CALIFORNIA | LOCAL

Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction

April 22, 2011 | By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times
The process was routine. L.A. County Sheriff's homicide investigator Kevin Lloyd
was flipping through snapshots of tattooed gang members. Then one caught his
attention. Inked on the pudgy chest of a young Pico Rivera gangster who had been
picked up and released on a minor offense was the scene of a 2004 liquor store
slaying that had stumped Lloyd for more than four years. Each key detail was right
there: the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where 23-year-old
John Juarez was gunned down, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp
across the way and the street sign all under the chilling banner of RIVERA KILLS,
a reference to the gang Rivera-13.
ARTICLES BY DATE

WORLD

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas calls Holocaust 'most

heinous crime'
April 27, 2014 | By Batsheva Sobelman
At a time when the Middle East peace process appears stymied, Israel received an
unexpected olive branch when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
denounced the Holocaust and expressed sympathy with its victims. What
happened to the Jews in the Holocaust is the most heinous crime known by
mankind in modern times, said Abbas, according to a statement published Sunday
by the Palestinian government news agency WAFA . Abbas expressed sympathy for
the families who died at the hands of the Nazis and called the world to safeguard
the oppressed and weak wherever they are found. The Palestinians, still
oppressed and denied freedom and peace, are the first to stand up for those
facing such crimes, he said.

ENTERTAINMENT

Samantha Geimer tells her side of story in Roman Polanski

case
September 16, 2013 | By Rebecca Keegan
HENDERSON, Nev. - In 2009, Samantha Geimer was watching the daytime talk
show "The View" from her then-home in Hawaii when the panel took up the topic of
her encounter at age 13 with director Roman Polanski. Polanski had just been
arrested in Switzerland, more than three decades after the day in 1977 that
changed both their lives. "It wasn't rape-rape," co-host Whoopi Goldberg said,
setting off a firestorm of criticism. In fact, it was "rape-rape" by nearly any
definition except the charge to which Polanski pleaded guilty (unlawful sexual
intercourse with a minor)
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL

Our rigid sentencing laws leave no room for nuanced

judgment

April 25, 2014 | By Sandy Banks

My column Tuesday on the courtroom tears of a gang member sentenced to 40
years in prison for a campus shooting resonated with readers - but not in the way I
imagined it would. I considered the courtroom scene a cautionary message to
other young men who glorify gangs and are enamored of guns: You could spend
the rest of your life in prison over a stupid vendetta and a single violent act. But
readers focused not just on the threat posed by hotheads with guns, but on the
perceived injustice of such a long sentence for a young man who didn't kill anyone.
ENTERTAINMENT

Full Speed Ahead for 2 Menendez Movies : Television:

Despite one mistrial, CBS and Fox proceed with projects.
Networks cite the public's ongoing interest of the highprofile crime and trial.
January 20, 1994 | STEVEN HERBERT, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Although a mistrial has been declared in the Erik Menendez murder case and jury
deliberations are continuing in the trial of his brother Lyle, both CBS and Fox are
proceeding with projects based on the sensationalized Beverly Hills killings of their
parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. "It is incumbent on us to be very circumspect
about what we say and where we put the emphasis," said Zev Braun, producer of a
four-hour miniseries for CBS, targeted to air during the May ratings sweeps.
NATIONAL

Laredo, Texas, battles an image problem

April 28, 2013 | By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times
LAREDO, Texas - This border city is trying to clear its name. It is so conjoined with
its Mexican sister city across the Rio Grande, Nuevo Laredo, that the two are often
referred to as "Los Dos Laredos," or simply Laredo. That was great for tourism in
happier days. But as drug cartel violence exploded in Nuevo Laredo in recent
years, pictures broadcast around the world of gunfights, decapitated bodies piled in
abandoned minivans, and severed heads dumped in coolers often bore the same
headline: "Laredo.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL

Stopping crime before it starts

August 21, 2010 | By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times
The future of crime fighting begins with a story about strawberry Pop-Tarts, bad
weather and Wal-Mart. With a hurricane bearing down on the Florida coast several
years ago, the retail giant sent supply trucks into the storm to stock shelves with
the frosted pink pastries. The decision to do so had not been made on a whim or a
hunch, but by a powerful computer that crunched reams of sales data and found
an unusual but undeniable fact: When Mother Nature gets angry, people want to
eat a lot more strawberry Pop-Tarts.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL

Crime
March 17, 2000
Street crime down; police crime up. KARL G. LOKSTADT Apple Valley

ENTERTAINMENT

Movie review: 'Crime After Crime'

July 8, 2011 | By Sheri Linden
In telling the story of Deborah Peagler, a battered woman who spent 26 years in
prison, filmmaker Yoav Potash has not dug up an obscure case of injustice. Thanks
in part to his years-in-the-making documentary, the California inmate's struggles
were well documented in the news media, and the legal crusade to overturn her
first-degree murder conviction received ardent support. "Crime After Crime" brings
nothing particularly cinematic to that story one of horrendous personal abuse,
prosecutorial misconduct and seesawing hope and despair.
ENTERTAINMENT

Scenes of a Crime' info

April 13, 2012
'Scenes of a Crime' No MPAA rating Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes Playing: At
Laemmle's Music Hall, Beverly Hills
NATIONAL

Eric Holder asserts his commitment to fighting heroin

April 16, 2014 | By Timothy M. Phelps
WASHINGTON - Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. has been crusading for more lenient
treatment for nonviolent drug offenders, making it a top priority before he is
expected to leave office this year. Recently, however, he has been forced to
confront an epidemic of deaths from heroin and prescription drug abuse, one that
his opponents have cited as a reason for not loosening drug sentences. In prepared
remarks for a speech Wednesday, Holder cited the "stunning rise in heroin and
prescription opiate overdose deaths" and vowed the Justice Department was
committed to "rigorous enforcement" of the drug laws and "robust treatment" of
drug addicts.
NEWS

The Kansas killings: Will every crime be a hate crime

someday?
April 15, 2014 | By Michael McGough
Frazier Glenn Cross (a.k.a. Frazier Glenn Miller Jr.), the 73-year-old extremist
accused of killing three people in Overland Park, Kan., is an avowed anti-Semite
who reportedly yelled Heil, Hitler! while sitting in a police car. Yet his victims were
Christians : Dr. William Lewis Corporan and his grandson, Reat Underwood, were
Methodists who were at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City
because Reat was going to compete in an American Idol-style singing
competition.
NATIONAL

Jewish center killings to be investigated as hate crimes

April 14, 2014 | By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Michael Muskal, This post has been
updated.
AURORA, Mo. - The killings of three people on the eve of Passover outside two
Jewish facilities in a Kansas City suburb are being treated as hate crimes, law
enforcement officials said Monday. Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass and

others confirmed that the evidence gathered in Sunday's shootings supports a hate
crime presentation to a federal grand jury. State charges could also be sought,
state and federal prosecutors said at a televised news conference. Meanwhile, as
President Obama led a shocked nation in prayer after the deadly shootings, officials
searched for clues about the 73-year-old man, believed to be a white supremacist
and an anti-Semite, who is in jail in connection with the killings.
NEWS

What was the real crime in the 'Kids for Cash' scandal?
April 8, 2014 | By Robert Greene
The documentary " Kids for Cash " breezed in and out of Los Angeles so quickly last
month that there was little buzz (far too little) about just what the real crime was
that the film depicted. That's a shame, because it's such an important story.
Fortunately, the film now is set to be screened in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in a
program hosted by Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles) and Sen. Robert Casey (DPa.), and later this month and next at spots around Southern California.
WORLD

Subtext of the Oscar Pistorius trial: South Africans' fear of

crime
April 6, 2014 | By Robyn Dixon
PRETORIA, South Africa - Johan Gerber is a shy, neat man with iron-gray hair, a
ready smile and a quiet voice. But on the streets, he has taken to carrying an open
pocket knife with a mean 4-inch blade, concealed in an envelope and ready to use.
Last month, three men accosted him in broad daylight, one of whom hit him in the
stomach and grabbed his cellphone. A few years back, eight men surrounded him,
held a knife to his throat and stole his wallet. His car and two trailers also have
been stolen.