Authorities in Costa Mesa say that medical examiners have been able to determine the identity of a female corpse that has spent the last several months in the passenger seat of another woman's vehicle, according to MyFox LA. The Orange County coroner's office hydrated the fingertips on the mummified, withered body in order to obtain fingerprints. The deceased, a homeless woman, apparently befriended the car's driver, who allowed her to spend the night in the car, however "when she died overnight the car's driver was too afraid to go to police." The authorities are locating the deceased's next of kin before releasing her name. more ›

Today Orange County becomes the 120th county in the nation to join the Secure Communities program, which is "a national effort to identify and deport people who are in the country illegally and suspected of or convicted of committing crimes," according to the OC Register. more ›

Perhaps not fingering, per se, but Miguel Martinez Rivera of the LAPD is a "high-ranking fingerprint expert" who "has been charged with sexually assaulting one of his tenants in a South Los Angeles apartment," reports cbs2.com. "Rivera is charged with four felony counts, including assault with the intent to rape. If convicted, faces up to nine years in prison." He is accused of having "accosted the 26-year-old woman earlier this month," and was arrested this Wednesday while at work "at the department's Scientific Investigations Division." Rivera was "released on $175,000 bail and placed on administrative leave." It's been a streak of bad news of late for the finger print experts who work for the LAPD; recently uncovered errors on their part have led to 945 cases coming under review. more ›

Remember when the LA Times somehow got a confidential report about the underfunded LAPD fingerprint and how two people were wrongly accused of crimes because of sloppy work? As they are disciplined and on leave (one got fired), the six print analysts' work related to those false charges has been connected to 945 cases that the LAPD is going back through to make sure no mistakes were made, the LA Times is reporting. Now the question in all of this is this: if the Times never got their hands on the confidential report about the fingerprint screw ups, would this review even be happening? more ›

We all know Amoeba and mourn the passing of terrific indie record shops like Aron’s and Sea Level, but what about the great stores we still have that continue bringing us back to discover old and new music alike? LAist has compiled a list of record stores from our vast area for the holidays (and a handy Google map) in support of these local businesses that help us remember what it’s like spending an afternoon going through bins, talking shit with store clerks and going home with a song you can’t wait to play. more ›

by Sheri Zampelli more ›

After an LA Times headline like this--"LAPD's fingerprint lab isn't up to the task"--the best response is for the LAPD to start briefing city council members in a public meeting weekly about the fingerprint unit. And that's what the understaffed office is starting to do. It was found last month, via a confidential report obtained by the Times, that the Fingerprint Analysis Unit is woefully understaffed for the amount of work created by crimes and is sometimes too lax with evidence--some has been lost and at least two have been arrested falsely after sloppy work leading to a lawsuit, possibly a class action one. At about the same time this controversy hit the presses, City Controller Laura Chick announced the "disturbing" backlog of 7,000 rape-kits. more ›

Yesterday was a cathartic day for LAPD's top dog, Chief William Bratton. In the same press conference where he admitted that the department's backlog of 7,000 rape-kits is a problem, he also spoke about the leaked-to-the-press report about shoddy fingerprint analyses that led to wrong accusations. Bratton, who emphasized that no case is solely based on fingerprints, has now convened a group of experts to form a taskforce on the issue in addition to moving the Scientific Investigation Division, responsible for fingerprinting, DNA (yes, rape-kits) and ballistics, from the Support Services Bureau to the Detectives Bureau. more ›