Involuntary Manslaughter

Orange County prosecutors charged two veteran Fullerton police officers in the death of a mentally ill homeless man, accusing them of a callous cascade of violence against Kelly Thomas as he begged for his life. Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas on Wednesday said what began as routine questioning by police devolved into a "beating at the hands of an angry police officer," with other officers eventually joining in. He stressed that Thomas did not provoke the attack and that all of his movements were purely defensive.

The mother of a mentally ill homeless man who died after he was beaten by Fullerton police has reached a settlement with the city that will pay her $1 million, officials announced Tuesday evening. The agreement unanimously approved by the Fullerton City Council resolves Cathy Thomas' legal claims against the city involving the death of Kelly Thomas, 37. He died July 10, five days after his violent confrontation with Fullerton Police Department officers. Thomas reached the settlement after voluntary mediation with her attorney, city officials said.

A former transit police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man at an Oakland train station was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday, capping a racially charged case that raised fears in the Bay Area of possible violence after the verdict. Prosecutors accused the ex-officer of intentionally firing his handgun as he tried to handcuff Oscar J. Grant III on New Year's Day 2009. Johannes Mehserle, 28, tearfully testified that the shooting was a tragic accident caused when he mistakenly grabbed his firearm instead of an electric Taser weapon during a struggle with Grant.

I began worrying more than seven years ago, when I first brought him the violins donated by readers. Would they make my new friend, a Juilliard-trained musician who'd suffered a breakdown 35 years earlier, less safe on the streets of skid row? Would he be attacked by thieves? And that was just the beginning of the worries. As I got to know Nathaniel Anthony Ayers better, I fretted not just about whether I could protect him, but also about how to help him. Time passes; the worries never do. Uncertainty lingers constantly when you have a relationship with someone who has a severe mental illness, and watching the video this week of the Kelly Thomas beating was a reminder of how quickly things can go horribly awry.

The mother of a mentally ill homeless man who died after he was beaten by Fullerton police has reached a settlement with the city that will pay her $1 million, officials announced Tuesday evening. The agreement unanimously approved by the Fullerton City Council resolves Cathy Thomas' legal claims against the city involving the death of Kelly Thomas, 37. He died July 10, five days after his violent confrontation with Fullerton Police Department officers. Thomas reached the settlement after voluntary mediation with her attorney, city officials said.

When firefighters arrived at the $11-million mansion in the Hollywood Hills last year, they thought they had a chance to save the 13,500-square-foot structure. More than 80 firefighters raced to the home, and 19 were temporarily trapped as the fire spread. Veteran firefighter Glenn Allen was on the ground floor when several hundred pounds of plaster and lumber fell on him. His colleagues dug him out using chainsaws to cut through the debris, but his injuries were so severe that he died two days later.

Los Angeles prosecutors filed a long-anticipated involuntary manslaughter charge against Michael Jackson's personal physician Monday as the coroner's office made public a report concluding that the care the singer received in the final hours of his life violated accepted medical standards. Dr. Conrad Murray, a cardiologist hired to care for Jackson during the pop star's ambitious comeback attempt last year, pleaded not guilty in a courtroom near Los Angeles International Airport packed with international media and members of the entertainer's family.

Prosecutors said today they have filed a charge of involuntary manslaughter against a 12-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting a 12-year-old girl in the Orange Mall amid throngs of Christmas shoppers. Under the juvenile code, the boy could be held for a maximum of six years if the charges are resolved against him, according to Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley. Friends of the defendant said he had been showing off the .25-caliber pistol before the shooting Monday night.

A 12-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting a friend in a City of Orange mall jammed with Christmas shoppers was charged with involuntary manslaughter Wednesday and ordered held without bail. The Orange County public defender appointed to represent Juan Manuel Cardenas entered a plea of innocent, but did not object to a prosecution request to keep Juan in county Juvenile Hall.

James Tanquary said he loved his brother so much that he gave artificial resuscitation to him after he fatally shot him in a fight at their family's Buena Park liquor store. After he was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the death, the 37-year-old Tanquary nearly wept as he recounted how he still could not get thoughts of his dead brother off his mind. "We loved each other so much," he said. The Anaheim Hills man was convicted in the death of Russell Tanquary, 33, on July 15, 1986.

Following an emotionally charged hearing, an Orange County judge ruled that two Fullerton police officers will stand trial for the death of a mentally ill homeless man who was beaten in a violent confrontation last summer. The ruling means that Manuel Ramos, 38, could be the first police officer in modern Orange County history to be tried for murder for on-duty actions . Ramos is charged withsecond-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Cpl. Jay Cicinelli, 40, will be tried on charges of involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.

The police officers who pummeled Kelly Thomas during a violent encounter last summer in Fullerton caused his death by cutting off the flow of oxygen to his brain when the fight intensified and they piled on the homeless man, a coroner's pathologist testified Tuesday. Dr. Aruna Singhania, who told the court she had performed 11,000 autopsies, said the difficulty Thomas had breathing because of chest compression as the struggle wore on was worsened by facial and nasal bleeding. The testimony came in the second day of a preliminary hearing that has orbited around a graphic and disturbing video of Thomas' being hit by police outside the bus depot in downtown Fullerton.

The investigation into a controversial police killing of a college student last weekend took a dramatic twist Wednesday when Pasadena authorities arrested a 911 caller, alleging his fabrication led to the shooting. An officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade on a narrow street in the city's Northwest district about 11 p.m. Saturday. Police were dispatched to the scene after a man, identified as Oscar Carrillo, called 911. He said two armed men had stolen his laptop computer and backpack as he was buying tacos at a stand on Orange Grove Boulevard.

When firefighters arrived at the $11-million mansion in the Hollywood Hills last year, they thought they had a chance to save the 13,500-square-foot structure. More than 80 firefighters raced to the home, and 19 were temporarily trapped as the fire spread. Veteran firefighter Glenn Allen was on the ground floor when several hundred pounds of plaster and lumber fell on him. His colleagues dug him out using chainsaws to cut through the debris, but his injuries were so severe that he died two days later.

Lawyers for the doctor convicted in Michael Jackson's death asked a judge Wednesday to hand down the most lenient sentence possible — probation. In court papers filed in advance of Dr. Conrad Murray's sentencing Tuesday, his attorneys described the pop star's death as "an atypical and isolated aberration to an otherwise exceptional medical career. " The physician's lawyers argued that Murray has already been punished severely by the loss of his medical license and livelihood and with public contempt, including death threats.

Los Angeles County's jails could run out of space as early as next month because of an influx of state prisoners, prompting officials to consider releasing potentially thousands of inmates awaiting trial. The state's new prison law, which establishes a practice known as realignment, is expected to send as many as 8,000 offenders who would normally go to state prisons into the L.A. County Jail system in the next year. Currently, defendants awaiting trial account for 70% of the jail population, but Sheriff Lee Baca said that might need to drop to 50%. The department is studying a major expansion of its electronic monitoring and home detention programs to keep track of inmates who are released.

The verdict is in, the jury has been dismissed, and Dr. Conrad Murray sits behind bars, but one question about the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor remains: Who paid for the defense? Speculation about how the cash-strapped physician funded an expansive legal team focused Wednesday on a British documentary made with Murray's cooperation and purchased recently by NBC for broadcast on its cable network MSNBC this weekend. Representatives of Jackson's estate demanded the network cancel the program, entitled "Michael Jackson and the Doctor: A Fatal Friendship," in part because of unanswered questions about whether Murray was compensated for giving filmmakers interviews and allowing camera crews to follow him and his lawyers.

A Los Angeles County jury convicted Michael Jackson's personal physician of involuntary manslaughter, concluding a trial that offered a glimpse of the last days of one of the world's most famous men by deciding that his death was a criminal act. The verdict was delivered Monday in a windowless downtown L.A. courtroom a world away from the turreted Holmby Hills mansion where Dr. Conrad Murray had a $150,000 a month position that included providing...