LAPPL Featured on Fox News' Outnumbered Overtime

LAPPL Director Robert Harris appears on Fox News' Outnumbered Overtime with Harris Faulkner to discuss "defunding" police departments, poor city leadership and improving the policing profession.

Despite Criticism, LAPD Chief Michel Moore Maintains Support In Political Circles

In the political sea change that has occurred in Los Angeles since the protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, few top officials have come under more scrutiny than Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore. Police union officials say many officers believe Moore abandoned them by bowing to activists and the politicians who back them. “We’ve worked well with the Chief over the past two years. However, most front-line officers hoped that he would have stood up for our officers and the department publicly while city politicians slashed our budget, cut hundreds of officers, and distorted the department’s substantial progress on enacting meaningful police reform,” said Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. 

370 LAPD Employees Have Tested Positive For Coronavirus To Date

Thirty-three additional Los Angeles Police Department employees have tested positive for coronavirus, which brings the department total to 370, officials said. Currently, 239 LAPD employees are at home recovering or self-isolating due to possible exposure, and 202 employees have returned to work. The increase in cases comes shortly after LAPD announced its first employee death from the coronavirus. On July 3, Senior Detention Officer Erica McAdoo died from coronavirus complications. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that Capitol flags would fly at half-staff in McAdoo’s memory. 

4 Charged With Murder In Hollywood Hills Home-Invasion Killing Of Rapper Pop Smoke

Two men and two teen boys were charged Monday with breaking into a Hollywood Hills home where Pop Smoke was staying and fatally shooting the 20-year-old rapper during a robbery in February. The adult defendants — 19-year-old Corey Walker and Keandre Rodgers, 18 — could face the death penalty if convicted on the allegation that the murder occurred during a burglary, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. The criminal complaint also includes gang and gun allegations, according to prosecutors. The two teen defendants, ages 17 and 15, each face one count of murder and robbery, the DA’s office said. Last week, the Los Angeles Police Department announced five arrests in the Feb. 19 home-invasion killing, saying three men and two teenage boys likely went to the home Pop Smoke was renting after it was seen on the rapper’s social media posts.

Greater-Alarm Fire Rips Through Downtown LA Strip Mall, Arson Suspect Detained

An arson suspect has been detained in connection with a greater-alarm fire which broke out at a strip mall in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday morning. The blaze sparked before 4 a.m. in a one-story commercial building in the 800 block of West Chavez Avenue. L.A. Fire Department crews responded to find the flames spreading to several units of the building and burning through the roof. It took 83 firefighters to knock it down in 52 minutes, the fire department said. The strip mall appeared to house a pharmacy, dental clinic and a shoe store. An arson suspect was detained at the scene by LAPD officers. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. The extent of the damage from the fire was not confirmed.

Huntington Beach Man Accused Of Stealing Millions From LA Nonprofits Helping People With Disabilities

The head of several nonprofit organizations intended to serve individuals with disabilities is facing charges of embezzling more than $2 million in public funds, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday. Nnaemeka Ezenagu, 53, of Huntington Beach, is facing one count each of grand theft by embezzlement and grand theft of embezzlement of public funds. He was arrested last Thursday on a warrant issued in March and released after a citation was issued, according to the District Attorney’s Office and online jail records. Prosecutors said Ezenagu ran Quality of Life Services Inc. and Quality of Life Academy, as well as other nonprofit groups that had contracts with the publicly funded South Central Los Angeles Regional Center to provide life skills to clients with disabilities.

Admissions Scandal: Couple Paid $250,000 To Have Daughter Admitted As A Fake USC Volleyball Recruit

A California couple agreed Friday to plead guilty to paying $250,000 to get their daughter into the University of Southern California as a fake volleyball recruit. Diane Blake, 55, and Todd Blake, 54, both of Ross, Calif., will plead guilty in front of a judge at a future date, officials in Boston including U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in a statement Friday. The couple had initially pleaded not guilty, news outlets previously reported. The couple was accused of tapping William “Rick” Singer, who authorities say was mastermind behind the sweeping nationwide scheme, to facilitate their daughter’s admission into USC. According to the indictment against the couple posted on the U.S. attorney’s website, Todd Blake sent a check for $50,000 to USC Women’s Athletics and wired $200,000 to a sham charity set up by Singer.

Woman Sentenced To Federal Prison For Role In SoCal Grandmothers Swindle

A Colombian woman with ties to Los Angeles was sentenced Monday to 27 months behind bars for her role in a long-running lottery ticket scheme that targeted Latina grandmothers throughout Southern California. Mercedes Montanez, 69, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge John F. Walter to serve two years on supervised release and pay a share of $190,422 in restitution for defrauding 16 “elderly vulnerable victims,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Montanez obtained a visa to enter the United States in 2007 and, because she remained in the country after the visa expired, she will likely be deported, court papers show. The defendant pleaded guilty in January to a single federal count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

A San Francisco Exec Is Building a City-Wide Surveillance Network

One Silicon Valley exec has been building a private surveillance network of a more than 1,000 HD cameras around San Francisco for the past eight years. The task, which has put Chris Larsen out nearly $4 million, is aimed at fighting non-violent crimes, like break-ins. During 2020's Black Lives Matter civil rights movement, though, the high-def surveillance network is raising some eyebrows. It sits right at the intersection of two systems we're currently reevaluating as a nation — country-wide racial prejudice within the police force, and privacy concerns within the tech industry. After all, isn't this kind of the same system that Batman made a big deal about destroying at the end of The Dark Knight? Chris Larsen, co-founder of the blockchain-powered payment company Ripple, didn't just come up with his plan for heightened security recently, he's been working on it since 2012.

Trump DOJ Can’t Cut Police Grants To California Sanctuary Cities

The Trump administration can’t legally withhold grants to police in California cities that don’t cooperate with federal agencies in the enforcement of immigration laws, a federal appeals court ruled. But the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco also said on Monday that its order blocking the Justice Department from withholding assistance to local police in so-called sanctuary cities does not extend nationally. Three other regional federal appeals court have also ruled against the administration policy, but the one in New York allowed it to go forward and on Monday declined to reconsider its ruling. The conflicting appellate decisions makes it more likely the Supreme Court will take up the case at some point. The lawsuits revolve around the Justice Department’s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which provides funding for “critical gaps” in state and local law enforcement. 

Public Safety News

As Gyms, Salons And Churches Are Ordered Closed, Garcetti Warns LA Is On Verge Of More Shutdowns

As Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday aligned the closures of gyms, places of worship, salons and other businesses with county and state orders, he warned that the city is teetering on the edge of shutting down more activity in the city to prevent the spread of coronavirus. According to a color-coded meter he unveiled, Garcetti said the threat level for Los Angeles now sits at orange. But he said the dial was getting close to red, an indication that the city’s performance in fighting the virus at a dangerous extreme. If the city crosses over to that threat level, “everything shuts down against, everything, to our strictest level,” he said. “I want to warn people that we’re close to that.”