Los Angeles County Sheriff S Department

Thadd McNamara was at the helm of his motor home on a cross-country trip in 2005 when his cellphone rang and a neighbor gave him the news: His grown son, Sean, was in trouble with law -- again. McNamara and his wife turned around in Corpus Christi, Texas, and headed back home to Rolling Hills Estates. On the way, McNamara made several calls in an effort to piece together why his 41-year-old son had been arrested.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has ordered his academy to stop training new recruits until it addresses problems exposed by state inspectors, including the revelation that one instructor gave recruits the answers to their tests.

In the last few years, Pico Rivera has burnished a reputation as a city that goes hard after tagging. And much of the credit has gone to Mayor Ron Beilke, who has made eradicating graffiti and punishing young vandals priorities. Under his watch, the city instituted a global positioning graffiti tracking system, bulked up a vandalism enforcement team and began sending letters threatening to put liens on the homes of the parents of juveniles who have not paid restitution.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy gunned down Saturday outside his boyhood home in Cypress Park had been assigned to guard the most dangerous inmates in the county, including members of the notorious Mexican Mafia gang, authorities said Sunday. Los Angeles police and sheriff's officials said the prospect that Deputy Juan Abel Escalante was killed because of his work at the jail remained one of three possible motives.

The off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who was slain outside his home over the weekend was shot from behind and may not have seen his killer, police detectives said Monday. Authorities stressed that all angles, including the deputy's work in the jails, his personal life and the gang violence that pervades the Cypress Park area where he died, are being examined for a possible motive. Los Angeles Police Cmdr.

A deputy shot and wounded a man near the border of Compton and Lynwood on Saturday night after the deputy came under fire, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reported. Sheriff's deputies went to the 500 block of East El Segundo Boulevard about 9:15 p.m. to disperse a group of suspected gang members who were believed to be selling drugs, authorities said. The group scattered, and a deputy in a patrol car chased two men, who scaled a fence, according to the department.

In yet another sign of tension between Orange County's most powerful law enforcement branches, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas has accused the Sheriff's Department of botching a child molestation investigation involving a sheriff's detective who ultimately killed himself before he could be arrested. Rackauckas wrote to sheriff's officials and suggested their investigators were "merely going through the motions" as they investigated a deputy suspected of molesting young boys earlier this year.

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.

An Irvine man who authorities said was severely beaten by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was semi-conscious Tuesday and is expected to require "complete facial reconstruction," his father said. Chris Heflin said his son Michael, 23, also had been stabbed multiple times in the groin area at an Irvine apartment complex, but he did not believe the deputy had actually attempted to castrate his son as he was initially told by a hospital staff member.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man suspected of breaking into a Lynwood-area business, officials said Saturday. An informant flagged down two deputies from Century Station about 11 p.m. Friday, saying someone was breaking into the business in the 11600 block of Atlantic Avenue, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Art Spencer. The deputies split up, one approaching from the front of the business and the other from the back, Spencer said.