July 2007 Archives
The LAPD Explorers came under fire today from the only openly gay police commissioner Shelley Freeman who charged the 45-year-old program had a worrisome association with the Boy Scouts of America.
The accusation arose after the department received a $5,000 donation from one of its board members. The donation was to set up an Explorer program at Crenshaw High School. But Freeman points out that the largest youth organization in the country prohibits homosexual membership.
"There is a clear association between the Boy Scouts of America and the Explorer program that can't be denied. So, I am here today to say to the Explorer program ...you can run but you cannot hide. Clearly this program has come out of the closet," she told the commission.
The commission is looking into the association and reexamining the department's donation policy.
"It's disappointing to me that anyone refuses money to anyone affiliated with Boy Scouts of America. The money is going to a youth program," said Greg Salce, the director for Learning for Life, an affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that provides services to the Explorers.
"The (Explorers') mission is different (from the Boy Scouts) and more importantly, we serve all people there is no discrimination in terms of sexual orientation or gender."
"...if you happen to see some hooker with a silver Fujitsu laptop and matching Motorola RAZR phone hanging out on Sepulveda, let me know... ."
Here in Van Nuys has the tale of a home invasion robbery welcoming some folks to the neighborhood.
Rachel's got a touching piece today with a better look at the lives of Det. George Selleh and Officer David Rodriguez. Check it out here and, if you knew the officers and would like to share your memories, click either post above and pass along what they meant to you.
UPDATE, 7 p.m., 7/31: The Los Angeles Police Protective League emailed the statement below regarding both officers.
We thank Daily News reader Bruce Johnson, a former Burbank cop, who saw the story I did last week about L.A.'s most prolific burglar and provided background about another prolific burglar, Gordon E. Atteberry, who burglarized homes from San Diego to Bakersfield in the 1950s. The story is quite amusing. Atteberry was a Wisconsin University electronics major, sometimes drug user, self-styled writer, and, of all things, a hypnotist. He was caught after an enraged victim said Atteberry started making a pass at the victim's wife.
The following arrests occurred in the San Fernando Valley are on July 30:
- 17100 block of Covello Street, Van Nuys: A 19-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
- Tobias Avenue: A 54-year-old Sylmar man was arrested on suspicion of murder.
- 7800 block of Van Nuys Boulevard, Panorama City: A 19-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of robbery.
- 10100 block of San Fernando Road, Pacoima: A 52-year-old construction worker was arrested on suspicion of commercial burglary.
- 11000 block of Victory Boulevard, North Hollywood: A 63-year-old writer was arrested on suspicion of auto theft.
- Saticoy Street, Van Nuys: A 26-year-old Sylmar man was arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery.
- Tampa Avenue: A 23-year-old Northridge cable clerk was arrested on suspicion of being a gang member with a gun.
A 22-year-old gang associate was in custody and two other men were being sought today in connection with at least five street robberies in which they confronted some of their victims with a taser gun and pepper spray in the West San Fernando Valley area, police said. Hector Xavier Caballero, a construction worker from Woodland Hills, was booked Saturday into the Los Angeles County Jail on robbery charges. His bail was set at $250,000. dailynews.com
Yesterday must have been rough for the chief, who lost his mother, June, and two officers in off-duty accidents. From dailynews.com, here's a short story.
The Los Angeles Police Department announced today that Chief William Bratton's mother died in Boston.
June Bratton was 80 years old.
"It is with profound regret that I share with you the unfortunate news that the mother of our chief of police ... passed away early yesterday morning after an extended illness," Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger said.
Besides her son, she is survived by her husband, William, to whom she was married for 60 years, a daughter, Patricia Bratton, three sisters, two grandsons and several nieces and nephews.
As with Det. Selleh and Officer Rodriguez, we offer our condolences to the chief and his family.
Jason already flagged this in the Morning Report, but I wanted to go a little more in-depth on Dantae Livingston. He seems like a nice kid, one who could do something more productive with his life than robbing people and hanging around on the corner.
But, as I've learned the hard way, it's not always as easy as saying "I'm out." When you've got friends and family in the gang, you're surrounded by its influence every day. Both your old homeboys and your old enemies aren't always going to be into your attempts to move onto do something new.
Can Dantae do it? I hope so. He's got a lot of things going for him-- his parents are around, his brothers support his decision to get out of the gang and they're moving out of the area that first got him into trouble. And Paul White, his teacher at the West Valley Leadership Academy, seems to have a deep commitment to keeping him on the right side of the law. (As a side note, Dantae didn't mind sharing the names and details of his old gang -- they checked out to make his story seem probable, but White asked that we not publish them to prevent retribution. I don't know if that would have mattered, but figured it didn't push the story forward that much to name the gang, so we agreed to his request.)
I guess we'll see where this all leads. Check back here in the future for updates on Dantae and his family.
As an update from yesterday's post, we learned the name of the second officer killed in an off-duty traffic accident on Sunday. Today's piece identifies him as Officer David Rodriguez. He grew up in North Hollywood, then went onto patrol its streets. After four years on the force, he'd recently joined the gang enforcement detail and was remembered as a popular officer who doted on his mother.
From Rachel's piece:
"She was just devastated, said North Hollywood Capt. Sharyn Buck, who spoke with Rodriguez's mother. "He took care of her. He did everything for her. He was her life."
He balanced his tenderness at home with a tough, energetic presence at work. The Times added this detail:
"He is the hardest working officer I know," said Officer Tim Bohac, who partnered with Rodriguez for 2 1/2 years. "He wasn't one to sit around and wait for things to happen."
Bohac said his former partner was a formidable 6 feet 2 and weighed 270 pounds.
"He was the brawn, and I was the runner," Bohac said. "Hopefully, no one was going to mess with us because of his size, but if they took off running it was my job to catch him."
Our condolences go out to both the Rodriguez and Selleh families. Anyone who knew either of them, please send us your remembrances so that we can share their stories with our readers.
Geoff Boucher got beat up in my hometown over the weekend after some guys maddogged him on the street outside Comicon. He blogs about it here-- scary stuff and a good reminder that even in innocuous places, you've got to keep an eye out for trouble. Best wishes for a swift recovery, Geoff.
(Thanks to LAObserved for the notice)
Good morning. Click below for your daily dose of crime news.
More tragic news for the Los Angeles Police Department. According to this update, a second LAPD officer died just miles away from Det. Selleh in an unrelated crash. More details when we've got them.
It's always a shame to lose a cop, whether they're on duty or otherwise. Det. George Selleh, known to his friends and family as Mike, died this morning in a multi-car crash on the 101 on the way to work. We hope to have more information later, but in the meantime, click below to read the full story.
Also, if any readers knew Det. Selleh and would like to share their memories of him, please post them here or email us using the box at the left so that we can tell his story for those he left behind. Thank you and please accept our sincere condolences.
Not many jobs involve putting on shorts and flip flops and showing up with bourbon as perfume. But, as Jason shares with us today, a fake drunk cop cruised Chatsworth and Northridge to nab illegal intoxicant peddlers. It's a funny story _ unless you were tending bar at the Hot Tomato.
As Jason promised in an earlier post, here's the latest on the ax handle attack that left one man dead.
SUNLAND - A 38-year-old man was found dead Friday after being hit in the head with an ax handle, police said.
Jae Kweon Oh left his residence Friday morning to go to work at his acupuncture clinic when an assailant attacked him, police said.
Nobody has been arrested, and police did not provide a suspect description.
Oh's wife found him on the sidewalk at 7:39 a.m. in front of their home in the 7800 block of Hillrose Street, and called police. Authorities found a fiberglass ax handle at the scene.
Hillrose residents silently watched as detectives searched Oh's house and the surrounding area Friday morning. Several of Oh's neighbors said they didn't know him very well, but that the incident frightened them.
Fifty-two anonymous women had preceded Jane Doe 53 to the grave in 1987 before a mysterious killer chopped off her hands and dumped her body in the Sepulveda Basin. More than 5,000 men and women have followed in unsolved homicides in Los Angeles. Rick's got an exceptional piece today on the sad end of Ms. Doe 53, who donned a handmade, out-of-fashion blue dress and painted her toenails reddish pink for one last night out before she was killed. It's a tragic, very well-written tale.
From Jacob Adelman of the Associated Press. ...
Two men were charged in an alleged plot to extort more than $1 million from Tom Cruise for the actor's stolen wedding photographs, federal authorities announced Friday.
David Hans Schmidt, known for brokering deals involving compromising celebrity photos and videos, was charged with sending communications for purposes of extortion, according to a criminal complaint.
Marc Lewis Gittleman, who authorities say helped recover photos from a computer hard drive, was charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.
Federal agents arrested Schmidt, 47, Tuesday and Gittleman, 33, Thursday night, officials said.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Schmidt or Gittleman had retained attorneys. Schmidt, who lives in Phoenix, was released on $100,000 bond.
The plot began after Gittleman, of West Hollywood, obtained photos of the actor's Italian wedding last year to Katie Holmes from the event's official photographer, according to a criminal complaint.
The photographer, identified as Joshua Bobrove, reportedly had taken a damaged computer hard drive containing the wedding photos to Gittleman to employ his services as a data recovery expert.
Gittleman then made copies of photos on the drive and kept them for himself, authorities said. He contacted Schmidt after finding a Web site touting his abilities to broker celebrity photos.
In the last two months, Schmidt had repeated contact with Cruise representatives and threatened to shop the photos around if he didn't receive between $1.25 million and $1.35 million, officials said. At one point, he allegedly e-mailed the actor's representatives about 7,600 wedding photos as proof he had them.
"He said that the client would turn to the black market and find a buyer for the photos," said Peter Brust, a special agent in charge in the FBI's Los Angeles office.
Schmidt was arrested after an undercover FBI agent attended a meeting in West Hollywood between Schmidt and Cruise's representatives. Federal agents were led to Gittleman by a license plate number they discovered on a slip of paper in Schmidt's car.
Schmidt also has tried to auction off Paris Hilton's diaries, along with photos of her in various stages of undress and other personal items that had been locked away in a Los Angeles-area storage locker until a few months ago.
Earlier stories: Sleaze sultan screws up while scamming sexy Scientologist
Tom Cruise Extortion Plot (The Smoking Gun)
David Hans Schmidt
From the always entertaining fellas over at The Smoking Gun, we offer a link to the sordid tale of David Hans Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt, now cooling out in custody, care of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been involved selling off-color photos of Jamie Foxx, Tonya Harding, and, amazingly, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst. He also works as an agent for Barry Bonds' ex-squeeze and soon-to-be Playboy model Kimberly Bell. That's not what got him arrested, however.
He got popped by the Feds earlier this week, for allegedly trying to sell stolen photos of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding back to the actor for a million bucks. TSG has a great couple of lines: Yesterday, when TSG first learned of Schmidt's arrest, a reporter called his L.A. assistant, who claimed that Schmidt was in meetings all day. In fact, he was in federal custody.
The moral of the story? Don't mess with Maverick.
The FBI will discuss the arrest today at a press conference-- we'll keep ya posted.
(photo credit: The Smoking Gun)
These five guys don't wear badges, but, like the Cops of Baghdad, they're just about the toughest law enforcement officers you could ever imagine. Four of them suffered terrible injuries while patrolling abroad, but they're still pushing their bodies to compete.
Click here or read on below to learn about Team Semper Fi.
This one we're following closely today. A 38-year-old man was found dead this morning from blunt force trauma after apparently being hit in the head with an ax. A passerby found the man on the sidewalk at 7:39 a.m. Stay tuned for updates. dailynews.com
Oh dear, where to begin on this one? ... Our friends at the Associated Press offer up a real life tale of the revenge of the accused nerd. As you can read below, a Naval weapons systems operator is accused of driving from Virginia to Texas and torching another dude's trailer. The arsonist's motivation: the man compared him to the Lambda Lambda Lambdas.
Scratch your heads and read on. ...
Click below for your early morning crime report.
No really, Zsa Zsa, I was robbed
Based on his previous claims of virility during the whole Anna Nicole Smith "who's the baby's daddy fiasco," Prince Frederic von Anhalt -- Zsa Zsa's husband -- might appreciate stories where he ends up naked and handcuffed in a Rolls Royce surrounded by "attractive" women. Not this time.
The following arrests were made in the San Fernando Valley on July 25:
- 8800 block of Cedros Avenue, Panorama City: A 19-year-old painter was arrested on suspicion of robbery.
- 5900 block of Tujunga Avenue, North Hollywood: A 41-year-old driver was arrested on suspicion of criminal threats.
The following arrests were made on July 24:
- 6600 block of Woodman Avenue, Van Nuys: A 19-year-old bagger was arrested on suspicion of participation in a street gang.
- 9200 block of Wakefield Avenue Panorama City: A 30-year-old female retail worker and a 26-year-old, both from Sylmar, were arrested on suspicion of an assault with a knife.
An accused West Valley area gang member has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, and gang and gun charges in connection with a 2004 shooting that injured a Canoga Park Alabama gangster in a rivalry. dailynews.com
Click below for your daily crime news report.
OK, so I'm not posting this because I'm a major USC fan. In fact, if a USC receivers coach who is reportedly a major force on the recruiting end got busted for allegedly burglarizing a home, I'd still post it. That being said, the allegations are against a UCLA coach, and if they turn out to be true, file this one under "what the hell was he thinking?"
Councilman Dennis Zine
The war over the war on drugs continued along its usual lines of "this is a federal crime" versus "leave it up to the locals" on Wednesday when City Councilman Dennis Zine proposed a moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries here in Los Angeles. In return for greater local scrutiny, he asked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to back off on its raids on the shops.
The DEA, however, had other ideas. Several hours after Zine announced he'd sent the letter asking the feds to leave local pot clinics alone, the DEA raided 10 local shops, arrested five people, seized two guns, a bunch of drugs and cash.
Click below to read the tale Kerry Cavanaugh and I will have in manana's paper.
weed
Latest news from Los Angeles Police Department in the Valley area. Two guys did a home invasion near Cal State Northridge. Police today were looking for two home invasion robbery suspects who walked into a house near Cal State Northridge the other day, held up two college students and ransacked the place before disappearing. dailynews.com
Good morning. Click below for a full plate of crime news.
Lindsay Lohan, Mean Girl
Man, what is it with Lindsay Lohan? Seems like while the once-wholesome actress occasionally forgets her panties, she allegedly doesn't leave home without her cocaine. Now far be it from me to cast aspersions, as my old soccer coach used to say, but if it were me, Lindsay, I'd make sure I had the former and left the latter at home.
Previously....
Lindsay Crashes & Bratton Prepares to Dish
Fun, Fun, Fun, Till the Coppers took the G-Ride Away
'Most Wanted' gangster popped, angst over anti-gang funds, mom sentenced in gang shooting, and more
We update you on San Fernando Valley area arrests from over the weekend.
The following arrests were made July 22:
- 18000 block of Hiawatha Street, Porter Ranch: A36-year-old Granada Hills resident was booked on suspicion of attempted rape.
- 20000 block of Saticoy Street, Winnetka: A 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of battery.
- 12300 block of Burbank Boulevard, Valley Village: A 19-year-old Sun Valley man was arrested on suspicion of arson.
- 7100 block of Geyser Avenue, Reseda: An 18-year-old detailer was arrested on suspicion of unlawful sex with a minor.
- 5800 block Wish Avenue, Encino: A 42-year-old business owner was arrested on suspicion of willful harm to a child.
- 14000 block of Riverside Drive Sherman Oaks: A 35-year-old Burbank resident was arrested on suspicion of grand theft.
- 13500 block of Vanowen Street, Van Nuys: An 18-year-old Pacoima resident was arrested on suspicion of trespassing with a street gang enhancement.
- 11300 block of Acala Avenue, San Fernando: A 21-year-old homeless drug dealer from Sylmar was arrested on suspicion of heroin sales.
The following arrests were made July 21:
- El Centro: A 28-year-old gogo dancer from Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale.
- 5500 block of Klump Avenue, North Hollywood: A 52-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault with a firearm.
- Erwin Street: A 27-year-old temp agency worker from Anaheim was arrested on suspicion of lewd acts.
- Erwin Street: A 49-year-old instructor from La Mirada was arrested on suspicion of lewd act with a child.
- 9400 block of Chivers Avenue, Sun Valley: A 45-year-old laborer from Montrose was arrested on suspicion of theft of a cargo trailer.
The following arrests were made July 20:
- 8400 block of Oakdale Avenue, Winnetka: A 22-year-old construction worker was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
- 2900 block of Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles: A 76-year-old retired Glendale man was arrested on suspicion of theft.
- 2900 block of Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles: A 68-year-old Glendale woman was arrested on suspicion of petty theft.
- 7000 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard, Van Nuys: A 38-year-old female supervisor was arrested on suspicion of forgery.
Good morning. Click below for the daily crime news report.
Good morning. Hope you had a good weekend. Click below for your daily crime news report.
Just a quick one-- hopefully, we can get some more on this later.
PANORAMA CITY - A man died early this morning after being stabbed twice, Los Angeles police said.
Officers were called to the 8900 block of Tobias Avenue, where they found the man at 5:30 a.m. with two stab wounds.
The man, whose age and name have not been released, was taken to a nearby hospital where he died, officers from the LAPD's Mission Division said.
I'm juggling a bunch of things right now, so I'll just rip this straight from the LAPD blog earlier this week. My apologies for missing it up earlier.
On July 15, 2007, at about 12:45 a.m., the victim was in the backyard of a residence in the 14600 block of Astoria Street in Sylmar. He became involved in an argument with another partygoer and was shot numerous times by the suspect.
The victim has been identified as Jorge Enrique Santana, a resident of Marina Del Rey. He was transported to a local hospital where he died of his injuries.
Anyone with any information about this crime is asked to call Mission Homicide Detectives Gene Parshall or John Macchiarella at 818-838-9810. After hours and on weekends, phone the 24-hour toll free Detective Information Desk at 1-877-LAW-FULL (529-3855).
As I keep building this much-delayed officer profile I blogged about a few weeks back, I took another drive down to 77th the other day and met some more interesting cats. The station's new and comfortable, and compared to, say, the Daily News offices, it's bright and attractive.
The streets outside, however, are not so pleasant.
Rachel noticed this AP story about the tragic death of five kids in New York. It appears that not only was the driver operating the car illegally, without the proper license, she was texting as she drove to her death. Sad stuff.
Text messages were sent back and forth on the cell phone of a 17-year-old driver moments before her sport-utility vehicle slammed head-on into a truck, killing her and four other recent high school graduates on June 28, the police said today.
A text message was sent from the phone of the S.U.V. driver, Bailey E. Goodman, at 10:05:02 p.m., according to Sheriff Philip C. Povero of Ontario County, adding that a friend here sent a text message to Ms. Goodman’s phone asking, “What are you doing?”
“The message was received on the cell phone at 10:06:29,” Sheriff Povero said.
A call reporting the accident to the authorities from a passenger in a car the S.U.V. had passed just before the crash was made at 10:07, according to The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
“The records indicate her phone was in use,” he said. “We will never be able to clearly state that she was the one doing the text messaging.”
A Glendale man accused in a fatal hit-and-run crash that killed a 24-year-old woman was charged today with second-degree murder. Ara Grigoryan, 21, was scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in a Pasadena courtroom. Prosecutors will ask that he be held without bail. If convicted, Grigoryan faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Grigoryan is accused in the July 10 death of Elizabeth Sandoval, who was struck as she walked across Glendale Avenue near Windsor Road with another woman, who was unhurt. Grigoryan was arrested earlier this week at the Mexico City airport after arriving on an Aeromexico flight from Tijuana, said Glendale police Officer John Balian. He allegedly had planned to continue on to Madrid, Spain, but didn’t have the proper documents, Balian said. His ultimate destination was his native Armenia, according to broadcast reports. Federal marshals helped return him to Los Angeles on Wednesday.
This year, crooks with nefarious monikers such as the Napkin Bandit and the Landscape Bandit have helped themselves to cash at 203 banks from Riverside to San Luis Obispo, taking over the financial centers and grabbing hostages 29 times. While that's better than the 250 robberies perpetrated in the same period last year, with 59 takeovers, the feds still aren't satisfied.
To publicize its attack on those bank-robbing brigands, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced a new Web site, LABankRobbers.org today. The site aims to allow law enforcement agencies to coordinate efforts to grab the crooks by sharing their photos.
As we learned with the Irreconcilable Differences Bandit, Zorro and the Goofy Hat Bandit, the names and photos that go along with these (almost always) guys can be quite entertaining, as well. The FBI hopes to get ordinary citizens such as you, dear readers, involved in the fun -- hopefully recognizing the photos and passing along tips. So spend a little quality time with folks like the Magoo Bandit, below, a suspect in a Ventura robbery, and let the enforcement excitement begin.
Here are selected arrests from the San Fernando Valley for July 19:
- 10200 block of San Fernando Road, Pacoima: A 20-year-old unemployed woman from Las Vegas was arrested on suspicion of prostitution.
- 6600 block of Lennox Avenue, Van Nuys: A 22-year-old Van Nuys construction worker was arrested on suspicion of auto theft.
- 7500 block of Satsuma Avenue, Sun Valley: A 21-year-old Sun Valley construction worker was arrested on suspicion of defrauding the Department of Motor Vehicles.
- 6000 block of Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood: A 19-year-old Van Nuys ex-convict was arrested on suspicion carrying a gun.
- 12800 block of Harding Street, Sylmar: A 33-year-old Montrose construction worker was arrested on suspicion of battery with serious injury.
- Kamloops Street, Northeast Valley area: A 35-year-old Web designer was arrested on suspicion of pimping.
- San Fernando: An 18-year-old laborer from Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion of being a gang member with a gun.
- 12800 block of Victory Boulevard, North Hollywood: A 22-year-old stocker from Panorama City was arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale.
- Huston Street: A 30-year-old director of patients from Glendale was arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct.
- 21700 block of Victory Boulevard, Canoga Park: A 27-year-old North Hollywood woman was arrested on suspicion of theft.
Happy Friday. Click below for your daily crime news report.
The unusual case of the day ... Apparently a 17-year-old girl who stayed out too late with her boyfriend and dinged her car and feared repercussions from her strict father, made up a story about three carjacking her near Valley College, ordering her into the trunk, and driving around with her inside for about five hours before abandoning her on a dirt road, police said. dailynews.com
Jonathan C. Blackwell, one of the LAPD's most-wanted gangsters, got himself caught in Oklahoma yesterday. A reputed member of the Hustlers in the Wilshire area and known to his pals as "K-Swiss", Blackwell is accused of connection with a home-invasion robbery that left two dead and a third wounded.
Click here for more.
The stupid crook story of the day ... A parolee and suspected Pacoima gangster wanted in connection with a narcotics case was in custody today after his attempt to steal a car was foiled when he couldn't shift it into gear. dailynews.com
Here are selected arrests made by the Los Angeles Police Department arrested in the San Fernando Valley on July 18:
- Burbank: A 44-year-old Rosemond resident whose occupation was described by police only as manager was arrested on suspicion of possession of dangerous fireworks.
- Orion Avenue: A 38-year-old woman from Winnetka was arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine.
- 7000 block of Fulton Avenue, North Hollywood: A 45-year-old homemaker was arrested on suspicion of intimidating a witness.
- 4200 block of Radford Avenue, Studio City: A 30-year-old Sylmar technician was arrested on suspicion of grand theft.
- 6100 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard, Van Nuys: A 42-year-old Van Nuys fitness trainer was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting.
- 7400 block of Gloria Avenue, Van Nuys: A 47-year-old unemployed Van Nuys man was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure.
- Nordhoff Street: A 20-year-old salesman from Cudahy was arrested on suspicion of possessing a deadly weapon.
- 17700 block of Saticoy Street, Reseda: A 48-year-old female massager from Oceanside was arrested on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes.
Statistics are a tricky thing. They can be manipulated and used to twist reality or they can reveal hidden trends. Depending on who you talk to that's exactly what the newly released gang crime numbers revealed.
Earlier this week LAPD Chief William Bratton and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa touted a more than 20 percent drop in gang killings across the city. That meant 40 less people have died this year than last.
It means less tears shed, funerals held and parents and children asking why.
Everyone applauds the effort but there was another number that the official press release offered little details on and that was a 14.8 percent rise in gang crime in the San Fernando Valley. Unfortunately, at the time the LAPD was reluctant to detail exactly what that rise meant.
The LA Daily News finally got those numbers and though gang-related crimes in the Valley are only a fraction of those documented in the worst parts of the cities, the cases are still rising.
Some of those figures never got into the story I wrote, just like too many crime stories never get into the paper. So, I wanted to provide them here.