Law Enforcement

The Assembly is expected today to take up a measure that would cut spending on state prisons, after delaying for a week and a half and scaling down the package under pressure from law enforcement groups. The revised proposal falls $220 million short of the $1.2 billion in cuts to prisons that was part of last month's budget deal, although some of the savings can be achieved without new legislation. It is unclear whether the state Senate or Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would go along with the Assembly's plan.

In Tijuana, schoolchildren get lessons on how to duck during gangland shootouts. Ciudad Juarez cops patrol with military escorts, and the morgue there is spilling over with gunshot victims. But here in Mexicali, people fear the desert sun more than drug hit men. The city of 700,000 has a homicide rate comparable to that of Wichita, Kan., and one of the biggest police deployments is Operation Beat the Heat, in which officers haul blocks of ice to shantytown residents. There hasn't been a bank robbery in Mexicali in 18 months, or a reported kidnapping in a year.

Orange County, which already has one of the nation's most aggressive programs for taking DNA samples from convicts, has quietly begun offering a deal to some people who have only been arrested: give a DNA sample and have your charges dropped. The district attorney's office, which runs its own database, has started expanding its program by handling some cases "informally," Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas told the Board of Supervisors this week. In those cases, if a person who has been arrested agrees to give a DNA sample, "we would not even file" charges.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Thursday he will prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries for over-the-counter sales, targeting a practice that has become commonplace under an initiative approved by California voters more than a decade ago. "The vast, vast, vast majority, about 100%, of dispensaries in Los Angeles County and the city are operating illegally, they are dealing marijuana illegally, according to our theory," he...

Despite continuing criticism about the program, authorities announced Friday that 67 local and state law enforcement agencies across the country would continue enforcing immigration law under special agreements with the federal government, but that they would be subject to more oversight. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also limited the authority of the most controversial participant, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., who is under investigation by the Department of Justice for possible civil rights violations.

The Obama administration inched toward a more sensible policy on marijuana Monday when Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. ordered federal law enforcement agencies not to devote scarce resources to prosecuting patients and suppliers acting in accordance with state laws that allow medicinal use of the drug. The new guidelines, outlined in a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys, signal a 180-degree turn from the Bush administration's disdain for the medical marijuana movement. Cannabis is legal, under controlled conditions, in 13 states, yet federal law forbids the drug under the questionable premise that it has no medical value whatsoever.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to bar law enforcement officials from handing juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless they have been convicted of a felony. Twenty years ago, San Francisco enacted a "sanctuary city" ordinance requiring, in part, that local agencies not consider immigration status when dealing with young offenders. But Mayor Gavin Newsom changed the policy in the summer of 2008, after published reports revealed that the ordinance was protecting young undocumented offenders from deportation.

The founder of TMZ.com has expressed outrage at revelations that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department obtained his telephone records as part of its investigation into who leaked information about actor-director Mel Gibson's arrest. Harvey Levin, in his first remarks since a Times article revealed how sheriff's investigators obtained his phone records, said it was a violation of state and federal laws. He also called it an abuse of power by a department embarrassed by TMZ's scoop of Gibson's profane and abusive behavior when he was arrested in Malibu in 2006.

The annual marijuana eradication campaign hit a new record this summer, uprooting 4.4 million plants, a 52% increase over last summer, state and federal officials plan to announce today. "The number of marijuana plants eradicated has increased due to the number of plants being cultivated and law enforcement's ability to detect and access the remote areas where the plants are grown," said Michelle Gregory of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. The program has increased its seizures since 1996, when voters approved the use of medical marijuana.

Val Butler was a rookie patrol cop working on the ground floor of the Orlando Police Department. Jerry Demings worked as a detective on the second floor. One day, after hearing through the grapevine that he was unhappy with a patrol report she had written, she walked upstairs to his office and gave him a piece of her mind. "She was a rookie cop. A rookie!" Demings said with disbelief almost a quarter of a century later. "I thought, 'Who on Earth is this person?' " "I think that's when he fell in love with me," she said.