‘Gangs … become their church’: Girl gangs just as deadly and largely ignored, expert

by Laura Angus (Flint Journal)
October 31, 2009

They are less organized and more obscure — but potentially deadly gangs nonetheless.
Members are being recruited from Flint streets and they operate as a social and sometimes criminal network.
The only difference? Their members are girls.
Gina Nyovane has felt the effects of girl violence firsthand.
Four years ago, her 14-year-old [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Albany South End gang busted

by Robert Gavin (Times Union)
October 30, 2009

In a long-awaited takedown of one of Albany’s most notorious street gangs, 25 members and associates of the South End-based Original Gangsta Killas were charged Thursday with a vicious crime spree of drug dealing, robbery and gang violence dating back to 2000.
Federal prosecutors in Albany say the gang — [...]

Popularity: 5% [?]

LAPD officers won’t be charged in MacArthur Park melee

by Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein (LA Times)
October 31, 2009

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office will not file criminal charges against any of the LAPD officers who discharged rubberized bullets and wielded batons during the 2007 May Day melee at MacArthur Park, officials announced Friday.
After a lengthy review, prosecutors said there is insufficient evidence [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Top civil rights attorney promises increased enforcement of discrimination laws

by Teresa Watanabe (LA Times)
October 31, 2009

The nation’s top civil rights attorney vowed Friday to step up enforcement of laws against housing bias, hate crimes, racially targeted predatory lending and other discriminatory acts in what he called a new era of “transformation and restoration.”
Thomas Perez, U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights, also said during [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

LAPD chief candidates are far from three of a kind

by Joel Rubin (LA Times)
October 31, 2009

At first glance, the three finalists to become the next chief of the Los Angeles Police Department appear to be cut from the same cloth.
All are middle-aged white men. They are dyed-in-the-wool LAPD cops who came into the department as young men about 30 years ago and took on [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Graffiti writer Alski, one of the first in Los Angeles

Alski throw-up at the Rapid Transit District (RTD is now Metro) bus alley near 6th Street and Wilton, 1985.
Alski, is considered to be one of the earliest Los Angeles graffiti writers during a time when tagging was a foreign word. He was born in the Bronx, New York from Puerto Rican parents and moved [...]

Popularity: 100% [?]

Burbank cop in FBI probe commits suicide

Associated Press
Thursday, October 29, 2009
BURBANK, Calif. — A police sergeant who was being investigated as part of an FBI probe into police misconduct shot and killed himself on the corner of a residential street Thursday, authorities said.
Neil T. Gunn, 50, was found dead around 11:40 a.m. after he committed suicide as he stood at the [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Jim McDonnell, LAPD asssistant chief at new LAPD headquarters

By Alex Alonso
October 30, 2009

Erected at the cost of $437 million the LAPD has moved from the Parker Center into the new 10-story, 500,000 square foot Police Administration Building. On October 24, 2009, the City of Los Angeles introduced the building to the world via a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included Chief William Bratton, Mayor Antonio [...]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Student shot to death: Chicago Vocational Career Academy student fatally shot outside home

by Kristen Mack and Azam Ahmed (Chicago Tribune)
October 29, 2009

GeRod Thomas went out of his way to avoid trouble, often staying inside when he was at his Bronzeville home.
Yet violence found him on his front lawn Tuesday night when he was gunned down in what police believe was a gang-related drive-by shooting.
Thomas, 18, was shot [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Violence brings moms together

by Annie Sweeney and Tara Malone (Chicago Tribune)
October 29, 2009

Lucia Escamilla, a mother of three boys from a neighborhood that has buried many young men, often worried about losing her son to violence.
A year and a half ago, she found her way into a Southwest Side church basement and joined a group of mothers who [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Police search for gunman in North Hollywood synagogue shooting

from LA Times
October 29, 2009

A gunman entered the grounds of a North Hollywood synagogue this morning and shot and wounded two men who were going to a prayer service in an attack LAPD detectives are investigating as a hate crime.
The unidentified gunman wearing a black hoodie walked into the underground parking garage of Adat [...]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Shooting victim was no longer active in gang, expert testifies

by Nathan McIntire (Pasadena Star News)
October 29, 2009

A shooting victim gunned down in 2007 was an “inactive” gang member who dropped out of a prominent local gang long before he was killed, a police gang specialist testified Thursday.
Sergio Mendez, 34, of Pasadena was an “inactive” member of the Villa Boys – arch rivals of the [...]

Popularity: 3% [?]