One innocent person dead at the hands of an officer is bad enough. Now there could be two. 5-year veteran of the Inglewood Police Department Brian Ragan is on leave for the second time in 10 weeks after he shot and killed a man who allegedly was pointing a gun at him. Ragan was responding to a family disturbance call, knocked on the door and, according to police, Kevin Wicks, a postal worker was holding......

Despite a 40% spike in homicides earlier this year, a slow down in the crime has evened out the numbers. As of Monday night, there were 204 killings overall, compared to 208 this time last year, according to the LA Times who also reports that "overall, violent crime this year was down 7% as of July 12, according to the LAPD. The number of shots fired was down 28%, as was the number of victims......

Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, second from left and Helen Golay, 77, background at the Criminal Courts building in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. Rutterschmidt moments later received the same sentence..(AP Photo/Genaro Molina, Pool) They befriended homeless men, gave them life insurance policies for two years, killed them by running over them, claimed their deaths as hit and runs and collected on the insurance. Nearly $3 million was collected between the two men......

It's good to solve a cold case and what makes this one easier to deal with is the fact that the accused criminal is already in jail. From the LAPD: "The Robbery-Homicide Division’s (RHD) Detectives, obtained a warrant for the arrest of Michael Hubert Hughes, 51-years-old, charging four counts of murder with additional charges relating to sexual assault of the four female victims. The series of crimes occurred between 1986 and 1993. Three occurred in......

After weeks and weeks of testimony, the verdict is finally in for Juan Alvarez, the man who left his SUV on Metrolink train tracks in Glendale causing one train to derail and crash into another train back in January 2005. 11 people were killed and another 180 were injured. Alvarez said he was only trying to kill himself and that the resulting train crash was not intended. The jury didn't think so and found him......

Photo by Susan Catherine via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Special Order 40 is a nearly 30-year-old law in Los Angeles that prohibits Los Angeles police officers from asking people about their immigration status. Part of the intent is to get more community cooperation when investigating a crime. Illegal immigrants who witness or know something about a crime would more likely avoid police because of their status without the order. A 2006 citizen filed......

Some report that 11 people were murdered over the weekend, some report 12. Whichever the number, it is greater than the normal homicide rate in Los Angeles County, an unfortunate two or three per day. At least nine of the deaths occurred within Los Angeles: four in South LA, four in the Valley and one in Northeast LA. Authorities suspect several were gang related. Photo by guamafro via Flickr......

On Sunday at 12:55 a.m., a pair of young men, Rosalio DeLa Rosa, 22, and one underage 17-year-old teen, engaged in an argument with another man, Anthony DeLa Cruz, outside a Valley market near Parthenia and Woodley. DeLa Cruz left in his car and the two others followed, eventually using their vehicle to stop DeLa Cruz after flashing a gun while driving, reports the Daily News: As DeLa Rosa got out of his vehicle he......

View Larger Map Within four hours last night, two people were shot dead and another eight were injured in a spree of gun violence that went from Northridge to North Hollywood to Sylmar, the Daily News is reporting. It began in Northridge between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. where one 16-year-old boy was shot, but survived with non-life threatening injuries. Then one hour later, two men were shot and killed in related cases on Coldwater......

Billy Moses, right, comforts his mother Kathryn Holub at a sidewalk memorial Tuesday, May 20, 2008, in Long Beach, Calif., where police shot and killed Roketi Mosesue, 46, an unarmed mentally ill man. Holub is Mosesue's girlfriend. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) Saturday night's officer involved shooting that led to the death of Roketi Mosesue, 46, has led to much controversy. Both sides tell their story. First, the Long Beach Police via the Mercury News: [Deputy......

On March 9, 70-year-old Katan Khaimov went for a walk. He started at his West Hollywood apartment and was later found dead with stab wounds near Poinsetta Park, which is in Los Angeles at the WeHo border. For over an hour, Khaimov cried for help, according to the LA Times. The fact that Khaimov was slain has been hard enough for his neighborhood to accept. But the awful coda of his life has added to......

A scuffle between a group of teens that apparently knew each other left one 14-year-old shot and killed. The incident happened last night around 8:30 p.m. near the intersection of Van Nuys and Glen Oaks Boulevards in the Valley neighborhood of Pacoima. "Witnesses said the fight looked almost over when shots were fired. The young boys dispersed, and a 14-year-old victim was left laying on the ground with a gunshot wound," reported ABC7. Police do......

Dakota Smith over at Curbed LA was kind enough to submit this photo. "I'm over in Venice and someone plastered all of Abbot Kinney Boulevard with these posters on the street this morning," she wrote in an e-mail. Juliana Redding was murdered on March 16th and few details have come out as of late. Santa Monica Police were quick to state that the autopsy results would take 30 to 60 days because of a......

When it comes to crime, cops call one piece of evidence "gold." And that one bit of information that really can expedite an investigation is a license plate number. If you see something happen and it doesn't endanger yourself, take note of license plate numbers. Yesterday in West Covina, a 91-year-old was killed in a hit-and-run accident in a cul-de-sac, which should be some of the safest streets in a neighborhood. "The driver got out,......

One person was killed last night following a fight at a house party held last night in East L.A. on the 1400 block of Downey Street. A few people were allegedly involved in the fight, which led to one person shooting another, who "later died at a local hospital," reports abc7.com. In another party-turned-crime scene incident, an argument broke out at a birthday party on Hart Street in Winnetka late last night, prompting the host......

You won't be seeing the 21-year-old Valencia resident, Samantha Rothwell, for about 16 years because yesterday she was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of an 18-year-old man who made a comment about God. In 2006, a group of friends gathered at Hotel Huntington Beach for a birthday celebration and to go to the beach the next day. Then... As the evening progressed, several people, including Rothwell and 18-year-old Walter Rivas, were on the......

Photo by kpeII via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The elderly women known as the 'Black Widows' have been found guilty of murder conspiracy. Partial verdicts were read today against 77-year-old Helen Golay and 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt for their roles in two murders. A 27-year-old man from Sherman Oaks jumped to his death this morning from an overpass on the 210 Freeway at Sierra Avenue in Fontana. He had left his car......

A 30-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of Samantha Padilla, the 19-year-old LAX employee who was gunned down last week on the West Slauson off-ramp of the northbound 110 Freeway late at night. Jessica Ortega faces arraignment this afternoon for one count of murder. According to the press release issued from the District Attorney's office, the "count carries two special allegations that the principal intentionally discharged a firearm causing death and that the......

Photo by discarted via LAist Featured Photos The first quarter results are in for officer involved shootings and the survey says there have been 15 such incidents, 12 of them killing suspects (this number was the same in 2006). Of the 12 deaths, 10 guns were recovered on the suspects. Last year during the same reporting period, there were 18 officer involved shootings leading to 6 deaths. The Daily News says that "the quarterly......

Photo by Susan Catherine via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author, blogger and president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable was the man behind the dream of the 40-hour murder moratorium that Los Angeles County and City put into place this past weekend. He defends his idea in the LA Times, the very same paper, who in an editorial, lambasted the proposal: In its editorial, "A moment for Martin Luther......

This one is a little hard to wrap your mind around. A taxi driver transporting two women to the Ramona Gardens housing project in East LA ended up in a situation when he stopped to drop them off. Daily News explains: According to a preliminary investigation, the women had taken a cab ride to the Ramona Gardens housing project in the city of Los Angeles, where the taxi stopped at a building, [LAPD Sgt. Lee......

As noted earlier in a brief, the LA Times, having eaten more crow than a Lance Armstrong-Eric Clapton Constructicon, have fully retracted their most recent annual Tupac Article. Among other things, the March 17 article and related Times publications reported that newly discovered information supported Shakur's claims that associates of music executive Sean "Diddy" Combs orchestrated an attack in which Shakur was injured at the Quad Recording Studios in New York on Nov. 30, 1994.......

Photo by specialklikethecereal via Flickr And so it ends... for now. Pulitzer Prize winner Chuck Philips' Tupac Shakur story from March 17 has been officially retracted and with a lengthy explanation. It begins... The article, titled "An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War" and written by Times staff writer Chuck Philips, purported to relate "new" information about a 1994 assault on rap star Tupac Shakur, including a description of events contained in......

To mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Los Angeles author and political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson thought up the idea of having a 40-hour "murder moratorium" from 6:01 p.m., Friday, to 10:01 p.m. Sunday. Those 40 hours this past weekend saw three murders across Los Angeles county, two of which were in South LA, reported KNBC. A man was murdered one block away from the Watts Tower around noon......

Photo by the seasonal blog, Creepy LA, via Flickr. For the second time this week, Glendale Police were faced with an alleged suspect shooting at them. Last night, they were involved in a three-hour standoff near the entrance of Forest Lawn with a man suspected of a murder earlier last night in Los Angeles outside a bowling alley. At the time of arrival, though, it was not known that the murder and the man......

View Larger Map Last night at 10:35 p.m., a shooting was reported to have occurred on the 1900 block of South Garth Street, which is north of the 10 freeway near La Cienega and 18th Street. The man is reported to be in his 30s and his name is being withheld pending family notification. No arrests have been made and police are urging anyone with information to call them. Yesterday, the city council passed a......

Photo by discarted via Flickr If you take the above headline literally, then apparently murder is allowed all other times except for 40 hours this weekend if a Los Angeles city council motion is passed today. And some might say murder feels legal these days with the rise in violence in 2008. Four people were shot dead within minutes and miles of each other in East LA yesterday, police in two separate incidents shot......

View Larger Map Reports are coming in that two separate shootings that occurred both within 20 minutes and a mile and a half of each other in unincorporated East LA have left two dead at each scene. Los Angeles Sheriff's cannot confirm that they are related yet, but all victims are Latino men. The first shooting was reported at 1:20 p.m. on the 5100 block of East Olympic Blvd., followed by another report 17-minutes later......

More details have come out today regarding the alleged Sunday morning Freeway shooting in Sherman Oaks near Van Nuys Blvd on the 101. A car with a young man, now identified as 20-year-old Marlon Gordillo-Sical, was found shot in his car after it crashed on the freeway. He was taken UCLA Medical where he was pronounced dead. Police were cautious in assuming details yesterday as KNBC reported (emphasis added): The Honda sedan could have been......

*UPDATE: 4:30 p.m. After six hours the 101 eastbound at the 405 was reopened. No witnesses have come forward with information about the incident, which is believed to be a car-to-car shooting that took place following a dispute. Police are asking for any witnesses to come forward to help the investigation. This is the second post-argument car-to-car shooting on the 101 in the Valley this year. *UPDATE 10:40 a.m.:The eastbound 101 at the 405 has......