Bobbi Murray

A city caught up in the ongoing Los Angeles Police Department corruption scandal took little notice when a 23-year-old jewelry vendor was killed by three gunshots to the chest by an off-duty LAPD officer. The April 26 shooting only got a few paragraphs in the daily print media, where the......

Prodding by the Department of Justice has elicited sudden interest at City Hall, but so far no satisfactory answers about why it has taken the Los Angeles Police Department and its civilian commission more than two years to spend a federal grant set aside for a key police-reform measure. The......

L.A.‘s dog-breeding lobby is outraged by a proposed $100 fee on all unneutered dogs. The high license fees are part of a proposal by Department of Animal Services General Manager Dan Knapp to combat the proliferation of unwanted cats and dogs in the city. “For breeders to deny their contribution......

AP/wide world It took five attempts over six years, but on July 29 congressional opponents of the Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, won a House of Representatives vote of 230-197 to cut funding to the institution, known in Latin America as the School of the Assassins......

Photo by Virginia Lee Hunter When DreamWorks SKG announced its withdrawal from the Playa Vista mega-development on July 1, the shock wave threatened to collapse DreamWorks’ concurrent commitment to fund a job-training program. DreamWorks, however, stuck to its offer — even pledging $5 million to the effort. The question now......

A plan to let private firms manage a quarter of the county’s welfare cases has been derailed by its estimated cost. Three companies, including a subsidiary of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, had bid for the job, but none could underprice the county itself, according to a study by the county’s......

Last year, when police commissioners maneuvered to push up the salary of top commission administrator Joe Gunn, critics grumbled about mild skullduggery, or at the very least, unwarranted pandering to Police Chief Bernard Parks, a Gunn ally. Now it looks as though the salary bump is becoming an annual event......

Art by Gustavo VargasPublic outrage spikes with each incident of police violence in the news, whether it’s in New York, Riverside or Los Angeles. But the current flare-up of indignation over the police slaying of homeless woman Margaret Mitchell is likely to burn out long before it gives impetus to......

Photo by Slobodan Dimitrov Like a cliffhanger movie plot, a sudden reversal of fortune has resulted in a stunning victory for the Metropolitan Alliance, a grassroots economic-justice coalition, in its monthslong negotiations with the entertainment powerhouse DreamWorks SKG. The idea was simple enough: DreamWorks SKG studios was slated to receive......

Photo by Debra Dipaolo Two years back, when the downtown Staples Center sports complex — and its $70 million in public funds and financing — still needed City Council approval, arena developers played the labor card. After an ardent courtship that saw Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz and his partner, L.A......