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Daily Local & Regional NewsWatch
LA Police Protective League

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Los Angeles
Police Protective League
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the union that represents the
rank and file LAPD officers

  Daily Local & Regional NewsWatch

Daily News Digest
from LA Police Protective League

December 18
Law Enforcement News

South Carolina Deputy Dies In Crash While Responding To Call
A Marion County sheriff's deputy died in a single vehicle crash while he was responding to a call. SCNow reports PFC Michael Shawn Latu's police cruiser ran off the side of the road and into a bridge support at about 1:05 a.m. Tuesday morning. Latu was a five-year veteran of the department and had previously served as a dispatcher. In 2018, he was recognized as both Deputy of the Year and Patrolman of the Year. In a release on Facebook, the Marion County Sheriff's Department wrote that ‘Mike,' as Latu was known, was “quiet with a genius level IQ.”  “He was the workhorse of the department and was always eager to help,” the post continued. “The voice left by our brother will never be filled. We ask for your prayers of comfort during this time.” 
PoliceOne

LA Police Commission To Receive Public Comment On Use Of Deadly Force Policy
The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners decided Tuesday to take additional comments on a new policy regarding when officers are justified in using deadly force. A new state law, AB 392, was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in August and takes effect at the beginning of the year. It establishes that police officers may only use deadly force when it is “necessary” to protect human life or to apprehend a known suspect who has committed deadly actions. The law mentions various circumstances that require officers to consider circumstances at greater length before deciding whether to use deadly force, which includes but is not limited to the use of firearms. Commissioners said they hadn't had much time to review the proposed policy changes to the Los Angeles Police Department, and it voted unanimously to tentatively adopt the changes. The commission will accept comments from the public and LAPD officers for 30 days, after which the commission will take two weeks to consider the comments, make adjustments to the policy and take another series of comments before officially adopting it.
Los Angeles Daily News

Man Found Beaten To Death Near North Hollywood Railroad Tracks
A man's body was found down an embankment near railroad tracks Tuesday in North Hollywood, and the person or persons responsible for his death were on the loose. Officers responded to an ambulance death investigation near the railroad tracks on the 12500 block of Raymer Street, just west of Whitsett Avenue, at 10:30 a.m. and were directed to the victim, a white man in his mid-40s, at the bottom of an embankment, according to the LAPD. The victim appeared to have suffered blunt force trauma to his head and was pronounced dead at the scene by LAFD paramedics, police said. Detectives believe the assault occurred between 7 and 10:30 a.m. on the south side of the train tracks near the intersection of Whitsett Avenue and Raymer Street, police said. A motive for the attack is unknown. Anyone who witnessed this deadly attack was asked to call LAPD Detective Christine Moselle at 818-374-9550.
Los Angeles Daily News

Officers Fight With Burglary Suspect At Reseda Home
Officers fought with a possible burglary suspect at a home in Reseda Wednesday morning. Police responded to a burglary in progress in the 8000 block of Reseda Boulevard, north of Strathern Street, about 12:30 a.m. and got into a fight with a suspect, prompting an officer needs help call, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. A news photographer at the scene said the suspect was taken to a hospital with injuries suffered in the altercation with officers and the homeowner and her son were also injured, but it was unclear how they were hurt. Police could not immediately confirm any injuries to the suspect or victims. There were no reports of any officers injured, the LAPD said.
MyNewsLA.com

Teacher Charged In Hit-and-Run That Severely Injured Bicyclist In Silver Lake
A 52-year-old woman pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges tied to a hit-and-run crash that left a male bicyclist severely injured in Silver Lake , the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said. Molly Jane Hoene has been charged with two felony counts of hit-and-run in connection with the incident, prosecutors said in a news release. Hoene entered the not guilty plea during her arraignment Tuesday, according to a public information officer for L.A. Superior Court. She is due back in court Jan. 23. Hoene, a teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District, is accused of being behind the wheel of a vehicle that slammed head on into a bicyclist in the area of Berkeley Avenue and Berkeley Circle on Oct. 25, investigators said. She fled the scene without rendering aid to the seriously injured 52-year-old man, according to the DA's office. Police called his injuries severe, and it's not clear if he has recovered.
KTLA 5

Venice Man To Be Sentenced For Illegal Oxycodone Sales
A man who illegally sold prescriptions for opioid pain pills from a sham clinic he owned in Long Beach is expected to be sentenced Wednesday to a federal prison term. James Wilson, 56, of Venice was found guilty of two counts of distribution of oxycodone in March by a judge in Los Angeles federal court. Prosecutors said that Wilson, who is not a physician or pharmacist, wrote and sold four prescriptions, each for 120 tablets of maximum-strength immediate-release oxycodone, to a person he believed to be a drug customer but was in fact a confidential informant working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The government is asking for a sentence of 57 months, while Wilson's defense attorney recommends a 41-month term behind bars.
MyNewsLA.com

SoCal Man, Daughter Charged With Kidnapping, Raping Las Vegas Woman They Abandoned In Mojave Desert: DA
Charges have been filed against a father and daughter accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a Las Vegas woman before dumping her in the Mojave Desert, prosecutors said Tuesday. Stanley Alfred Lawton, 55, of Riverside, and Shaniya Poche-Lawton, 22, of Palmdale have been charged with one count each of kidnapping to commit robbery, attempted murder, kidnapping, and forcible rape, and three counts of first-degree ATM robbery, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. The complaint also alleges a firearm was used, and that Stanley Lawton was previously convicted of attempted murder and robbery in 1984 and 1988, the DA's office said. The defendants are suspected of kidnapping the 46-year-old victim at gunpoint in Las Vegas in late October and driving the woman — whom they knew — across state lines, a news release from the DA's office stated.
KTLA 5

The Golden State Killer's Invisible Victims: The Men Whose Lives Were Shattered
The salt shaker teetering on a pot lid on his naked back could not fall. Victor Hayes kept his face pressed into his mattress. The gunman promised to kill him if he heard the objects slip. Until that moment, pinned by kitchenware, Hayes embodied all the swagger of the 1970s American male. He was 21, with the long thick hair and heavy mustache of a rocker, a souped-up Chevelle in the garage, and a custom chopper parked in the living room like something off the set of “Easy Rider.” Hayes protected his property with similar machismo — a pit bull in the backyard, guns in the house. His girlfriend slept against the wall, and Hayes took the outside of the bed because “I'm the man.” But just after midnight on Oct. 1, 1977, an intruder blinded Hayes with a flashlight and held a gun on him as he removed Hayes' rifle by the headboard. There was no time for Hayes to go for the .22-caliber Magnum. The single-action revolver stayed beneath the mattress and box spring just inches away. He was rolled over in bed, his ankles and wrists bound with shoelaces. Then the intruder perched a metal lid and a salt shaker on Hayes' naked back, and said if he heard them fall, he would “blow his f------ head off.”
Los Angeles Times

California Leads The Country In Meth And Fentanyl Border Seizures By CBP
More than 60% of methamphetamine seized by Customs and Border Protection across the country came through California ports, according to data from the federal agency. During fiscal 2019, which ended Sept. 30, CBP agents in California seized more than 80,000 pounds of methamphetamine at the border. That figure accounted for 63% of all methamphetamine seized by CBP agents nationwide this year and represented a 66% increase from the amount seized in California in the last fiscal year. “Some of these numbers are staggering,” said Pete Flores, director of field operations for CBP in San Diego. Flores noted that 10 years ago, CBP agents in California seized less than 4,000 pounds of methamphetamine. “These impressive results should be credited to the men and women serving on the front lines at our ports of entry,” Flores said. “Their daily efforts secure our nation's borders while facilitating the flow of legitimate travel and trade.”
Los Angeles Times

Lockdown
Ninety-five percent of American schools now conduct drills to prepare students for a school shooter. For adults who were out of high school by the time of the 1999 Columbine shooting, this is an unfamiliar phenomenon. We don't have a clear picture of how the drills are experienced by the children they were designed for. In this partnership between Slate and The Trace, we spoke to more than 20 students from different parts of the country, to learn what they see, hear, and feel during what has become a routine experience in American schools. We turned those experiences into an audio story you can listen to in the audio player just below, or on your preferred podcast app. You can also scroll further to read and hear selections from the kids we spoke to, kindergartners and high school seniors alike, as they describe how these drills frighten and bore, annoy and perplex. Every school performs the drills in a different way, and every child experiences them alone. But even the younger students know better than we might expect what the drills are for. Here are their stories.
The Trace

Public Safety News

LAFD Rescues 2 People Trapped In Sherman Oaks Trench, 1 In Critical Condition
Two construction workers were rushed to the hospital Tuesday afternoon after a shallow trench collapsed and trapped the men under a slab of concrete. The contractor in charge of the work site, where the men were in the process of building a two-story addition to a home in the 5300 block of North Tyrone Avenue, said it happened in a split second. “It was a very poor built foundation,” Rogelio Ramirez, of Rojo Green Inc., said. The 911 call went out around 2:30 p.m. to report that the men were trapped. Ramirez said one man suffered broken ribs, while the other man is in critical condition. “We just pray and hope these guys are OK,” Ramirez said. “That's the main thing.” The battalion chief on the scene said there were no obvious signs of code violations and that the site appeared to be within safety parameters.
CBS 2

California's New Earthquake Early Warning System Sent Its First Public Alert To Smartphones Tuesday
In a milestone, California's new statewide earthquake early warning cellphone app sent out its first public alert for a magnitude 4.3 earthquake that ruptured Tuesday in the mountains between the Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley. More than 40 people received the warning, said Jennifer Strauss, project manager for the MyShake app, which was created by UC Berkeley and released publicly in October. It is available on iOS and Android systems. Because of the weak magnitude of Tuesday's quake, the area in which shaking was felt was relatively small and close to the epicenter in the Cholame Valley, confined to just portions of San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Kings and Kern counties. There were no reports of damage. The MyShake app relies on earthquake information calculated by the U.S. Geological Survey's backbone ShakeAlert system, which gathers earthquake sensing data from a network of hundreds of ground sensors throughout the West Coast.
KTLA 5

Local Government News

LA City Clerk Announces Qualified Candidates For March 3 Primary Election
The Los Angeles City Clerk's Office on Monday released the official list of 33 candidates who have qualified to appear on the ballot for the March 2020 City Council and Los Angeles Unified School Board of Education primary elections. In the primary, the top two candidates with the most votes will move on to a general election runoff on Nov. 3. 
Los Angeles Daily News
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About the LAPPL: Formed in 1923, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) represents the more than 9,900 dedicated and professional sworn members of the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPPL serves to advance the interests of LAPD officers through legislative and legal advocacy, political action and education. The LAPPL can be found on the Web at:

www.LAPD.com


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