The women injured when Los Angeles police opened fire on them during the manhunt for ex-cop Christopher Dorner have reached a $4.2-million settlement with the city, sources told The Times.
Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich announced a settlement had been reached Tuesday afternoon. More details were expected at a 2 p.m. news conference.
Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were delivering newspapers in Torrance on Feb. 7 when LAPD officers shot repeatedly at their blue Toyota Tacoma. Hernandez was shot twice in the back, and Carranza was injured by broken glass, an attorney for the women said.
We’re glad to hear that these two women will be taken care of financially, though they undoubtedly would have preferred simply not to be shot at. Still, it’s hard not to see this as a positive outcome, considering there was once some doubt they’d even get a new truck.
Chief Charlie Beck is reopening the investigation because he wants “to insure the public that the LAPD is fair and transparent,” Cmdr. Andrew Smith said at a late-afternoon news conference at LAPD’s headquarters downtown.
Dorner was stripped of his badge in 2009 after a police disciplinary board found him guilty of making false statements against his training officer, Teresa Evans. In August 2007, Dorner accused Evans of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest in San Pedro.
The internal affairs investigation concluded that she had not kicked the man and that Dorner’s statements were false.
Dorner has killed three people, including a Riverside police officer, and injured others in a campaign to take revenge on those he blamed for his dismissal from the LAPD, police said.
Dorner is currently suspected of being in the San Bernardino Mountains. His manifesto explained, in great detail, why he felt he had been wronged by the police department.
Located just 90 miles east of Los Angeles in the rugged San Bernardino National Forest, Big Bear Lake provides the perfect weekend refuge for folks fleeing the crowded, smelly streets and smoggy skies of the city for a quick winter weekend of alpine skiing. In the summer months, it offers a respite of boating and swimming in one of California’s most pristine alpine lakes. This week, however, the quiet resort with the picturesque lake and rugged snow-capped peaks may be providing the perfect hideout for a disgruntled ex-police officer authorities believe is holed up somewhere in its rugged backcountry after allegedly killing three people.An Associated Press piece on Big Bear Lake, the resort area where manifesto-writing former LAPD police officer Christopher Dorner is reported to possibly be hiding out this weekend. It’s kind of a weird piece — written halfway between flowery travel piece and update on a man currently on a murderous rampage — and the headline reflects this: “Big Bear Lake offers both a pleasant weekend getaway and a good place to hide.” Great headline, weird piece.
» However … In a major difference between the end of a number of other protests (most notably Occupy Oakland), police did not have to pull out pepper spray to end these protests. The LAPD was very careful with their strategy in this department. Despite the mayor calling for the closure of the camp early Monday, the police department held off two days, giving protesters time to leave on their own. That thinned out the numbers. As for those that remained, they had some minor scuffles with police at first, but those eventually faded, and protesters only got arrested after they didn’t immediately leave the park. Only a handful of major Occupy encampments remain at this point, most notably in DC and San Francisco. (EDIT: Updated Occupy Philly arrest count; the protesters left the encampment peacefully but were arrested for disturbances outside of the encampment.)
Early on in their training, I always tell them, ‘I don’t care if you’re in a bathroom taking care of your personal business…. Whatever you do, assume it will be caught on video.’ We tell them if they’re doing the right thing then they have no reason to worry.LAPD officer and recruit supervisor Sgt. Heather Fungaroli • Offering a fairly fresh assessment on the how the police department now views video. Twenty years ago, a video clip turned their whole view on the matter inside-out. The clip of Rodney King’s beating by multiple police officers, and the subsequent “not guilty” verdict in the case, led to a major riot in the city that drew national attention and led to 50 deaths. These days, the police force is quickly putting more cameras in police cars and even has its own videographers to cover incidents – advances which not only ensure better cop conduct but can help exonerate them in legal cases. source (via • follow)
Sadly, the public officials who have the duty to uphold the Constitution have forgotten the basics in their desire for sensationalism and are jeopardizing Lonnie Franklin’s chance for a fair trial.Lonnie Franklin’s attorney, Louisa Pensanti • Arguing that the release of the “Grim Sleeper” suspect’s photos created a sensational environment where it’d be impossible for Franklin to get a fair trial. “The photographs include members and friends of the Franklin family,” Pensanti said, “all now subject to the intense scrutiny of the public as well as the police.” Does that include the ones where the women in the photos are completely naked, by chance? Because those make up a large majority of the photos. source (via • follow)
First off, We’re A little uncomfortable with the way the L.A. times is covering this story. See, the Times put the collection of photos – 180 of them – into a pageview-generating giant slideshow, complete with ads on every page. We’ll let you click through them without posting any ourselves. Anyway, moving on … the photos, collected from suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr., are disturbing documents – the way they are cropped suggests at least some, but not all, of the women were naked in the original photos. The “Grim Sleeper,” called that due to a long period of dormancy, may have killed many other young girls; there’s nothing to suggest he ever stopped between 1998 and 2002. It’s possible he was just really good at covering his tracks. source
A person who’s been arrested multiple times, you see if he has any outstanding warrants. And he did.LAPD Sgt. Shawn Ruda • On last night’s arrest of Marion “Suge” Knight, who was wanted on a minor traffic warrant, which is a lot less than what he’s been wanted for in the past. Knight, who hasn’t been relevant since his biggest star, Tupac Shakur, died back in 1996, has had a spotty police record ever since. For the current crime, he was released and will have to show up in court in a month or so. source (via • follow)
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