Badge

First, Apple's Jonny Ive, the man credited with being the design genius behind the company's products, got a knighthood. That's Sir Jonny Ive, thank you very much.  Now the British designer has received another honor from his home country: a Blue Peter badge. To which U.S. readers may ask: "What's that?"  QUIZ: Test y our Apple knowledge Good question. "Blue Peter" is a children's TV show that has been running in Britain for about 50 years. The badge is presented to people for inspiring kids.

Her father was a fireman, her mother was a teacher, and her brother was a sheriff's deputy. It's hardly a surprise that Terri McDonald would follow the family and wind up working in California government, in her case moving up the ranks through the prison system and now as the "assistant sheriff for custody," the woman brought in to clean out the Augean stables of the L.A. County jail system. Out of high school, earning her way through college, a friend told her about “a pretty good job that pays a little better than Burger King,” and she she began working in a mental health facility.

The sister of a slain police officer whose badge has become an issue in a bruising political campaign criticized the Los Angeles Police Department on Monday, saying it should have pursued a criminal investigation of a man now running for City Council. Karen Kubly, herself a retired LAPD officer, said the contest between businessman Rudy Martinez and Councilman Jose Huizar has stirred up painful memories about her brother. In 1979, David Kubly took part in a high-speed chase that ended when the suspect's car crashed into a Pep Boys auto shop on Crenshaw Boulevard.

The movie crew scurried to set up camera dollies and lights in the lobby of the faded Baltimore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The scene to be filmed at the 113-year-old lodging house at the corner of 5th and Los Angeles streets would depict a good Samaritan leading a drugged-up woman from skid row to get her off the street during a chilly winter's night. The good guy was being played by David Marroquin. The heroin-addicted young woman was portrayed by Mary Morales. Marroquin is a 30-year-old officer with the Los Angeles Police Department whose beat for the past 4 1/2 years has been an eight-square-block area of skid row. When off duty, he is one of L.A.'s legions of aspiring filmmakers, writers and actors - but with a twist: his police beat is his inspiration.

What are we supposed to call him now--Lt. Col. Jesus Christ? SARA BOYNOFF Pasadena

The likeness of the Los Angeles Police Department's badge depicted on the front page of The Times' sports section on Feb. 6, coupled with the motto of the LAPD shown under the picture of the brawling hockey player, is an affront to the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department. Police officers everywhere are charged with the responsibility of keeping the peace. It is only after the peacekeeping fails that our role turns to that of "enforcing the law." The Times' casual and thoughtless depiction of a police badge is harmful and counterproductive to the role of the police officer in our society.

For years, the Dibble sisters kept their grandfather's badge safely tucked away in a jewelry box. A Los Angeles firefighter, he was killed in the line of duty in 1935. His silver badge, a photo and stories passed down by relatives were the only mementos left of him. A year ago when the devastating Sayre fire ripped through the Oakridge Mobile Home Park, Cher and Pamela Dibble lost their home and their cherished keepsakes. "We were left to dig through nothing but ashes with our two hands," said Cher Dibble.

Re: "Born-Again Christians Who Also Carry a Badge," (July 12): As a fundamentalist Christian, I feel that any actions by the Los Angeles Police Department to promote persons based on their outward admission of such beliefs is inconsistent with their religious convictions that they claim to have. First, in the real world (that world that is Caesar's) that we abide in, the parable of the master and the talents (money) when applied means that those who have the authority should distribute--to those who have the ability--the delegation of power; while morality and ethical behavior may be weighed, the fact that it be Christian in nature should not be part of the decision-making process.

A former Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent pleaded no contest Thursday to unlawfully displaying a badge while allegedly trying to pull a woman over in Pomona. Ruben Zacarias, 81, waved a school district police badge at a woman driving on the 57 Freeway last July and said he was a cop, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Zacarias, who was superintendent for 2 1/2 years before being bought out of his contract by the school board in late 1999, was fined $250 and must pay a $100 restitution fee. Superior Court Judge David Brougham also ordered that the badge -- which was seized by the California Highway Patrol -- be returned to the school district, according to Deputy Dist.

First, Apple's Jonny Ive, the man credited with being the design genius behind the company's products, got a knighthood. That's Sir Jonny Ive, thank you very much.  Now the British designer has received another honor from his home country: a Blue Peter badge. To which U.S. readers may ask: "What's that?"  QUIZ: Test y our Apple knowledge Good question. "Blue Peter" is a children's TV show that has been running in Britain for about 50 years. The badge is presented to people for inspiring kids.

In 1986, when Luis Valdez's play “I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges” premiered in Los Angeles, its portrait of an upwardly mobile Latino family in Monterey Park shattered Hollywood stereotypes. Buddy Villa wasn't a bandito or a gardener, Connie Villa wasn't a madam or a maid - they just played them in the movies, earning enough as extras to send their daughter to medical school and their son, Sonny, the play's troubled, troubling protagonist, to Harvard. Casa 0101's affectionate revival, 25 years after the last L.A. production of “Badges,” is compelling not only historically, as a benchmark for how opportunities for Latinos on stage and screen have developed (not as much as one might have hoped)

James Badge Dale has that familiar, handsome face that many a solid actor or high school sweetheart might have when you pass him at the coffee shop or traffic light. What you don't know is that you already love Dale -- or "Badge," as he's affectionately referred to. Soldiering on in HBO's "The Pacific," or his scene-stealing turn as Michael Fassbender's adulterous boss in "Shame," or the gaunt and haunting turn in Denzel Washington's "Flight," Badge is a chameleon who by this time next year will likely be a household name.

Arthur Kassel loves his badges. For decades, the Beverly Hills socialite used his entertainment connections and political contributions to edge into law enforcement circles, gathering a collection of official credentials. He hobnobbed with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, used a state car to drive solo in carpool lanes and carried a Glock pistol on his hip. In the world of cop groupies, the burly Brooklyn-born Kassel, 72, is the gold standard. "Arthur lived in a Walter Mitty fantasy," said his stepson, Willie Wilkerson III, referring to the hapless fictional character who fancied himself a pilot, a surgeon and a footloose killer.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," they used to say on the late Andy Griffith's eponymous 1960s TV show. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, whose folksy straight-man earnestness reminds us a bit of Griffith's Sheriff Andy Taylor, has actually been fooled three times when it comes to the issuance of official-looking badges or ID cards to non-department personnel. So here's a review: In 1999, Baca set up a special reserve program intended to allow celebrities and other notables to receive a badge and a gun in the name of boosting community relations.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which has faced criticism for handing out official-looking credentials to civilians with no law enforcement duties, is recalling an estimated 200 badges the department gave to local politicians, according to documents and interviews. Sheriff Lee Baca's decision to recall the badges comes two weeks after the FBI arrested three city officials in Cudahy on bribery charges. In support of the charges, the U.S. attorney's office released a photo of a smiling young woman in a Cudahy nightclub, brandishing two handguns and wearing a councilman's badge on her chest.

Kyra Sedgwick does not have a Southern drawl, isn't partial to bright red lipstick and flouncy dresses and, even though she loves chocolate, does not have Ding Dongs stashed in her purse. Just to clear up any confusion about her resemblance to the best-known character in her repertoire so far, top cop Brenda Leigh Johnson of TNT's hit "The Closer. " Nor is Sedgwick stricken with Johnson's righteous tunnel vision, which has landed the dogged homicide investigator in a heap of trouble that will unfold in the series' final six episodes, launching July 9. Unlike her crime-fighting counterpart with the laser focus, Sedgwick has chosen to look at the bigger picture.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives have launched a probe into what appears to be a secret deputy clique within the department's elite gang unit, an investigation triggered by the discovery of a document suggesting the group embraces shootings as a badge of honor. The document described a code of conduct for the Jump Out Boys, a clique of hard-charging, aggressive deputies who gain more respect after being involved in a shooting, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.