are significant costs to migrating, training and securing Google Apps."

A rail-car-manufacturing deal that was touted by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as a major job-maker for recession-ravaged L.A. fell through over the weekend, sending his go-go transportation agenda a little off track.

The plan was to have Italian rail-car maker AnsaldoBreda build a 650-job factory in L.A. in order to fill a Metropolitan Transportation Authority order for 100 rail cars. Construction of the factory alone was trumpeted as a 1,000-job project.

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A deadline loomed and AnsaldoBreda didn't ink the deal in time. The company is already a few years behind on a separate MTA contract to deliver 50 rail cars that are considerably heavier (by 6,000 pounds each) than specified. They're so heavy, in fact, that they might not even be usable on certain rail lines. The Italian company is three years late on that deal and has only delivered about one-third of the order.

Police who roughed-up and injured people in the so called "May Day Melee" in MacArthur Park in 2007 might have caused the city to pay out nearly $13 million in settlements but they didn't commit any crimes, the county district attorney announced today.

Fox11

Fox11 reporter Christina Gonzalez was pushed to the ground by officers.

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"Although the officers involved might have used questionable tactics, our investigation determined there is insufficient evidence to initiate criminal proceedings against the officers," said D.A. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

The May 1st violence happened during a pro-immigration protest in which a few demonstrators taunted police and threw trash at them. At some point Los Angeles Police Department brass ordered officers to clear out the park and, donning riot gear, marched over the grass and pushed, shoved and hit people with batons.

News of a glow stick explosion in Texas has rocked the nightlife world. No, not really. A glow stick bracelet malfunction did injure a 13-year-old girl, who said she was playing with the accessory when it broke and squirted liquid into her eyes.

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The teen experienced vision problems and, she said, ""My whole face got really, really, red." Somewhat like a bright red glow stick. This is an apt warning for all you Halloween glow stickers out there. Los Angeles is by far the glow-stick capital of the nation. And with major, rave-like Halloween parties happening at the Shrine Auditorium, the Coliseum and all the superclubs tonight and tomorrow, there could be more than 100,000 people spinning these neon bombs over the weekend.

Be careful. Remember what mom said. You'll poke your eye out. Plus, glow sticks are downright cheesy. Nobody cares what kind of 1999 moves you can do with a pair of glowing green airport-traffic lights. Leave them at home.

We're not the only ones who did a double take when the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported this week that homelessness was down 38 percent in the county compared to 2007.

Kevin Scanlon

Advocate for the homeless Alice Callaghan says the numbers don't add up.

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Let's get this straight: County unemployment, at 12.7 percent, is the highest it has been in a generation. Southern California is the capital of home foreclosures. The economy is the worst it's been since the Great Depression. And less people are on the street?

We're not buying. LAHSA is a joint city-county agency that funnels $70 in tax dollars to alleviate those on the streets. Homeless advocate Alice Callaghan, who runs the family services and education center Las Familias del Pueblo on Skid Row, says the agency is a tool of City Hall. She calls the report "the mayor's numbers."

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled today that the city's billboard settlement agreement that allowed 840 digital billboards citywide is invalid.

Superior Court Judge Terry Green ruled that the settlement agreement between the city and billboard giants Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor was invalid because it exempted the digital billboard conversions from any zoning regulations and public hearings. In other words, the city can't legislate away its zoning powers in a lawsuit settlement. The judge called his decision a "slam dunk."

Still up for debate is the fate of the 101 digital billboards that are currently flashing advertisements all over Los Angeles.

The case, which was filed by Summit Media, sought to void the lawsuit settlement that allowed the billboard giants to convert 840 of their billboards to digital. The suit claimed that the settlement agreement unanimously approved by the City Council violated the constitutional rights of Summit Media and other companies that could not convert their billboards into digital.

The 2006 settlement came about after Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor filed a lawsuit in 2002 challenging an ordinance calling for a periodic inventory and inspection of all billboards in the city.

​It's back to the drawing board for city planners who've been working on Mayor Villaraigosa's much-touted affordable housing plan. While officials were supposed to present an outline of the plan to the City Council this month, they're now saying they have to rethink the terms of the "mixed-income ordinance," reports the Downtown News.

What's the hold up? A judge's recent ruling that an existing low-income housing requirement -- which is similar to the citywide law bring drafted by city officials -- is illegal.

Fearing that other developers with take a cue from real estate pitbull Geoff Palmer, who successfully sued the city over its demand that 15% of his latest downtown Italian-style behemoth be priced below market rate, city planners say they have no choice but to retool the new ordinance.

"We can't do what the City Council had intended to do," city planner Jane Blumenfeld told the Downtown News.

Which means affordable housing advocates will have to wait even longer for the mayor to follow through on his plan to provide for low-income renters.

​​Perhaps to remind us that he can attract media attention simply by suggesting pie-in-the-sky ideas, Mayor Villaraigosa yesterday and today made headlines by declaring that he will do in 10 years what everyone says will take 30. That is, he vowed to fast-track several rail projects throughout L.A. County, including his grand Westside subway extension plan, so that they can be completed within the next decade -- even though he has no concrete plans for how to raise the necessary $10 billion.

"I recognize that it's a daunting task, but I love the challenge and I'm up for it," Villaraigosa told the L.A. Times, whose online article yesterday called the mayor's plan "bullish."

Bullish? Move the "i" over and add a "t" at the end, and you'll get a more accurate description of Villaraigosa's proposal.

When will the mayor's boyish delight at announcing big ideas without substantive backing lose its charm?

If anyone's wondering whether Villaraigosa can actually pull off this feat of transit construction, consider the daunting details... 

A doctor who says he was moved by the story of a woman who died without proper care in the emergency room waiting area at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital is putting a $100 million in loan guarantees behind a movement to revive the troubled institution. The question is, on this Halloween eve, is the place haunted by negligence? Might it be better to go Poltergeist on the Willowbrook building and nudge its implosion while the county looks elsewhere to seed a new hospital?

Los Angeles County Department of Health Services

Boo.

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Multibillionaire surgeon Patrick Soon-Shiong believes that King can be resurrected without the macabre practices that dogged its existence until its closure in 2007. Edith Isabel Rodriguez, whose calls for help were ignored at a waiting room in the spring of that year, died in a pool of her own blood on the floor. In 2003 two patients whose deteriorating vital signs weren't being monitored closely also perished. Staff members used taser guns to control unruly psychiatric patients. Knott's Scary Farm -- for real.

The area desperately needs a hospital and it could use an emergency room even more. Through his Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, the South Africa-born doctor is guaranteeing $100 million in loans to open the institution, according to a foundation statement.

The shooting that shook L.A.'s Jewish community Thursday and provided flashbacks to the hate-fueled North Valley Jewish Community Center shooting a decade ago was likely a personal attack, according to reports.

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The site of the shootings.

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ABC7 and KTLA News state that police say the attacker knew one of two victims shot and wounded in the parking structure of the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in North Hollywood. The stations reported that the shooter might have been triggered by a business dispute.

If so, it would give Los Angeles synagogues and temples a sigh of relief. They were put on alert by police after the 6:30 a.m. shooting in the 12400 block of Sylvan Street. Police weren't sure what motivated the attack.

Police seemed dumbfounded by Thursday morning's shooting of two men at a North Hollywood synagogue. Officers at the scene of the shooting at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in the 12400 block of Sylvan St. picked up a 17-year-old boy who loosely matched the description of the shooter. But by early afternoon they let him go.

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The site of the attack.

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The teenager was questioned and returned to his school, Lt. Alan Hamilton told KTLA News. That left authorities at the scene, who had established a perimeter in an attempt to catch the shooter but later called off the active search, without much to go on in the attack, which hospitalized the victims with non-life-threatening wounds to their legs.

"We're looking at all possibilities at this point," Hamilton said.

Police today were questioning a 17-year-old boy in the shooting of two men at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in North Hollywood early this morning, police told LA Weekly. The attack, which wounded the men, was being investigated as a possible hate crime, and area synagogues and temples were put on alert.​

About an hour and a half after the 6:30 a.m. shooting at the synagogue parking lot in the 12400 block of Sylvan St. police were called to the historic Wilshire Temple at 3663 Wilshire Blvd. to check out a suspicious package, Los Angeles police Det. Gus Villanueva told the Weekly. The area was blocked off and the bomb squad was called. Investigators are still at the scene.

The suspect in the North Hollywood shooting was described as a young black man wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Reports indicated that the 17-year-old fit that description, but Villanueva declined to call him a suspect. The victims in the attack were wounded in their legs and hospitalized. Their injuries were described as non-life-threatening in reports.

Outgoing Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton exited the department's new headquarters downtown Wednesday with hundreds of officers bidding him adieu. The "end of watch" farewell ceremony had the top cop choked up as he issued departing words to his troops.

Bratton can no longer flash his LAPD badge.

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"I owe thanks to the extraordinary men and women of the department," he's quoted as saying.

The strange part of the ceremony came at the end, when Bratton stepped into an an SUV that was stopped on First Street: A Los Angeles Police Department official stepped up to the car and notified Bratton that he forgot to turn over his badge. As seen in television coverage on KCAL9, the chief reached into an inside breast pocket, produced the badge, and handed it over.