Los Angeles County Sheriff S Department

Under the blazing sun, kids wearing fatigues stagger into an empty dirt lot, gasping for air after a punishing run in the hills. They would rather be doing cannonballs into a pool, shopping at the mall or catching a Dodgers game. Yet here they are--reluctantly--wanting a drink of water and a break. Sweating profusely and hunched over, 10-year-old Damien has only one thought: "I hate this."

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department improperly concealed the identities of at least two reserve deputies who are political supporters of Sheriff Lee Baca and were given access to county cars. The Sheriff's Department denied a public records request last year from The Times regarding take-home county car use and gasoline consumption by four reserves who have given Baca political support or gifts. The department declined to even confirm that the men were reserves, citing "the confidential nature of some assignments.

A record 218 gang killings occurred in 1994 in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, erasing the record of 207 set in 1991, Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday. Latino gang killings were up and constituted about 75% of all such killings, Block said. Gang murders among black youths dropped to 50, he said.

Drivers passing through Vernon were confronted by an unusual sight on the afternoon of Dec. 29, 2008: a naked man, running down Grande Vista Avenue in the middle of traffic, babbling and punching cars. Soon after, the man was comatose after a confrontation with Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and Vernon police. Three years later, Parrish Batchan remains at a rehabilitation center in Van Nuys in what the attorneys representing his family call a "minimally conscious" state.

Amid an aggressive push to bolster its ranks with thousands of new deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department loosened its hiring practices and gave jobs to recruits who in the past would have been rejected, according to a department watchdog report released Thursday. Among those hired were applicants with criminal records, drug and alcohol problems and financial woes. One recruit, for example, had been released from another police agency after using excessive force.

Law enforcement authorities thought a two-year undercover drug operation in the Antelope Valley would almost certainly lead them to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Jonathan Aujay. They were wrong. As the drug investigation winds down, with several suspected drug dealers awaiting trial or sentencing in federal court, no one is closer to knowing what happened to Aujay. He is the one deputy in the 8,000-officer department who is the subject of a missing-persons case.

On a clear day in City Terrace, residents say they can see Santa Catalina Island. But most of the time, what they see up close is a lot more unsightly--gangs, drugs, graffiti, prostitution and even speeding taxis careening down narrow streets of their East Los Angeles neighborhood, close to the San Bernardino Freeway.

Heavy metal rocker W. Axl Rose was arrested early Tuesday for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly clubbing his next-door neighbor on the head with an empty wine bottle, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said. Gabriella Kantor, 37, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after complaining of a possible concussion.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy was arrested Monday on suspicion of attempted murder after he allegedly beat, stabbed and may have tried to castrate a young man whom he suspected of having an affair with his wife, according to a law enforcement source and a relative of the victim. Deputy Robert McClain, 34, is also suspected of assaulting his wife after confronting her about the alleged affair, law enforcement sources said.

Detectives were trying to unravel a mystery Wednesday after concluding that a sheriff's deputy originally thought to have accidentally shot herself in the driveway of a Long Beach home was actually killed by someone else. Maria Cecilia Rosa, 30, was found by a newspaper deliveryman slumped over the trunk of her car just before 6 a.m. Tuesday with her service handgun lying near her body.

Battlefield technology is coming to the streets of Los Angeles County. Starting this month, one of the nation's major military contractors is outfitting the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's patrol cars with sophisticated computer systems and high-tech gadgetry that has been perfected for the battlefield. At a total cost to taxpayers of $20 million, Raytheon Co. promises to deliver technology that will enable deputies on the road to sort through key intelligence information in mere seconds, where it once took hours or days.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in the Antelope Valley, where deputies have been accused of discriminating against mostly minority residents of government-subsidized housing, officials said Thursday. The announcement comes after allegations from civil rights lawyers that elected leaders in Lancaster and Palmdale have tried to drive out black and Latino residents in the historically white area. Residents there have complained of surprise inspections of government-subsidized, or Section 8, housing intended to ensure residents are meeting the terms of their assistance.

In conversations with Lee Baca, you sometimes find yourself wondering, "OK, is this guy a sheriff or a shaman?" He's different. Spiritual. More of a social worker than any other cop I know, and he and I have served together more than once on panels involving mental health matters. All that's to the good, I'd say, although you're never quite sure where Baca's next globe-trekking retreat will take him or whether he'll return in sandals and robes. But holy Jehoshaphat, when it comes to running a department, it's been one screw-up after another at the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.

The mother of Mitrice Richardson — the woman missing since she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff's station in the dark, early morning of Sept. 17 — filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against Los Angeles County and Sheriff's Department officials. Citing video footage of Richardson in a holding cell that shows her behaving in an infantile manner, Latice Sutton blamed the Sheriff's Department for failing to give her daughter a medical or psychiatric evaluation.

At the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Jaime Iniguez was awakened Friday morning and told to get ready to leave. Iniguez, 53, was serving a four-month sentence for drunk driving, his second DUI offense. He wasn't scheduled to be released for another month. "It's time to celebrate," said Iniguez as he put on his belt outside the downtown jail complex. Iniguez is a member of a distinct group that benefits during a sour economy: jail inmates. When times are flush, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has the money to keep jails open and staffed, and the vast majority of sentenced inmates serve most of their time behind bars.

Media law experts and journalism groups expressed outrage Thursday that Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies obtained phone records from a notable Hollywood gossip journalist during a leak investigation, calling the action a serious violation of the reporter's rights. Several said they believed that sheriff's investigators violated state and federal law when they obtained a search warrant for the records of TMZ founder Harvey Levin as they tried to identify who gave him details about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade during a 2006 drunk-driving arrest.

For people like Sally Garcia it all comes so naturally--this ability to provide comfort, this calling to help others. It is what put her in the center of last spring's riots as a sheriff's volunteer, and what drew her to the side of a grieving mother whose son had been shot and killed in a gang-related incident several months ago.

There is no training manual for rookie cops sent back to high school as undercover narcs. But the really important rules can be learned more quickly than algebra. * Whenever possible, address authority figures as "dude." * Speak frequently about the band Rancid and how incredibly hard they rock.

The family of an unarmed man fatally shot last month by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy filed a legal claim against the county Wednesday, alleging that sheriff's deputies are poorly trained and routinely use deadly force on people who don't pose any threat. On Sept. 14, a deputy chased Darrick Collins up his driveway in Athens and into his own backyard, believing he was a robbery suspect. The deputy saw Collins reach for his waistband, causing him to fear that Collins was going for a weapon, sheriff's officials said.

Despite the tough economic times, both violent and property crimes are down significantly in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department so far in 2009, Sheriff Lee Baca said Monday. The biggest drop in any major crime category is in homicides, down 23.5% through Sept. 18 this year compared with the same period in 2008, according to Baca. Crime has decreased despite an economic downturn that has hit particularly hard in some relatively poor neighborhoods patrolled by the Sheriff's Department, including Compton and unincorporated South L.A. Baca predicted more than a year ago that the ailing economy could result in crime increases, but that has so far not materialized.