Cops

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

Los Angeles voters rejected a plan to hike the city's sales tax two months ago, but the battle over that measure lives on in a hotly contested City Council race. In multiple mailers sent to voters in the 13th council district, candidate John Choi and his backers in organized labor contend that Choi's rival, Mitch O'Farrell, supported the layoffs of 500 police officers. In one mailer, a downcast O'Farrell is pictured next to a crime scene and the words: "Votes to cut 500 cops. " Choi and his backers base the claim on O'Farrell's opposition to Proposition A, the March 5 ballot measure that was promoted by city leaders and others as a way to avoid reductions in police staffing.

From the first tires-squealing, sirens-blaring, guns-blazing car chase to the last quiet conversation, "End of Watch" is a visceral story of beat cops that is rare in its sensitivity, rash in its violence and raw in its humor. For David Ayer, who has long made the minefield of police work his metier, this blood-drenched and unexpectedly moving film is his best cut yet on what life is like on that thin blue line. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña star as partners fighting crime on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico - Guadalajara police commander Juan Carlos Martinez took Mexico's national police vetting exam in April 2012. He failed. But no one in government would tell him why. A few months later, he received a phone call from a man identifying himself as a member of a drug cartel. Why don't you think about joining us, he said the man on the phone asked. You won't go hungry. Martinez, 38, declined the offer and maintains that he had been an honorable cop. But the phone call was not an anomaly.

Re "Where was help for Alesia?," Column, Sept. 8 As long as we as a society are comfortable with the decision we made to have law enforcement agencies be our front-line social service workers, we should not be surprised to see officers handle mental or medical emergencies like criminal acts. If you are disturbed by the story that a poor single mother is dead because leaving her children at a police station is considered "endangerment," or that the mentally ill continue to die at the hands of the justice system, perhaps it's time we recognize again that these are not crimes.

Re "Take guns from fired cops," Column, Feb. 11 George Skelton's argument is illogical. The ex-cop Christopher Dorner was fired for making false reports, which doesn't necessarily indicate a predisposition toward violence that would require his gun-ownership rights to be revoked. Several years had passed since his firing before he allegedly went on a killing spree. Several journalists have lied in print. I would expect Skelton to give equal accounting to them and have their guns confiscated.

Re "$6 Million to Be Paid in 9 Police Suits," Dec. 18: The Los Angeles Police Department disciplines police officers with exemplary records for breaking the code of silence and reporting on the misdeeds of bad officers. The good cops have their names splashed in the newspapers and are outcasts from the department. The bad cops keep their jobs and remain anonymous to continue their illegal activities while the taxpayers fork out millions of dollars for the good cops to stay quiet and go away.

Re "Numbers game," Opinion, Jan. 14 Jim Newton's column regarding the significance of the Los Angeles Police Department achieving 10,000 officers misses the mark. When the mayor started his first term in 2005, there were 9,284 officers. Today there are 10,023. Despite deep fiscal cuts to the LAPD, the mayor and the City Council have worked with the department in allowing it to find the least harmful ways to absorb these cuts. Instead of simply cutting the number of officers, the city's leaders held firm, and the result is the 10th straight year of crime reduction.

The difference between cops and civilians: Cops don't beat people if they know they're on TV. Civilians do. WILLIAM R. LIVINGSTONE, Santa Barbara

Rather than more cops, what we need are fewer crooks--think about it! JOHN A. JURGUTIS Santa Monica

Los Angeles police officer Brett Goodkin is about to make his big-screen debut, playing a bit role as a cop in "The Bling Ring," Sofia Coppola's movie about fame-obsessed San Fernando Valley youths who burgled the homes of celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. But as the director prepares to unveil the picture at the Cannes Film Festival, the LAPD investigator is hardly basking in the glory of his 15 minutes of fame. Instead, he's facing the imminent prospect of losing his job, as a disciplinary panel prepares to rule on the results of an internal investigation into his simultaneous involvement in the real-life case and the film.

In the wake of Christopher Dorner's claim that his firing from the Los Angeles Police Department was a result of corruption and bias, more than three dozen other fired LAPD cops want department officials to review their cases. The 40 requests, which were tallied by the union that represents rank-and-file officers, have come in the two months since Dorner sought revenge for his 2009 firing by targeting police officers and their families in a killing rampage that left four dead and others injured.

  Los Angeles and Long Beach police are increasing patrols on some of Southern California's largest events this weekend, like the CicLAvia biking event and the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, as the region remains jittery from the Boston bombing attacks. Officials said to expect more undercover officers and bomb sweeps. "We're going to have plenty of security. ... There's no specific threat to the L.A. region. None. I would know," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told reporters Friday.

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy's buddy cop comedy "The Heat" will be screened in advance for Boston police officers and FBI agents. The city was stunned Monday after twin bombings at the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured scores more. Bullock, who plays an uptight "Miss Congeniality"-esque FBI agent sent to work on a case in Boston in the film, thought the screening was a small token of appreciation. "It's been an amazing tightknit community before this happened, and it just bonded a community even more," Bullock told CNN at tge CinemaCon gathering in Las Vegas.

One of the most intriguing things about the new crime drama "Pawn" is Michael Chiklis' British accent. It's not that it's particularly bad or good, but every time he speaks - which is a lot - it does make you wonder why ? The movie is a bit like that accent and joins the pantheon of mildly entertaining thrillers having a go at the domino logic we've seen so often in these movies, starting with that classic flaw in the criminal mind that makes two-bit thugs think they can outsmart compromised cops.

- Glenn McGovern joined the Air Force fresh out of high school and was plunged into a world of threats and intrigue. Assigned to protect U.S. bases worldwide, he studied the tactics of Germany's Red Army Faction, the attack style favored by Hezbollah and the IRA's pattern of bombings. He became enamored of the "Art of War," an ancient Chinese military treatise that counsels to know thyself, know thy enemy . But it was after a civilian policing career, when McGovern joined the Santa Clara County district attorney's office as an investigator, that he found his passion - one that would turn him into an expert on attacks against law enforcement.

Re "Supreme Court Debates Traffic Violation Arrests," Dec. 5: Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's attitude toward the cop who handcuffed and jailed a woman because she and her kids weren't seat-belted was, "It is not a constitutional violation for a police officer to be a jerk." How would he have felt if it was his daughter or granddaughter who experienced this trauma? If a policeman can be excused from such disgusting behavior by just admitting to being a jerk, then we'll soon have a police state.

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.

Police do not know where Pastor Rick Warren's son got the gun he used to commit suicide, an Orange County Sheriff's Department official said Wednesday. Matthew Warren, 27, was "probably not" the owner of the weapon he used to shoot himself about 10 a.m. Friday in his Mission Viejo home, department spokesman Jim Amormino said. Investigators are trying to determine how he got it. A source close to the investigation said Warren used a shotgun. The Sheriff's Department declined to comment.

NEW YORK - On a soundstage in an industrial Brooklyn neighborhood, Tom Selleck sits at the head of a prop-heavy dinner table filled with three generations of actors. As a crew goes about its preparations, there's little wisdom that Selleck won't dispense: his March Madness pick (Duke, because "Coach K is a great guy, and his players graduate"), his aversion to gourmet vegetables, his favorite lines from "Airplane. " Then the cameras roll, and he's doling out nuggets all over again.