Assaults Los Angeles

The man accused of killing police Chief Bernard C. Parks' 20-year-old granddaughter pleaded not guilty Wednesday to eight new charges of attempted murder. The latest charges against Samuel Sharad Shabazz, 19, of Los Angeles, involve three alleged attacks within a week in December 1998.

A motorist who allegedly tried to run down a traffic officer was charged Monday with attempted murder, according to the district attorney's office. Gary Simmons, 47, of Ventura County was shot twice by 32-year-old Officer David Hopkins of the Los Angeles Police Department's Valley Traffic Division. Simmons is in critical but stable condition at an area hospital, where he remains on a respirator, said Det. Rich Haro of the LAPD's Robbery Homicide Division.

An estranged husband went on a bloody shooting rampage on a busy South-Central street corner Sunday afternoon, critically injuring his wife and wounding three others before barricading himself in a shed and exchanging gunfire with police, who later stormed in and found him dead, police said. After shooting his wife, the gunman shot a man strolling down the street with a baby in his arms, police said. He shot a woman walking nearby and then walked to a corner store and shot another woman.

Grammy Award-winning rapper Stanley "Flesh-N-Bone" Howse, described by the judge as a victim of child abuse, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in state prison for threatening a man with an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle while on probation in another weapons case. After sentencing by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp, Howse, 27, was returned to Los Angeles County Jail, where he has been held without bail for violating probation. Howse could have faced 19 years in prison.

Grammy Award-winning rapper Stanley "Flesh-N-Bone" Howse, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in state prison for threatening a man with an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle while on probation in another weapons case. After sentencing by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp, Howse, 27, was returned to Los Angeles County Jail, where he has been held without bail for violating probation. Howse could have faced 19 years in prison.

The man accused of killing Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks' granddaughter pleaded not guilty Thursday to eight unrelated counts of attempted murder. Samuel Sharad Shabazz, 18, of Los Angeles was charged with the counts in connection with three separate incidents in 1998. The district attorney's office originally filed the counts in December 1999, but the charges were dismissed three weeks before Parks' granddaughter, Lori Gonzalez, was killed. The charges were recently refiled.

Behind the latticework of Ray Lopez Cota's apartment porch is a widower's mess: heaps of empty beer cans, the cardboard boxes they came in, gray cigarettes in an overflowing ashtray. Although Cota, 47, never got over the death of his wife last Christmas, his neighbors said he remained a friendly presence on this working-class block of Sepulveda Boulevard, where he was often seen drinking beer on his front steps.

Two teenagers were hurt Thursday night during a fight inside a shoe store at a West Valley mall, police said. The brawl, which shattered a window, began about 7:30 p.m. when four males attacked an employee at the Foot Locker store in Westfield Shoppingtown Topanga, according to Sgt. Alan Sorkness of the Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley Division. Security guards at the mall, formerly known as Topanga Plaza, called authorities to the scene.

A Chatsworth psychologist surrendered her medical license on Wednesday as state regulators investigated a 1998 battery conviction, authorities said. Sue Collins, 47, whose office is on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, stipulated to the license surrender, said Tom O'Connor, executive officer of the Department of Consumer Affairs' Board of Psychology, the state agency that issues the licenses.

A business deal that soured between friends may have been the motive in a shooting at a Winnetka home, police said Friday. Police arrested Majid Mossanen, 44, of Los Angeles, after two men were shot. He was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and was being held on $500,000 bail at Van Nuys Jail. Mossanen, allegedly armed with a loaded handgun, went to the home of Morpeza Soheyey, 52, in the 2000 block of Lorne Street about 8:40 p.m. Thursday, said Lt.