Arrests Los Angeles

At first, the murder seemed to have all the markings of an attempted carjacking. When Los Angeles police officers reached the scene on the dark Boyle Heights street July 26, they found affluent software designer Bruce Cleland lying in a pool of blood across the street from his new black 4Runner. His distraught wife, Rebecca, said she had been knocked unconscious when she got out of the vehicle to check the tailgate and awoke to the gruesome sight.

Angry with paparazzi photos that appear to show Lindsay Lohan partying on the rooftop of her beachfront Venice home, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner told the actress she can no longer entertain more than one guest at a time while under house arrest. Lohan was in court Thursday after a probation report said she had failed a June 13 alcohol test, but Sautner ruled that a failed alcohol test did not violate her probation and that the testing requirement had ended months earlier.

Police dispersed a large gathering of residents and gang members in the Imperial Courts housing project in South Los Angeles after a Saturday morning party deteriorated into brawls, leaving one person wounded by gunfire. Five people were arrested. It was the third consecutive weekend that police moved in to break up unity parties among large numbers of rival Crips and Bloods gang factions.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy was hospitalized in stable condition with a shoulder wound after being shot Sunday night in Palmdale, officials said. The deputy returned fire but did not not hit the gunman. A suspect was arrested about 40 minutes after the 8:03 p.m. shooting, officials said. The Sheriff's Department did not release the names of the suspect or the deputy, who is in his 20s.

At the intersection of Florence and Normandie, where television cameras caught the violent early moments of the Los Angeles riots, the 8-Trey Gangster Crips have established their stronghold. From this corner, where trucker Reginald O. Denny was brutally beaten, the loose affiliation of about 350 gang members claims an impoverished territory that runs roughly from Gage Avenue on the North to Manchester Avenue on the South and from Van Ness Avenue on the West to Vermont Avenue on the East.

The man accused of beating his 5-year-old son to death and burying him in a shallow forest grave had been charged with child abuse involving another of his children in 1996, according to police and court records. But police said they can find no evidence that the case was reported to child welfare workers, who said police routinely report such cases.

The teen-age youth knocked on the door, then introduced himself and asked for a glass of water and use of a telephone. Edith Rose didn't know the boy personally, but she had seen him around her Reseda neighborhood. According to police, once the youth was inside her home, he demanded money and when the 74-year-old widow refused, he attacked. First he punched her repeatedly, then he grabbed a butcher knife and chased her through the house, stabbing her 20 times, authorities said.

Singer Rick James, the Grammy-winning King of Funk of the 1980s, was arrested with his 21-year-old girlfriend Friday for allegedly imprisoning and torturing a 24-year-old woman with a hot cocaine pipe over three days at James' Hollywood Hills home, police said.

George Michael, the English pop star whose hits include "I Want Your Sex" and "Faith," was arrested in Beverly Hills for allegedly engaging in a lewd act alone in a public restroom, police said Wednesday. Michael, 34, was arrested by a plainclothes officer who "observed Mr. Michael engaged in a lewd act" shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, said Lt. Edward T. Kreins of the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Even for detectives hardened by the trivialities that can lead to street violence, these crimes defied reason. In an effort to become the most feared Asian gang in Los Angeles, a group of young men are alleged to have engaged in a spate of violence--shooting and wounding strangers, conducting running gun battles on freeways and staging a deadly ambush against a rival gang. "They did it just for fun," Los Angeles Police Det. Larry Dolley said. "They called it summer madness."

Los Angeles police have busted a shell-game ring that victimized dozens of downtown shoppers during the holidays, LAPD officials said. At least 10 people were arrested Jan. 7 and charged with felony conspiracy to commit gaming in connection with the ring that operated on Los Angeles Street between 4th and 6th streets. The suspects are all Mexican nationals who reside in the city, police said. The shell game is one of the oldest cons in the book.

The first sign that Raj Tunaru's domestic violence case would not be typical was when he claimed diplomatic immunity during his arrest last month at a residence in mid-Wilshire. His immunity claim turned out to be false, and he was packed off to Los Angeles County Jail. Then the Romanian media started calling. Tunaru, it turned out, was a lesser Romanian politician, a former member of parliament and an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2004.

Ontario police investigating a poolside stabbing at a Motel 6 made a grisly discovery Tuesday night when they found the body of an 18-year-old woman stuffed into a suitcase inside the suspect's motel room. Mark Edward Thomas, 23, of Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, robbery and violation of parole, and had to be subdued with a stun gun after officers cornered him in his motel room bathroom, police said.

Nine people have been arrested in a Westside operation that allegedly took sports bets and told gamblers they were using a legal offshore system, police said. "You'd pick up the phone and you're under the understanding that you're calling somewhere" such as Jamaica or the Bahamas that offers licensed bookmaking, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Mark Arneson of Pacific Division's vice unit.

A landlord and her son were arrested Thursday on suspicion of murder in connection with an arson fire that killed a 72-year-old double amputee who was one their tenants. Clemetha Marie Dillard, 76, and her son Anthony, 51, were taken into custody early Thursday and will be charged today, authorities said. The victim has not been identified. Anthony Dillard had taken care of the victim--whose legs had been amputated--for the past decade, authorities said.

A 29-year-old Mission Hills man was arrested Monday on suspicion of drunk driving after police said he caused a chain-reaction accident that injured 12 people. Manuel Mendoza is accused of driving his pickup truck through a red light at Woodman Avenue and Vanowen Street about 6 p.m. Sunday, striking a church van and two other vehicles, said Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. John Pasquariello. The injured, including two children ages 8 and 10, were taken by six ambulances to five hospitals.

Singer Rick James, the Grammy-winning "King of Funk" of the 1980s, was arrested with his 21-year-old girlfriend Friday for allegedly imprisoning and torturing a 24-year-old woman with a hot cocaine pipe over three days at James' Hollywood Hills home, police said. James, 43, who with Prince spearheaded the '80s merger of funk and rock, was held in lieu of $1 million bail at the North Hollywood Division jail after he was arrested Friday morning at home with his girlfriend, Tanya Anne Hijazi.

A paparazzo who covers the Hollywood celebrity scene was arrested by the FBI on Thursday on charges of illegally intercepting a cellular phone conversation between actor Tom Cruise and his wife, Nicole Kidman, and then peddling the information to two tabloids. Eric Ford, 27, of Studio City was accused of disclosing the contents of the conversation, purportedly a lovers spat, to representatives of the Globe and the News of the World.

A woman was arrested Friday for leaving her 1-year-old in a heated car for an hour and half outside a North Hollywood food market, authorities said. Temperatures in the vehicle parked in the 8000 block of Vineland Avenue reached 110 degrees, said Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Donna Watkins. The child was treated for dehydration at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley at 4 p.m. Police did not name the woman.

A 19-year-old Los Angeles man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of raping and robbing two teachers in a kindergarten classroom at the 99th Street Elementary School as they prepared for the academic year, police said. No students were on campus at the time Monday, but several area residents were angry that school and police officials released no information about the case for two days. "They had a rapist running around here," said Jessica Conley, whose four children attended the school.