Involuntary Manslaughter

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.

On the ground and screaming that he was "sorry," a shirtless Kelly Thomas is shown being hit again and again with fists, a baton and finally the butt of a stun gun by Fullerton police officers in a dramatic video that was shown for the first time Monday in an Orange County courtroom. The grainy black and white video of Thomas' violent encounter with police outside a bus depot is the centerpiece of the prosecutions' case against two officers accused of escalating a standard police encounter with a homeless man into a fatal beating.

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.

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...

Dr. Conrad Murray was placed on suicide watch at the L.A. County Jail on Monday, hours after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death and being taken into custody. Immediately after the verdict, Murray was placed in handcuffs at the direction of the judge, to remain behind bars pending his Nov. 29 sentencing. A law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said Murray was placed on suicide watch once in custody.

The star medical expert for Michael Jackson's physician began his testimony Thursday with the acknowledgment that not even he could explain the doctor's treatment of the pop star. "Let's deal with the elephant in the room here," a defense attorney said to Dr. Paul White, the most important and probably final witness for the physician. "Conrad Murray has been accused of infusing a dose of propofol and leaving his patient. Can you justify that?" "Absolutely not," White replied.

A prosecutor on Friday accused attorneys representing Michael Jackson's personal physician of putting on an "ever-changing defense" by dropping their contention that the pop star swallowed the anesthetic that led to his death. In a hearing outside the jury's presence Friday, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Walgren remarked on the announcement this week that the defense had ruled out a theory it had previously argued — that Jackson had ingested the anesthetic propofol — because it wasn't supported by science.