Los Angeles Fire Department

A Los Angeles Fire Department unit formed to better investigate employee discrimination lawsuits is getting its budget cut, raising questions about whether officials will be able to counter a wave of payouts that have cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The city had earmarked $360,000 for the Professional Standard Division, but $241,000 will now be used to help offset a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall, officials said Tuesday.

Shots were fired at Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics early this morning as they entered the courtyard of a large apartment complex in Crenshaw on an emergency call, authorities said. No one was injured and officials have not identified a suspect, said Sgt. Ed Clark with the Los Angeles Police Department's Southwest Division. About 2 a.m., Fire Department paramedics responded to a 911 call from the apartment complex in the 4100 block of Palmwood Drive, Clark said. When the paramedics arrived, someone "fired numerous rounds in their direction," he said.

City firefighters discovered a man's body early Saturday morning after extinguishing a Montecito Heights fire. The outdoor blaze was reported shortly before 3 a.m. in the 3100 block of Amethyst Street northeast of downtown, said Brian Humphrey, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman. Firefighters extinguished the blaze, then found the victim, who was taken to the coroner's office for an autopsy. It appears the man started a fire to keep warm, Humphrey said. -- Jason Song

It wasn't just that his fellow firefighters put dog food in his spaghetti at a fire station and watched him eat it, laughing. It was what happened in the months after former Los Angeles Firefighter Tennie Pierce reported the incident that led him to sue his department for racial harassment, Pierce and his lawyer said at a forum Saturday in Leimert Park. "As I've always said about this case, it's the retaliation, stupid," said lawyer Genie Harrison. "The dog food incident was really the catalyst.

Firefighters discovered a man dead early Monday in a burning apartment in the Palms neighborhood near Culver City, and officials were investigating the cause of death, authorities said. The victim, about 40, was found just after 5 a.m. in a second-floor unit in the 10900 block of West Regent Street, said Ron Myers, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. "The fire itself was a relatively small fire within the structure," Myers said. The cause of the fire also was under investigation.

The Los Angeles Fire Department was investigating Saturday the cause of a fire that heavily damaged a two-story building in downtown's fashion district. The fire at 851 San Julian Place was reported at 10:22 p.m. Friday and started on the building's first floor, where rolled carpets and other supplies were being stored, said Fire Department spokesman Cecil Manresa. The fire spread to the second floor of the warehouse before firefighters contained the blaze shortly before midnight, Manresa said.

The man whose 72-year-old mother was left behind in a crumpled car towed to a police impound lot said Wednesday that he remembers little about the car crash that killed her and put him in a hospital intensive care unit. From his hospital bed, Steven Williams, 48, of Paso Robles, Calif., said he has epilepsy and believes that he had a seizure in the moments before he slammed the car into a Tarzana strip mall Saturday morning.

A Superior Court judge has ordered a new trial for a black firefighter who sued the city after alleging he suffered harassment and discrimination in the Los Angeles Fire Department. The suit by Jabari Jumaane was rejected by a jury in June after it deliberated for two days. But after receiving a declaration from a juror, Judge Mel Recana on Monday ordered a new trial "because of juror misconduct," court records show.

The wildfires that scorched Southern California last week convinced Michael Morris that fighting fires is something he wants to do. "The community has a need for firefighters," said Morris as he sat in a cavernous gymnasium near Elysian Park waiting to hear a recruiting pitch from the Los Angeles Fire Department. "I'm looking for a career change," said the marketing manager, who lives in Westminster. "I want to be one of those who have the heart to put their lives in danger every day."

After investigating two new complaints of workplace mistreatment, federal officials have accused the Los Angeles Fire Department of violating civil rights laws by subjecting African American and female firefighters to a "pattern and practice" of discrimination, harassment and retaliation.