los-angeles

Court Rules Homeless People Are Allowed to Have Stuff

Hamilton Nolan · 06/25/13 10:27AM

Lost amid the uproar over other Supreme Court rulings this week was this: yesterday, SCOTUS let stand a lower court ruling that said that the city of LA cannot just confiscate and destroy the possessions of homeless people. Homeless people may legally have things, huzzah.

Cord Jefferson · 06/24/13 04:00PM

The L.A. coroner's office has ruled the death of a woman found in a hotel cistern as an accidental drowning with "other significant conditions, being bipolar disorder." The Toronto Sun reports authorities didn't explain how Elisa Lam got into the tank, from which guests drew water for days before she was found.

Thousands Possibly Exposed in a Tuberculosis Outbreak Among LA's Homeless

Cord Jefferson · 02/22/13 02:45PM

The largest California outbreak of tuberculosis in a decade is happening in Los Angeles right now, and the Centers for Disease Control has finally dispatched a team of scientists to help LA-area authorities try to control it. The locus of the outbreak, which involves a strain of TB unique to LA, is the city's notorious Skid Row, the small constellation of streets in downtown where Southern California's most downtrodden citizens—homeless people, prostitutes, heroin addicts, combinations of all three—congregate in such close quarters that a disease outbreak was probably inevitable. Since 2007, 11 people have died of TB in LA County, according to the LA Times. In the latest outbreak, 60 of the 78 cases reported to authorities were homeless people living on or near Skid Row.

Guests at L.A. Hotel Spent Weeks Drinking Water Contaminated by a Dead Body

Taylor Berman · 02/20/13 11:45PM

When a maintenance worker at L.A.'s Cecil Hotel opened the hotel's rooftop water tank to investigate low water pressure, he found something unexpected: a dead body. Investigators believe the remains of Elisa Lam had been inside the tank since January 31, when the 21-year-old was last seen. As police work to determine if her death was the result of foul play or "a very, very strange accident," the LA County Department of Public Health is investigating a more urgent matter: the potentially contaminated water, which hotel residents had, for several weeks, used to bathe in and brush their teeth.

LAPD Suspect Christopher Dorner May Have Had Help in Trying to Escape to Mexico

Cord Jefferson · 02/12/13 02:20PM

As LA's killer cop manhunt drags into its sixth day, police are learning ever more about Christopher Dorner, the man suspected of killing three people and wounding two others on a revenge mission against the LAPD. Dorner apparently purchased scuba gear two days before allegedly killing his first two victims, and police now believe him to be using burner cellphones to maintain contact with friends and allies. What's more, one of those allies tried to help Dorner flee to Mexico, according to new criminal charges filed in US District Court late last week.

'A Man with Morals': The Alleged Killer Cop's Growing Online Fan Base

Cord Jefferson · 02/08/13 06:15PM

In the day and a half since ex-cop Christopher Dorner allegedly went on a vengeful killing spree that's left three dead so far, the search for the 33-year-old former Navy reservist has reached rabid heights. Cops eager to catch Dorner have already shot at a few innocent people thinking it was their man, and police units have fanned out to towns up and down California's southern coast in a manhunt that went through the night.

The Alleged Killer Cop Sent a Weird 'Exonerating' Package to Anderson Cooper Last Week

Cord Jefferson · 02/07/13 07:05PM

Christopher Dorner, the alleged killer ex-cop currently being hunted—sometimes poorly—by the LAPD, reportedly mailed a package to CNN's Anderson Cooper that arrived last week, on February 1. Cooper's assistant opened the package and found inside two smaller parcels: One was a souvenir medallion sometimes given out by LA Police Chief William Bratton. The medallion had been damaged by bullet holes and a note attached to it read, "Thanks but no thanks, Will Bratton." The second parcel was a DVD ostensibly containing an interview with Christopher Gettler, the schizophrenic man Dorner claimed a fellow officer kicked unnecessarily during an arrest in 2007. Dorner was later fired after an LAPD board ruled his allegations were false and refused to give weight to the ill Gettler's testimony. But in the manifesto he posted to Facebook earlier this week, Dorner wrote, "During this [LAPD Board of Rights] hearing a video was played for the ... panel where Christopher Gettler stated that he was indeed kicked by Officer Evans." On the DVD, Dorner had written, "Chris Dorner Exoneration."

Here Is the Alleged Killer Cop's Whistleblowing-Complaint Appeal Document

Cord Jefferson · 02/07/13 04:41PM

Part of ex-cop turned murder suspect Christopher Dorner's rambling manifesto, which touches on everything from his feelings about gay rights to his opinions about the actor Christoph Waltz, delves into the matter that seems to be at the heart of his breakdown. In 2007, Dorner, then a probationary employee with the LAPD, accused his training officer, Teresa Evans, of kicking a schizophrenic man with dementia unnecessarily during the course of the arrest. Dorner omitted the kicks from the arrest report immediately following the incident because he says he was "unsure what to write about the incident on the arrest report, so [Officer] Evans completed the report." But approximately two weeks later, he ended up telling an LAPD captain what he says he witnessed.

The Killer LAPD Cop's Facebook Manifesto Has A Little Something For Everyone

Max Read · 02/07/13 12:54PM

Christopher Jordan Dorner, the 33-year-old ex-LAPD officer who allegedly killed a young Los Angeles couple on Sunday in revenge for his termination from the force, is only getting started, according to a rambling manifesto, alternately terrifying and bizarre, that he posted to Facebook earlier this week.

LAPD Shooting Innocents in Incompetent Manhunt for Killer Cop

Cord Jefferson · 02/07/13 11:38AM

Two women delivering newspapers in Torrance on Thursday morning were shot by Los Angeles police officers searching for Christopher Jordan Dorner, the ex-LAPD officer allegedly on a revenge killing spree over his 2009 firing from the force. A third person who filmed the shooting is also said to have been shot