Law Enforcement Agencies

Since 9/11, authorities have urged local police to become the front line in domestic counter-terrorism, gathering street-level intelligence about crimes and suspicious activities that could foretell another attack. But for various reasons it has not worked out that way. The nation's 17,000 local law enforcement agencies have gathered information in their own haphazard ways or not at all, authorities and experts say.

A report that mosques in Los Angeles and San Diego are under federal surveillance has resurrected fears in the Muslim community about government monitoring and led two civil rights groups Wednesday to call for congressional hearings. The request for public hearings followed a newspaper article last week that cited FBI and Defense Department files pertaining to surveillance of mosques and Muslims in Southern California.

Apparently, the Maricopa County Police Department can do without Shaq. Sheriff Joe Arpaio wants Shaquille O'Neal to return his special deputy sheriff's badges to the Arizona county because of profanity and a racially derogatory word the Phoenix Suns center used while mocking Kobe Bryant in a freestyle rap video that surfaced Monday on the Internet. "I do believe in free speech, but I don't believe that in law enforcement to use this type of language is proper," Arpaio said.

Florabel Muir had the nerve to ask, "What does a Gangster Squad do?" She was the epitome of the hard-boiled newspaper dame: born in a Wyoming mining town, a veteran of New York's tabloid battles and now, in 1949, author of a Los Angeles Mirror column that served up Hollywood news while mocking the LAPD as "cops a la Keystone." To the cops, she was nothing more than a mouthpiece for the boxer-turned-hoodlum who zoomed about town in a caravan of Cadillacs while fighting for control of L.A.'

After the Two Tonys were shot dead and left slumped in their car in Hollywood, the LAPD prepared an internal report titled "GANGLAND KILLINGS, Los Angeles Area, 1900-1951." The survey went back to when fruit peddlers fought over turf and the Black Hand shook them down for a cut of the action. Police were certain who committed the first gangland killing, in 1906, but "strong man" Joe Ardizzone was acquitted when "no witnesses . . . would talk."

Top city officials Tuesday unveiled a plan to help the Los Angeles Police Department's crime lab reduce its massive backlog of unexamined DNA evidence from violent crimes, but they acknowledged that the funding for the proposal was less than certain. Under the terms of the plan, which the City Council is expected to vote on today, the LAPD would allocate $700,000 to hire 16 more DNA analysts and support staff -- a boost of about 33% over current staffing.

Bolivian President Evo Morales suspended operations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Saturday after accusing the agency of aiding "criminal groups" that oppose his rule. Morales' move was the latest sign of the deterioration in relations between his leftist government and Washington.

Touting new tactics to combat gang violence, Los Angeles city and county officials pledged Tuesday to create joint law enforcement teams in the San Fernando Valley, and city leaders proposed a $50-million tax increase to beef up anti-gang programs.

The Los Angeles area's new counter-terrorism center drew high marks Friday from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who toured the high-tech facility in Norwalk and pronounced it a model for federal and local cooperation. The Joint Regional Intelligence Center opened six months ago as a co-venture of the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and other local law enforcement agencies as a hub for information gathering, analysis and sharing.

Defense attorneys for a codefendant of indicted private investigator Anthony Pellicano have accused federal agents pursuing a wiretapping case against the pair of leaking confidential information. In a motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, lawyers for entertainment attorney Terry Christensen call on the court to force New York Times reporters David Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner to reveal the names of their sources for a report published Jan. 11 in the newspaper.