'Killer Cop' Twitter Account Suspended In Response To LA Police Union Lawsuit

Twitter has suspended the account @killercops1984 for violating its rules and policies against inciting violence against police officers, Los Angeles Police Protective League officials said Monday, the week after the union took legal action against the owner of a website that lists bounties for the killing of police officers. "We are appreciative of Twitter acting swiftly to take down this dangerous website that called for the murder of Los Angeles police officers," Craig Lally, president of the police that represents Los Angeles Police Department officers, said in a statement. "This was not about freedom of speech or public discourse, this was about protecting officers and their families and for that we are grateful that this site is suspended." According to LAPPL officials, the LAPD released the pictures, names and work locations of 9,000 officers through California Public Records Act requests. That included those who work in sensitive assigned and undercover operations, a release the department has dubbed a mistake.

ABC 7

Man Ordered To Stand Trial For Murder In Nurse's Bus Stop Killing

A man accused of fatally striking a 70-year-old nurse in the head in an unprovoked attack caught on surveillance video at a downtown bus stop was ordered Monday to stand trial on murder and assault charges. Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta rejected Deputy Public Defender Julianne Prescop's request to dismiss the murder charge against Kerry Bell, now 49, stemming from the Jan. 13, 2022, attack on Sandra Shells. The judge said he viewed what had happened to Shells as a "coldcock," not a slap to the head as characterized by the defense attorney. "She had no idea what was coming," Ohta said. The nurse — who was waiting to catch a bus to her job at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center when she was struck at about 5:15 a.m. at a bus stop at Vignes Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue, near Union Station — fell and struck her head on the concrete. She died Jan. 16, 2022 at the hospital, where she had worked for 38 years.

FOX 11

Man Found Fatally Stabbed On Westlake Sidewalk Hours After Another Attack

A man in 40s was found fatally stabbed on a Westlake District sidewalk early Monday, just hours after another victim was attacked in the area. The Los Angeles Police Department responded to the intersection of 8th and Caroldelet streets around 1 a.m. The victim was found stabbed and his body was lying partially on the sidewalk near a strip mall. The Los Angeles Fire Department declared him dead at the scene. His identity was not immediately released. Detectives at the scene told KTLA it appeared the man had been stabbed in the chest, and are looking into whether he was involved in a dispute before the fatal encounter. The man was not homeless and the incident does not appear to be gang related. Police have no suspect information, but remained at the scene hours later hoping to find witnesses and surveillance video. No further details about the incident or the victim have been released.

KTLA 5

LA Metro Adding New Security Officers Amid Safety Concerns

Two weeks after announcing the deployment of nearly 200 unarmed Metro Ambassadors aboard its trains and buses, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Monday it has approved the hiring of 48 new transit security officers to bolster public safety. The Metro Board of Directors decision to increase its number of transit security officers is part of efforts to advance its public safety plan, which calls for a layered, "human-centered" approach aimed at making the system safer. In addition to the new Metro personnel, Metro is working with the city and county of Los Angeles to add homeless outreach, drug addiction and crisis intervention teams, and is improving its use of security cameras, lighting and more frequent cleaning of stations and vehicles. The board also approved new bias-free policing and public analytics policies, including a revised customer code of conduct, to ensure consistency with its public safety mission and values that were adopted by the board in 2021, according to the agency.

FOX 11

Sylmar Man Sentenced For Setting Hollywood Pizzerias On Fire

A Sylmar man was sentenced Monday to 12 months in prison for setting Hollywood’s Pizzeria Mozza and Mozza2Go on fire during the civil disturbances that roiled the city three years ago. Mario E. Alvarado, 45, pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of arson of a commercial building, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. As protests against police brutality were underway on May 30, 2020, Alvarado walked into the commercial building at the corner of Melrose and Highland avenues that housed Pizzeria Mozza and its related takeout business, Mozza2Go, poured a flammable liquid on the restaurant floor and set it on fire. At the time of the fire, the restaurant and shop co-owned by acclaimed chef Nancy Silverton were closed due to a curfew order. Arson investigators determined that the fire caused $500,000 in structural damage, with an additional $50,000 in fire damage to restaurant merchandise and property, according to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.

MyNewsLA

L.A. Man Arrested On Suspicion Of Sexual Assault Of 9-Year-Old Girl At Orange County Library

A Los Angeles man accused of exposing himself to a 9-year-old girl and sexually assaulting her at an Irvine public library last week has been arrested, according to police. Christopher Eduard, 53, was arrested Friday in the alleged assault at the Orange County Public Libraries Irvine Heritage Park branch in the children’s section, where the girl was looking at books, the Irvine Police Department said in a news release. Eduard allegedly asked the underage victim to help him make a video, police said. He gave the girl his phone to record and held cue cards for her to read from, according to police. “During the incident, Eduard exposed himself and assaulted the 9-year-old,” police said. The victim’s mother was also at the library at the time of the sexual assault, police said. Detectives looking over surveillance footage of the area found a car linked to the suspect, which helped them identify Eduard. Irvine police arrested him “near his home” on Friday and found evidence that connected him to the crime, police said.

Los Angeles Times

CHP Investigating Terrifying Crash In Chatsworth Caused By Runaway Tire

Authorities with the California Highway Patrol are investigating a wild crash that sent a car and its 29-year-old driver careening into a midair spin before crashing onto the road. The crash, which was captured on video by a Tesla’s dashboard camera, occurred on March 23 in the eastbound lanes of the 118 Freeway near De Soto Avenue in Chatsworth. The video shows a dark-colored Kia approaching a Chevrolet pickup that had just transitioned into the middle lane. Moments later, the front driver’s side tire of the truck pops off in front of the Kia, sending the Kia into a midair spin before crashing onto the freeway hood-first, and then rolling upright. “It just shows when you’re simply driving down the freeway, some pretty dramatic things can happen really quickly,” CHP Officer Weston Haver told KTLA Monday. Despite the violent crash, the 29-year-old Panorama woman driving the Kia was not seriously hurt and was able to walk away from her totaled car.“Thankfully, that party that was in the Kia had very minor injuries … and that’s because (she) was wearing a seatbelt,” Haver said.  

KTLA 5

Culver City 7-Eleven Robbery Suspects Sought

The Culver City Police Department released security camera footage of an armed robbery to ask for the public's help in identifying two suspects at large. Officers responded to a reported armed robbery at a 7-Eleven store at 10638 Culver Boulevard at 11 p.m. on Friday, March 24. Two male suspects robbed the female clerk at gunpoint. Both males were described as standing about 5 feet 6 inches tall, with thin builds, wearing all black clothing and ski masks. One suspect had a bandage around his left wrist and pointed a silver semiautomatic handgun at the clerk. The suspects fled on foot eastbound on Culver Blvd. with $90 in cash from two register drawers. Anyone with any information about the incident is asked to contact the Culver City Police Dept. at (310) 253-6202

CBS 2

3 Children, 3 Adults Fatally Shot At Nashville Private School; Suspect Dead

A woman wielding two rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools. Police said they believe the 28-year-old shooter was a former student at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001. Police shot and killed her. Investigators were searching her Nashville-area home. The attack at The Covenant School — which has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members — comes as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators. “I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at an afternoon news conference.

Associated Press

Florida Officer Critically Wounded In Shooting After Traffic Stop

A man who sped away from a traffic stop in Florida last week shot and critically wounded a sheriff's officer before killing himself following a standoff at his home, officials said. The shooting early Sunday morning left Officer Malik Daricaud, 25, in “tenuous condition” and “fighting for his life,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said during a news conference. When no one answered the door at Tyliko Maduro's home, the officers contacted the 32-year-old man's mother, Waters said, describing the body cam footage. She agreed to come over, and approached the front door with one officer, while another was stationed around the corner of the house and Daricaud stayed a few feet back. She knocked a couple of times and yelled, “hello,” before unlocking and pushing open the door. A dog came out the door and a volley of shots rang out. Daricaud fell backwards and collapsed onto the ground, Waters said. The other officers and Maduro's mother were not injured, the Florida Times-Union reported.

Associated Press

Firefighters Knock Down Trash Fire On Roof Of Downtown Building

Fire crews made quick work Monday of a trash fire atop a vacant downtown commercial building, and no injuries were reported. The fire was reported around 3:30 p.m. in the 1200 block of South Flower Street, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Fire crews climbed ladders to the roof of the single-story structure and determined the fire was actually a burning pile of trash. Firefighters managed to douse the flames within about 15 minutes, preventing the fire from damaging the building itself, according to the LAFD. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

MyNewsLA

Firefighters Wake Up Sleeping Plumber In Northridge Crawlspace

A plumber entered a crawlspace of a Northridge home and fell asleep for about three hours Saturday until firefighters cut holes in the floor and woke him up. The worried homeowner contacted the Los Angeles Fire Department after the 50-year-old man entered the crawl space under the 2,100-square-foot home and was not seen or heard from for up to three hours, said the LAFD's Brian Humphrey. The home was built in 1958 and the crawl space in the raised foundation was a maximum of three feet height, Humphrey said. The homeowner shouted for the plumber but there was no response, he said. "LAFD crews, including those specially trained and equipped in Urban Search and Rescue arrived quickly to ventilate and monitor the enclosed environment, and soon visibly noted a small portion of the still unresponsive worker's body at a distance," Humphrey said.

FOX 11

Los Angeles County Officials ID Buildings In Need Of Seismic Retrofitting

More than 30 Los Angeles County-owned buildings are in need of seismic upgrades, according to a list released by the county. From structures at LAC+USC Medical Center, to the county’s Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles, 33 buildings are at risk because they’re built with non-ductile concrete, which uses “an inadequate configuration of steel reinforcing bars, which allows concrete to explode out of columns when shaken in an earthquake, a prelude to a catastrophic collapse,” the Los Angeles Times reports. This building material has been heavily criticized as contributing to the massive damage in the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed more than 20,000 people in Turkey and Syria earlier this year. County officials hope to have the buildings retrofitted within 10 years, though the Times noted that “experts estimate [such efforts] will probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars.”

KTLA 5

About the LAPPL: Formed in 1923, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) represents more than 9,200 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.