Monday Morning Memo for October 24, 2016

Vandalism charges have been filed against a second man accused of defacing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Venice just before Memorial Day, prosecutors said Thursday. Luis Daniel Medina, also known as “Pheb,” is scheduled to be arraigned today on one felony count of vandalism with over $400 in damage and one misdemeanor count of possession of tools to commit vandalism or graffiti.

A massage therapist from Burbank pleaded not guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting a client he met while working out of a North Hollywood gym, officials said. Daniel Holbert, 48, was charged in July with one felony count of sexual penetration by a foreign object by fraudulent representation, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He is due back in court next month.

A West Covina councilman pleaded not guilty Thursday to drunk driving charges in connection with a crash in June, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Michael Herman Spence, 50, had an attorney enter his plea Thursday morning to a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of a drug.

A woman pleaded no contest Wednesday to one count of voluntary manslaughter in the fatal stabbing of her brother’s girlfriend, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Lisette Kimberly Moreno pleaded no contest to a felony count of voluntary manslaughter for killing Annette Martinez, 21, with scissors.

Efforts to reach a plea deal with no jail time have fallen apart for the wife of slain Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo Sr., who claims she shot and killed him in self-defense after enduring years of abuse at his hands, her attorneys said Monday. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy asked whether a plea deal had been struck when the parties were discussing potential trial dates for Lyvette Crespo, 45.

The case against the brothers seemed like a sure thing. Last October, FBI agents arrested Sukhbir Singh and his brother Jimmy Sandhu, the owners of a tow truck company. The men were charged with bribing a member of the Huntington Park City Council in an effort to buy his support for higher towing fees.

Former state Sen. Ron Calderon was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison Friday, four months after pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud. He also will be required to do 150 hours of community service after he is released from prison. The federal corruption case against Calderon, D-Montebello, also swept up his brother, former state Assemblyman Tom Calderon, D-Montebello, who on Sept. 12 was sentenced to 10 months in federal custody for money laundering after pleading guilty to hiding the tens of thousands of dollars in bribes paid to his brother. Whittier Daily News

The first indication that something was amiss came when Jeffrey Scott Jones slumped suddenly in the Southern California courtroom. His head struck the table in front of him, and shocked attorneys saw blood streaming from his neck. Jones, 56, had been on trial in Orange County Superior Court on Wednesday, accused of sexually assaulting and raping a girl when she was 13, according to court documents.

The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case against a former Los Angeles Unified School District elementary school teacher convicted of the slashing murder of his estranged wife who had taken refuge at a friend’s home in West Hills. Michael Rodney Kane was found guilty in March 2015 of first-degree murder for the June 15, 2013, stabbing death of his estranged wife, Michelle, 43.

A former California college student was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for trying to aid the Islamic State group. Muhanad Badawi, 25, was also sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release during a hearing in federal court in Santa Ana. He was convicted earlier this year of conspiracy to aid a foreign terrorist organization and other crimes.

A Camarillo man accused of killing a Ventura County sheriff’s deputy was found guilty of second-degree murder Friday, ending a years-long saga that began with the death of Yevhen “Eugene” Kostiuchenko in October 2014. After nearly two days of deliberations – jurors agreed that Kevin Hogrefe, 27, was guilty of the death of Kostiuchenko while driving drunk.

A Long Beach police officer shot and wounded a man who authorities said was armed with a knife and came toward the officer. The shooting occurred about 9:30 p.m. Thursday in the 100 block of the Colonnade in Naples, a tony district on the east end of Long Beach. Police were called to a home there after a man who appeared to be intoxicated tried to enter the home’s front door, Long Beach police spokeswoman Marlene Arrona said.

The penetrating sound of bagpipes wailed as the flag-draped casket of Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Steven C. Owen, who was fatally shot by a parolee on Oct. 5, was escorted into Lancaster Baptist Church on Thursday for a memorial that celebrated “a life well-lived.” Thousands of law enforcement personnel, family, friends and dignitaries from around the nation came to the Lancaster church to pay their respects to the slain 29-year Sheriff’s Department veteran, who was remembered as a tireless patrol deputy, a consummate sergeant, a devout Christian and true family man.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said a sweeping set of reforms approved by the Police Commission earlier this month won’t have a huge impact on police training or policy, but will mean a new focus for both. “I don’t think there’s gonna be a huge change,” Beck told Airtalk host Larry Mantle, “because we already do role-playing. We already do scenario-based training. We already have our fire arms trainings simulators. Much of this is in place, and it’s a further refinementof things we already do.”

A 41-year-old North Bay man with a felony criminal record attempted to assassinate two Vallejo police officers on a coffee break Sunday night, but his modified assault rifle jammed, police officials said Monday. Authorities said officers ultimately chased Adam Powell, who was wearing body armor, out of the Starbucks on Lincoln Road and shot him three times as he continued to fiddle with the weapon – shutting down what police said could have been a bloodbath.

Across the nation, a narrative has emerged that is most often false and feeds into race antagonism. It is the story of violent interactions between police and African Americans, ending with the death of an African-American man. Whatever the particulars, the resulting death is consistently used as a demonstration of “systemic racism.”

A sheriff’s deputy shot dead in rural northern California was killed by a man listed in state records as a registered sex offender shortly after the deputy arrived at a home to investigate a domestic disturbance, authorities said Thursday. Deputy Jack Hopkins, 31, died instantly Wednesday morning and the suspect, Jack Lee Breiner, was arrested after a chase and shootout with another officer that left both wounded, the Modoc County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“Don’t shoot me!” a young man told a St. Paul police officer over and over again. The officer had his gun out, pointing at the ground, as the man walked away from him. A woman videotaped the encounter last month and posted it on Facebook, where it’s received much attention. The video ends after about one minute and doesn’t show what happened next. Police say the man was not shot – he ran away and remains at large.

A former Los Angeles police sergeant violated city ethics rules when he leaked to the media a recording from his controversial stop of an actress from “Django Unchained” – but should not be fined for doing so, a judge has determined. In a proposed order signed Friday, administrative law Judge Samuel D. Reyes agreed with city ethics officials that now-retired Sgt. Jim Parker inappropriately shared confidential information – audio from his personal recorder – and created a private advantage for himself “as it protected his reputation against allegations of racism.”

A man has died after exploding a pipe bomb inside an Oakland health clinic Tuesday evening. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office confirmed a report of an explosion at the San Antonio Neighborhood Health Center, located at 1030 International Blvd. just before 6:30 p.m. Witnesses told Oakland police that a man in a wheelchair entered the lobby of the clinic armed with what appeared to be a pipe bomb. He then detonated the bomb, taking his own life.

Today, the FBI released its annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) report-this one covering the 41 felonious deaths, the 45 accidental deaths, and the 50,212 line-of-duty assaults of officers during 2015. Among the report’s highlights: The number of officers killed as a result of criminal acts in 2015-41-decreased from the 2014 figure of 51. The average age of the officers killed feloniously in 2015 was 40, and the average length of service was 12 years.

The president of the country’s largest police chief organization formally apologized Monday for the “historical mistreatment” of racial minorities – one of the strongest statements a national police figure has made to date on race. Law enforcement officers have been the “face of oppression for far too many of our fellow citizens,” Terrence Cunningham, president of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, told thousands of police chiefs from across the country at the group’s annual conference in San Diego.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy (identified as John Doe) and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS) filed a complaint against the County of Los Angeles and other parties alleging that the defendants unlawfully accessed Doe’s medical information, and later discriminated and retaliated against him for asserting his right to keep that information confidential.

The body of the Modoc County Sheriff’s deputy who was killed while responding to a disturbance call Wednesday will be transported to his family in Redding on Thursday morning, according to spokeswoman Kristen Wilburn, a California Highway Patrol officer. Jack Hopkins, 31, was killed while responding to a disturbance call on Wednesday, according to the Modoc County Sheriff’s Office. Hopkins had worked as a deputy with the department since 2015.

If criminals on the streets often have the best and latest technology to help them commit crimes and conceal identities, shouldn’t the officer on the street be equally well equipped to fight these crimes? While cost is often a factor for agencies when considering elite technology for investigation and protection, one of the most useful tools for detection and safety is readily available and free of charge.

Police executives need to understand four things about cybersecurity. First, there has been a dramatic increase in both the frequency and sophistication of cyber attacks such as ransomware and ad malware attacks that systematically target police systems. Second, police executives in both large and small organizations are responsible for the well-being of their entire organization.

The White House announced a plan Wednesday to help prevent Americans from falling prey to violent ideologies of the sort that drove mass killings in New York, San Bernardino, Calif., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Orlando in the past year. The effort, which is being overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, is short on details and new funding.

The important difference between the decision by Los Angeles County prosecutors not to criminally charge Long Beach Police Officer Jeffrey Meyer for his deadly shooting of a man in 2015 and their many previous decisions not to charge police in shootings is that they pointedly took Meyer to task for substantial “tactical deficiencies” that needlessly turned an investigation deadly.

Among the heap of statewide propositions California voters weigh in on next month, two are literally life and death decisions. Proposition 62 would abolish capital punishment in California, making life without the possibility of parole the maximum punishment for murder. The Yes on 62 campaign argues that the death penalty in California is a failed, immoral and incredibly expensive system, costing taxpayers upwards of $150 million a year.

An LAPD officer fatally shot someone 12 days before killing another, NBC4 has learned from our sister station Telemundo52. The mother of a 14-year-old Jesse Romero who was fatally shot by a Los Angeles police officer was shocked to learn the news. Teresa Dominguez, who is suing the department for the death of her son, wondered why did the department allowed the officer back to work after he had just killed someone else.

Reading about the Chicago cop fearful of drawing her gun while being beaten by a convicted felon because she did not want to be judged on national news reminds me that it is time to talk straight about cops. Cops are not our friends. Nor should they be. To be sure, they are not our enemies either. Rather, they are here to do a job. A tough job. A job that is, frankly, boring some of the time, but then can turn on a dime into a life-or-death encounter.

A San Francisco police officer who was shot in the head Friday night in the city’s Lake Shore neighborhood is partially paralyzed on one side of his body, interim Police Chief Toney Chaplin said Saturday. Chaplin said police are not releasing the name of the officer, but he has been with the department for two years and is assigned to Taraval Station.

It’s gonna hurt. But it will go for a cause that benefits devastated law enforcement agencies and families like in the cases of a Los Angeles Sheriff’s department sergeant and two Palm Springs police officers this month. For the past six months, before he ever starts his job as a senior lead officer at LAPD’s Olympic Division, Joe Cirrito is already at work.

As he responded to a trespassing call last year, Long Beach Police Officer Jeffrey Meyer walked away from his partner and headed down an alleyway alongside an apartment complex tagged with gang graffiti. He stopped moving when he noticed a broken window in the rear of  the apartment he’d been trying to access. Meyer believed there were squatters inside.

Among the heap of statewide propositions California voters weigh in on next month, two are literally life and death decisions. Proposition 62 would abolish capital punishment in California, making life without the possibility of parole the maximum punishment for murder. The Yes on 62 campaign argues that the death penalty in California is a failed, immoral and incredibly expensive system, costing taxpayers upwards of $150 million a year.

An LAPD officer fatally shot someone 12 days before killing another, NBC4 has learned from our sister station Telemundo52. The mother of a 14-year-old Jesse Romero who was fatally shot by a Los Angeles police officer was shocked to learn the news. Teresa Dominguez, who is suing the department for the death of her son, wondered why did the department allowed the officer back to work after he had just killed someone else.

It is standard practice of police departments across the country to honor officers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in doing their jobs. But a recent ceremony of the Los Angeles Police Department deserves special attention. For the first time, the department saluted officers who resolved dangerous situations without loss of life – even when their own lives were threatened and use of deadly force would have been justified.

A GoFundMe page has been created to raise money for the education of the three children of a Los Angeles Police detective who took her own life Tuesday. Nadine Hernandez, 44, was found suffering from a gunshot wound after officers responded to a home in Whittier, according to Lt. Jay Tatman of the Whittier Police Department. She was later pronounced dead at a local hospital and the case is being handled as a suicide, officials said.

Just months after adding 100 electric cars for non-emergency duty, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to test a Tesla sedan as a patrol car, a department official said Friday. The large battery capacity of the Tesla sedan, affording it both high performance and longer range, sets it apart from the smaller electric cars on the market. However, the cost of the batteries puts the Tesla in the realm of luxury cars.

Promising information that is more standardized and complete than has previously been available, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Department of Justice will collect data on the police use of deadly force in the line of duty. Lynch’s announcement amplifies a statement by FBI Director James Comey at the end of September, when he told a congressional panel that the bureau is in the process of setting up a database that can track police killings and other use of force during interactions with the public.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell and District Attorney Jackie Lacey added their voices Thursday to the chorus of law enforcement opposing Proposition 57, the statewide ballot measure that would make non-violent felons eligible for early parole. McDonnell and Lacey echoed opponents’ arguments that under Prop. 57, some violent felons might come up for early parole consideration.

A group of law enforcement officials gathered in downtown Los Angeles Thursday to blast a measure on the November ballot billed as an effort to keep “non-violent” convicts out of prison, saying the proposition will put dangerous people back on the streets. “Do we really need more parolees and hard-core criminals on the streets? That’s what Proposition 57 does,” said Brian Moriguchi, president of the Professional Peace Officers Association of Los Angeles.

Ninety nine police officers have lost their lives this year, 44 of them from gunfire. There has been a 78% increase in shooting deaths compared to last year and ambush style attacks have increased as well. In October alone, five officers have been killed, three here in California. The murderers of these police officers are exactly the types of criminals Proposition 57 seeks to release back into our communities.

Amid several recently published false reports, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck reaffirmed that he does not support nor has he taken a position on Proposition 57. If passed, Prop 57 would modify California state law and the California Constitution to allow early release for certain felony offenders and require judges, instead of prosecutors, to determine whether a juvenile will be tried as an adult.

Here we go again. To fix the state’s bloated, well over cost prison system, the governor simply just wants to put more criminals back on the streets. Voters should have learned the lessons from Proposition 47 and must say no to Prop. 57. Prop. 57 on the Nov. 8 ballot is titled Criminal Sentences Parole and what it would do is make more criminals eligible to be released back into the communities, would make it more difficult to try a juvenile as an adult and would switch millions of dollars in law enforcement costs from the state to the counties and cities.

Those who take another’s life in a way that merits California’s death penalty often lack remorse, guilt or anything approaching empathy. They have no conscience. But what about the rest of us? Do we put ourselves on the same plane? Is our thirst for revenge so overpowering that it blinds us to the injustices implicit in carrying out our state’s most severe and irreversible punishment?

Californians will abolish the death penalty sooner or later, it doesn’t really matter which argument ultimately convinces them, be it moral, financial or risk of executing innocent people. But the sooner Californians discontinue the death penalty, a primitive system that kills people, the better. On the ballot this Nov. 8 there will be two competing measures addressing the death penalty in California.

Californians who want to abolish the death penalty and give heinous criminals life in prison without parole give various reasons. Some say taxpayers will save money. Others cite the chance of executing the wrong person. They say the system can’t be fixed. I disagree. It is far more expensive to house, feed, clothe, guard and provide healthcare for these depraved criminals for endless decades.

The defendant told an LAPD officer he had smoked pot five hours before he was pulled over on Melrose Avenue for driving erratically. A blood test found a significant level of the chemical THC in his system, and a drug recognition expert ruled he was too impaired to drive safely. But a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury deadlocked on whether the young, off-duty valet had committed a crime by driving under the influence of marijuana, which he said he smokes for back pain and anxiety.

City Manager Steve Mermell announced Monday evening that the city will be hiring an independent investigator to conduct a review of the recent death of Reginald “JR” Thomas, a 35-year old African-American Pasadena resident who died in police custody after being tasered  and struggling with officers early on the morning of September 30.

Next month, California voters will be asked to make decisions about some hot-button issues: the death penalty, gun control, marijuana and pornography. And those propositions are only a few of the 17 measures on the Nov. 8 ballot, as you already know if you’ve begun to study the state’s 224-page Official Voter Information Guide that arrived in the mail recently.

California has the strictest gun laws in the nation, but that hasn’t quelled our state politicians’ need to “do something.” In this election, Proposition 63 seeks to add yet another layer of rules, especially on the purchase of ammunition, on top of already stringent gun laws. On the surface, Prop. 63 is largely duplicative of a raft of gun bills passed by the state Legislature earlier this year – overriding some, while also imposing a few extra burdens on law-abiding gun owners.

Officials from Merced, Mariposa and Stanislaus counties came together Thursday to voice opposition to Proposition 57, the governor’s public safety and rehabilitation act. Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II led a news conference in front of the Merced County Courthouse Museum on Thursday morning as law enforcement and government officials formed a semicircle around him.

Perhaps the worst of the many bad things about the California method of direct democracy is that inflexibility is the default. We’re the only place in the known universe where a law passed by the voters can’t be altered or fixed without another vote of the people. The good news is that some initiative sponsors don’t accept this default. They insert provisions into their measures allowing them to be amended.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey tried to hold a town hall meeting, but things got so heated, she ended up walking out. Lacey thought the meeting could offer a chance to explain how her office operates and also explain the law, especially as it pertains to officer-involved shootings. “I think that the district attorney’s office and the role is misunderstood,” Lacey said at the meeting, to which community members in the crowd yelled back, “No it’s not.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey announced a $925,000 settlement Thursday with auto insurance provider Liberty Mutual Group Inc., for advertising an accident forgiveness program that was not available in California. The civil complaint was jointly filed yesterday in Riverside County Superior Court by district attorneys in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties and alleges unfair competition by Liberty Mutual.

Complaining that their rights as victims of a massive natural gas leak were ignored, Porter Ranch residents are asking to intervene in a $4 million plea deal that Southern California Gas Company reached with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Attorney R. Rex Parris said the deal shortchanged residents because prosecutors did not consult the residents about their rights to restitution under the state constitution.

A federal judge refused to toss a constitutional challenge to San Francisco’s cash bail system, saying a class of pretrial detainees can pursue a 14th Amendment claim against San Francisco County Sheriff Vicki Hennessy. U.S. District Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed only part of a putative class action claiming the city and county of San Francisco unconstitutionally criminalizes poverty by jailing poor arrestees because they can’t afford to post bail.

A federal task force created following the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak near Porter Ranch issued dozens of recommendations Tuesday aimed at bolstering safety at underground gas-storage field, including design changes to ensure that a single “point of failure” in a well cannot lead to an uncontrolled leak.

California Attorney General’s efforts to crackdown on sex trafficking and the arrests of Backpage.com’s CEO and top shareholders looks like it will have little effect in Humboldt County. For those engaged in the world’s oldest profession and the law enforcement agencies that crack down on it, the status quo appears to remain. Backpage.com is one of the nation’s largest online classified advertising sites and serves more than 30 cities across the state.

The question for California legislative races is no longer whether Democrats will secure a majority. It’s how large their margin will be. Once again, liberal leadership is contemplating a two-thirds majority that would allow them to pass taxes, amend political spending laws and move measures to the ballot without any Republican support.

Noot long ago, a Dutch neurobiologist announced a surprising discovery: A root used by rural West African healers to treat pain contains an apparently natural version of a man-made opioid. The root from northern Cameroon had such high levels of a painkiller called tramadol that mice given an extract and placed on a hot plate didn’t feel their feet burning at first.

A Riverside County judge Friday upheld the legality of a massive wiretapping operation that secretly intercepted phone calls and text messages by tens of thousands of people to make arrests throughout the United States. Superior Court Judge John Molloy ruled that the district attorney was allowed to delegate the responsibility of approving wiretap applications to his second-in-command.

Reeling from a surge in heroin overdoses, authorities in the Cincinnati area made an offer: Hand in potentially deadly drugs and you won’t be charged. But the blanket immunity granted by a judge there over a month ago hasn’t brought in any heroin so far. Results from similar efforts elsewhere have also yielded few drugs, according to a review by The Associated Press.

California officials said Friday that they have again denied parole for a follower of cult leader Charles Manson who is serving a life sentence for a murder he committed 47 years ago. Parole officials decided that Robert Beausoleil, 68, should remain in prison for the 1969 death of musician Gary Hinman. He can seek parole again in three years, said board spokesman Luis Patino.