Los Angeles County Sheriff S Department

Two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies face assault charges for allegedly beating up a firefighter while off duty last year in Pomona, according to a grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday. Joshua Titel and Brian Richards, both 31, pleaded not guilty in L.A. County Superior Court and were released without bail. According to prosecutors, the two deputies beat and kicked the victim on June 24, 2007.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who stood out for his youthful energy, despite being one of the older recruits to join the force, died Friday afternoon four years after a car struck him, sending him into a long-term coma. He was 44. Randy Hamson was investigating a traffic accident one night in 2004 along a poorly lighted highway in Santa Clarita when he spotted a passing car with its headlights turned off, officials at his local sheriff's station said.

When Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Juan Abel Escalante was gunned down in August outside his boyhood home in Cypress Park, theories abounded on possible suspects and a motive. The early focus of Los Angeles Police Department detectives was whether the slaying was related to Escalante's job at the Men's Central Jail, where he guarded the county's most dangerous inmates, including members of the Mexican Mafia.

The wife of a man who died last year after being shocked with a stun gun during a confrontation with Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies is suing the county and the weapon's manufacturer. In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Carolina Silva accuses the county and Taser International Inc. of the wrongful death of her husband, Cesar.

When Sheriff Lee Baca agreed to let Fox showcase the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Academy in a reality TV show, he won praise for generating more revenue for the county and raising the department's profile. But after two seasons, the department's Office of Independent Review is calling on Baca to cancel "The Academy," saying it subjects young recruits to on-air humiliation, invasion of their personal privacy, harassment and threats to their safety.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department took in a record haul of firearms this year through its Gifts for Guns program, an annual event in Compton that allows people to anonymously turn in firearms in exchange for $100 gift cards at Target, Best Buy or Ralphs supermarkets. Over the last two weekends, deputies collected 965 weapons and distributed more than $95,000 in gift cards, deputies said. That far surpassed last year's total of 387 guns.

The request was straightforward, even flattering. Send a few hundred Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies across the country next month to assist Washington, D.C., police at the presidential inauguration. It's the price tag of $1.6 million -- with as much as $1 million coming from the county -- that has given some top officials indigestion. "We're not in a position to police other cities, as worthy as this is," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Tuesday. "This is not an emergency.

As the wife and three children of slain Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Juan Abel Escalante solemnly looked on, top law enforcement and city officials announced Saturday that two men had been arrested in the deputy's shooting death, although the motive in the killing is unclear.

Two suspected Avenues gang members were charged Tuesday with capital murder in the shooting of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Juan Abel Escalante outside his parents' home. Carlos Javier Velasquez, 24, the alleged gunman, and Guillermo Hernandez, 20, were charged with one count each of murder with the special circumstance that the Aug. 2 killing was carried out to further a criminal street gang, making it a potential death penalty case, prosecutors said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which is facing mounting pressure to account for its handling of DNA evidence from sex crimes, revealed Tuesday that it has a backlog of 4,727 untested sexual assault evidence kits in storage or its laboratory. Sheriff's Department officials informed the county Board of Supervisors that they are now auditing the unexamined kits to determine the status of each case.