So The Torrance Police Department busted these four people living in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. It turns out that they weren't tipped off by his Afghan rocket launcher, or the imitation police badges, or even the "Anarchist Cookbook" and other illegal books. They were busted because the police where there looking for drugs, and apparently ended up hitting the jackpot. more ›

A couple weeks ago, Andrew Hurvitz at the Here in Van Nuys blog snapped this photo of the Sherman Way tunnel under the Van Nuys Airport and questioned the state of security. "Is it just my foolish and suspicious imagination that sees this tagged up tunnel as something which raises questions about security at Van Nuys Airport?" he asked. "This is evidence that security right on airport property needs to be stepped up again." more ›

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Here's a humorous one. In Anaheim today, a man pulled over to the side of the road looking at a map was robbed by two men who approached on foot. The robbers indicated they had a gun, stole the driver's possessions including his cell phone and fled on foot, hailing a taxi. With no cell phone, the victim used his On-Star service to call police as he pursued the taxi. more ›

For the second time in two months, police and rescue workers overlooked a woman's dead body in a vehicle that was in their possession. more ›

UPDATE, 4:12 P.M., FRI., FEB. 15: KNBC reports that the Oxnard boy has been taken off life support and "his organs have been given away." more ›

A member of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite SWAT team was shot dead in a gunbattle with a barricaded suspect in the San Fernando Valley this morning. more ›

At 11:13 p.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department alerted of a small helicopter has crashed at the southbound 110 Freeway and Century Blvd. One person was dead on board the fiery crash. Fire officials are describing it as a "small, private type, possibly home made type" aircraft. more ›

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It seems the Valley isn't the place to be if you're a gang-affiliated criminal. more ›

Just like yesterday, when we announced that while the federal government can rob medical marijuana dispensaries, citizens can't, we find that LAPD officers are not allowed to rob drug dealers. In a separate case from the widely known Rampart Division Scandal, a group of rogue officers held up at least 30 drug dealers in a two year period ending in 2001 according to CBS2 News. After the robberies, which included taking the drugs, money and anything that look valuable, the officers would split the loot, sell the drugs to another dealer and proceed to split those profits (so wait, did they ever rob the dealer they dealt to?). more ›

When 37-year-old Monica Harris didn't show up for work Friday morning, her family began to suspect that she had been abducted by her estranged husband. The Upland woman had been previously kidnapped by her husband, who is currently scheduled to start a 16-month prison term in a few weeks for those charges. more ›

Post-holiday shopping took a gruesome turn in the parking lot of the Target store in Gardena last month when three women robbed another woman of her earrings and slashed her face. more ›

Last night's powerful rains beat down on Los Angeles, and Southern California in general, with a vengeance. Widespread power outages, mudslides, and flooded roads are just some of the consequences of the overnight downpour. more ›

Unemployment is no longer an issue for LA's population of feral cats. more ›

Authorities in Anaheim are working on putting together the pieces of a very disturbing puzzle they uncovered on Thursday on North Lemon Street near the 91 Freeway. more ›

File this under "oops." After a Saturday morning solo car crash involving a son and mother in Tarzana on Ventura Blvd., fire and police officials failed to notice a woman in the passenger seat under the air bag after removing her son from the driver's seat.

The woman, whose identity was not released, had apparently been left in the car at the accident scene in Tarzana even as her son was taken to a hospital, police said. more ›

Police are searching for an 11-month-old girl who was allegedly taken from her North Hollywood home last night. The suspected kidnapper, Raul Carillo Alderete, was already wanted by Pomona police on suspicion of kidnapping, raping, and torturing the girl's mother and was profiled last month on America's Most Wanted. The LA Times reports:According to Los Angeles Police Department Officer Kate Lopez, Alderete went to the home of his child's mother near Sherman Way and Lankershim... more ›

LAPD concluded that no crime was committed in the possible rape being investigated early this morning on USC's University Park Campus. We have no crime," said Los Angeles Police Department Officer April Harding of the Media Relations office. "The woman was interviewed and she admitted she was drinking and passed out. She was not raped." -- Fox The woman, a USC undergrad, was reported as passed out in a basement classroom around 3:30 a.m. by... more ›

ExperienceLA.com and Lonely Planet are running a community based Downtown photo contest. If you win, you're photo will be on the cover of the free guide that will distributed around LA and all over the world. And while you're Downtown shooting photos, drop by Pershing Square to go ice skating through the holidays. The tunnel on the 5 Freeway where a fiery crash killed three, shutting down the tunnel for over a month, reopened... more ›

The Los Angeles Police Department has decided against instituting a plan to "map" the city's Muslim communities, in what was being billed as a counter-terrorism effort. According to the LA Daily News: "It's been put aside," said LAPD spokeswoman Mary Grady. "It became clear to us [that Muslim communities] were not comfortable with the word mapping and what they believed it meant: racial profiling." Instead, Grady said the Los Angeles Police Department would build... more ›

We can see it now, a new bestseller hitting the shelves just before Christmas: "If I Did It: Confessions of a Sports Memorabilia Armed Robber." Ohhhh, OJ Simpson, you and a cadre of other celebrities just like to entertain the masses in a different way. A special way. The "criminal" way!Las Vegas police arrested former football star O.J. Simpson on Sunday in connection with a hotel room break-in, CNN said. A source with the... more ›

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! more ›

On Friday afternoon, the Beverly Hills Police Department presented Gothamist, LLC, LAist's parent company in New York City, with a Search Warrant and Affidavit due to an e-mail threat to an officer after last week's controversial article about a Beverly Hills SUV driver attacking a bicyclist where the bicyclist was given two tickets. The warrant states that the police are to search the author's information and any relevant IP associations (even though the author... more ›

Capt. Curtis of the Beverly Hills Police Department appeared before the BH Traffic Commission to address one issue, the “SUV vs. Cyclist” incident on August 21, 2007 that resulted in a citation for the cyclist and nothing for the motorist. Also in attendance were 8 local cyclists, none having met the cited cyclist before but all committed to supporting his fight for justice and all committed to fighting for equal access to the streets for... more ›

It was just a year ago that a small group of Valley kids started a Valley Midnight Ridazz contingent. Ten bicyclists met up and rode through the night. Now a year later, the Valley has its fair share... in one way at least. Last night proved the Valley is hardcore, or maybe just a little more crazy. More cops, more helicopters, more scents of weed, more beer, more angry drivers, more near fist fights and... more ›

Maybe we should take things like this more seriously, but last week "vandals" broke into a vacation home in Palm Springs and caused some eyebrows to rise when they turned over furniture (very nicely), arranged foliage and sticks to create pentagrams and clog toilets, and wrote words like "Pigz" and "Helter Skelter" on a window and on the fireplace... with soap! It was right around the 38th anniversary of the Manson Family murders of... more ›

Perhaps the oddest story that came out this holiday weekend was the one about the LAPD medical administrator who stepped down from her job because a half dozen of her cohorts felt it was wrong for the LAPD to continue to accept "grossly overweight" new officer recruits. The controversy stems from a decision by the city Personnel Department to change the standards for police recruits, including a move to raise the maximum body fat... more ›

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Expect delays between 6 a.m. and noon on Saturday: On Saturday morning, April 28, transit patrons utilizing Union Station between 6 a.m. and noon are advised that they may experience service delays of 15 minutes or longer on inbound and outbound rail and bus services due to a scheduled joint security training exercise.Union Station transit operators, including the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), Metrolink and Amtrak, will join the Los Angeles County... more ›