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Detective Diane Webb was determined. The Grim Sleeper, an anonymous killer who’d stopped murdering for 13 years, had resurfaced, and she had a plan for tripping him up. It was the fall of 2008, and she happened to show Detective Lauren Rauch, one of 33 officers who work for Webb monitoring the city’s vast population of registered sex offenders, a recent L.A. Weekly news story headlined, “The Grim Sleeper: The most elusive serial killer west of the Mississippi took a 13-year break. Now he’s back, murdering Angelenos, as cops hunt his DNA.” Webb, a hardcore number-cruncher and sex-crimes expert, floated...

LOS ANGELES-- The Los Angeles Police Department has been released from a long running decree after a federal judge decided the department had reformed significantly from prior corruption charges. The city was forced into the consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice after the Rampart corruption scandal and brutality complaints. The agreement, which aimed to improve the LAPD's policing standards, meant more than 100 reforms to the department, the tightening of internal checks on officers' conduct, improved training, increased oversight of the anti-gang unit at the center of the Rampart corruption scandal, and a ban on racial profiling. The...

Multiple law enforcement sources tell TMZ the LAPD is already treating Michael Jackson's death as a homicide, and they are focusing on Dr. Conrad Murray. Law enforcement sources tell us the evidence points to the anesthesia Propofol as the primary cause of Jackson's death. As we first reported, vials of Propofol were found in Jackson's home after he died. Law enforcement sources say there is already "plenty of powerful evidence" linking Dr. Murray as the person who administered the drug to Jackson. The evidence includes various items found in Jackson's house, including the Propofol, an IV stand and oxygen tank....

LA police chief: Jackson investigation might turn criminalBy Deutsche Presse Agentur His statements Thursday to CNN were the clearest indication yet that some of the many doctors who treated Jackson over the years could have helped him illegally get the prescription drugs that were suspected of being a factor in his death. Bratton's comments came as the Jackson family was waiting for the results of the pop star's official autopsy and the independent autopsy that were conducted shortly after his June 25 death. "We are still awaiting corroboration from the coroner's office as to cause of death," Bratton told CNN....

The map, touted as a way for residents to monitor the safety of their neighborhoods, doesn't include about 19,000 serious crimes reported in other LAPD data. Officials say they're looking into it. The Los Angeles Police Department's online crime map intended for public use has failed to include nearly 40% of serious crimes reported in the city. In one of those rapes, a man hid in the back of a woman's car, forced her to drive to an abandoned North Hollywood apartment and assaulted her. It was the kind of incident that residents of the neighborhood around Sherman Way and...

LOS ANGELES, June 30 (UPI) -- The Los Angeles Police Department, hoping to improve relations with Muslims, has appointed the force's first Islamic chaplain, police officials said. Pakistan-born Sheik Qazi Asad, 47, will become a reserve chaplain at the North Hollywood station, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. "We need to establish very good communication ... where both parties are talking to each other," Asad told the Times. "This is just opening up the door." Asad, a U.S. citizen, has spent a decade working to improve relations between police and Muslim communities in Los Angeles County. The LAPD hopes he'll...

Police in Los Angeles were preparing to interview a doctor to establish whether Michael Jackson was injected with a strong painkilling drug shortly before he suffered a fatal heart attack. Detectives confirmed their intention to question the singer's personal physician, amid reports that Jackson was already dead by the time paramedics arrived on the scene on Thursday. Reports in the US suggested Jackson had stopped breathing after taking an injection of the prescription drug Demerol, a commercial name for pethidine, which can cause cardiac arrest if too large a dose is given. A silver BMW is taken from Michael Jackson's...

The Los Angeles Police robbery and homicide division has been assigned to investigate the death of Michael Jackson, department officials said today. "There is no immediate indication of a crime," a police official told ABC News, "but because of the high profile nature of the case the robbery and homicide detectives with review all evidence and work with the coroner's office." Los Angeles police were reported to be seeking a doctor who was with Jackson when he collapsed yesterday at his rented mansion in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles. The LAPD is also reportedly searching for a doctor who...

Los Angeles police released security video today that captures unruly celebrants of the Lakers NBA finals victory helping themselves to merchandise at a Shell gas station convenience store blocks from the Staples Center. The footage, shot June 14 by a security camera at the rear of the store in the 600 block of West Olympic Boulevard, shows a group of about two dozen men swarming the store and helping themselves primarily to juice, soda and energy drinks in a large cooler. The mob shouted, “Free soda, free soda” as they grabbed merchandise in a two-minute rush in which they also...

“It could have been a lot worse.” So said Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger of the downtown L.A. melee that followed the Lakers’ victory over the Orlando Magic last Sunday. If that’s the standard the LAPD is shooting for these days, the city is in big, big trouble. By the time the last of the Lakers’ “fans” were cleared from the streets that night, eight police officers had been injured, three businesses looted, and several cars and transit buses vandalized, all broadcast live from television news helicopters. You just knew there was a problem with LAPD’s response...

An appeals court Wednesday upheld the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Order 40, a policy governing how officers interact with immigrants.

George Torres' future looked pretty bleak: The supermarket mogul had been stripped of his riches by government prosecutors, convicted in a massive racketeering case and was awaiting a potential life sentence in federal prison. But in a stunning reversal of fortune Tuesday, the government released its grip on Torres' assets, a judge tossed out the most serious convictions against him, and he was ordered set free -- at least for now. The turnaround came after prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles turned over tape-recorded conversations that contained information that was potentially beneficial to Torres' defense regarding at...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― Authorities are getting prepared for the possible riotous celebration that may accompany a Los Angeles Lakers NBA championship win on Sunday night. "We have the ability to put together resources very quickly if we go to (tactical) alert -- to pull resources in from around the city," Los Angeles police Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said. McDonnell says the LAPD plans to deploy heavier than usual that night so the department will have the sufficient resources to deal with whatever happens. Staples Center usually shows away games on its outdoor big-screen televisions, but will not on Sunday...

LAPD Det. Stephanie Lazarus was led into L.A. County Superior Court at about 10 a.m. to formally face charges of premeditated murder in connection with the fatal shooting two decades ago of her ex-boyfriend's wife. Instead, her arraignment was continued to July 6. Lazarus, 49, was dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit; her curly hair was styled straight. She was represented by attorney Mark Pachowicz. She was wearing handcuffs chained to her waist, and sat in a chair with her legs crossed in the suspect pen. She spoke with her attorney through a narrow, barred window. Lazarus could face the...

Violent crime in Los Angeles is dominated by blacks and Hispanics. Straw-man arguments can't alter this uncomfortable fact. In sitting down to write this column, I had what we might call a Groundhog Day sensation, as though I’ve been here many times staring at the blank screen only to have the same words and arguments come to mind. Well, what else can a cop do? When the ACLU keeps trotting out its old horses, I must trot out my own. I refer to an op-ed in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times by the ACLU’s Mark Rosenbaum and Peter Bibring, in which...

Veteran detective's arrest in 1986 killing stuns the LAPD LAPD Det. Stephanie Lazarus had earned commendation for her work tracking stolen artwork and forgeries. Police allege Det. Stephanie Lazarus, 49, shot her ex-boyfriend's wife, then harbored the secret for more than two decades. By Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin June 6, 2009 Shortly after she sat down at her desk on the third floor of LAPD headquarters Friday morning, Det. Stephanie Lazarus was told a suspect in the basement jail had information on one of her cases. The 25-year police veteran went quickly downstairs. As Lazarus removed her firearm to...

"Who knew the badge, the holster and the iconic dark blue threads worn by Los Angeles police officers could make punching the clock so complicated? A federal judge ruled this week that Los Angeles Police Department officers should be paid for the time it takes them to put on and take off their uniforms and safety equipment, a decision that could cost the city millions of dollars in back pay and higher salaries." "In a 39-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess found that the several minutes it takes an officer to dress for duty is a vital part...

The first wave of slayings haunted Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. The killer slipped mostly unseen through the night, preying on older women who lived alone. He raped them and squeezed their necks until they passed out or died. On the 17 who were killed, he placed pillows or blankets over their faces. The second wave hit a decade later in Claremont -- five older women raped and strangled, faces again covered. Even with at least 20 survivors, police never connected the two homicide-and-rape rampages nor solved either of them. The victims gave conflicting descriptions of the rapist, police in...

Olson took part in two bank robberies to help fund the SLA, according to court documents. During the Carmichael robbery, Olson "entered the bank with a firearm and kicked a nonresisting pregnant teller in the stomach. The teller miscarried after the robbery," the documents said. In August 1975, Los Angeles police found homemade bombs under two squad cars. They were designed to explode when the car moved, but neither device detonated. Authorities cast the attempted bombings as payback for the bloody shootout that left Atwood and other SLA members dead. A probe into the gunbattle helped police arrest Hearst, the...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A saga that began in the violent cauldron of California's 1970s radical counterculture and took a dramatic turn into a quiet middle-class neighborhood in Minnesota is about to come to an end. Sara Jane Olson, who was a fugitive for a quarter-century after attempting to kill Los Angeles police officers and participating in a deadly bank robbery near Sacramento as a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, is scheduled to be released from a California prison next week.