Police Brutality

Reports of police brutality have been phoned to various members of the press, probably by visitors to the area on July 4. This letter is to state as strongly as I know how that there was no "brutality" from the police in this area, 38th Street, which I understand was one of the hot spots. The police were very much under control. I'm sorry they are so restrained by law that they can't give as much as they take when on duty. I saw several take direct hits by thrown bottles. I swept up pounds of broken glass from the street just in front of my house, all a result of bottles pitched mostly at patrolmen.

CAIRO -- The judge in the murder retrial of Hosni Mubarak abruptly withdrew from the case Saturday, sending the matter to another court and delaying the deposed president's fate over the actions of his police and army during the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Wheeled into the defendant's cage on a stretcher, Mubarak looked more robust than in past court sessions. He smiled and waved to supporters on hand at the trial for complicity in the killing of more than 850 protesters, a case that has become an irritating sideshow to the nation's troubled democratic transition and deepening economic turmoil.

Only rarely does a judge in a criminal case overturn the verdict reached by jurors in her own courtroom. Still rarer is the judge who admits to committing an error so serious it taints a verdict. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor did both Friday night in an extraordinary ruling that overturned the convictions of three Rampart Division police officers, impressing legal scholars with both her tightly reasoned legal arguments and her unusual candor.

OAKLAND -- Amid raucous cheers from family members, Oakland's strapped Police Department on Friday welcomed 38 new officers to the force -- marking the first graduating academy class in four years. The ceremony comes as the department's number of sworn officers has plummeted from 809 to 611 over the last four years, a drop that marks the lowest staffing levels in a decade. As in other cities, the reductions came as a result of recession-era hiring freezes combined with attrition.

A former police officer pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to obstruct justice and filing a false police report in connection with an assault on a gang member as part of a plea bargain marking the last Superior Court case stemming from the Los Angeles Police Department Rampart corruption scandal. Ethan Cohan, 32, agreed to a sentence of one year in county jail in the plea deal with prosecutors. The term is less than one-fifth of the maximum sentence of 5 1/3 years in state prison.

I remember the show ran on Monday nights and I remember my father loved it. He was the family's biggest fan of "Dragnet." My mother refused to watch, probably on religious grounds, but the rest of us did, every week. "Dragnet" was part of our routine. That took place in Memphis, Tenn., 1953 or '54. We had one of the first TV sets on the block and "Dragnet" was our introduction to California. We saw palm trees growing out of the sidewalks and crooks wearing Hawaiian shirts.

In light of the terrible financial crisis at our California universities, I feel the need to rescue UC Davis, whose administrators are, according to The Times, negotiating a price with the Kroll security firm in New York for none other than former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton to fly West and tell us what went wrong on the day that students were pepper sprayed. I can save the university a hefty Kroll consulting fee by suggesting that the administrators carefully peruse a few of the newspaper articles of the past week and all will be revealed to them.

Definition--police brutality: when thousands of honest, dedicated police officers are tarred with the same brush as the rotten apples. PATT RICHARDS Arcadia

HOUSTON -- An 18-year-old who testified in the first trial of several former Houston police officers accused of beating him during a 2010 burglary arrest has been arrested again -- on suspicion of burglary. Less than two months after Chad Holley finished probation in connection with his 2010 arrest and conviction, he was arrested last Wednesday on suspicion of burglarizing a home. Holley's lawyer could not be reached for comment Monday. A spokeswoman for Harris County Dist.

Nine South African police officers pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of killing a man who died after being dragged behind their van, according to news reports. The police officer driving the vehicle said he was unaware of what was happening to the man when he began pulling away from an agitated crowd, according to Agence France - Presse . The death of Mido Macia last week outraged South Africans after a video was posted online by the Daily Sun tabloid.

CAIRO - An Egyptian human rights groups reported this week that torture and police brutality, which helped spark a national uprising two years ago, have continued under the new Islamist-led government. Over the course of 2011 and 2012, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) documented more than 20 extrajudicial killings as a result of torture or "unnecessary" use of firearms by police forces, the group said in a report released ahead of the second anniversary of the Jan. 25 revolt that eventually toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.

Black Against Empire The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr.University of California Press: 560 pp., $34.95 The defenders of the 2nd Amendment once had a powerful ally in America: the Black Panthers. The self-styled revolutionaries believed there's something powerful and liberating about holding a firearm in your hands. In "Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party," we learn that Huey Newton and Bobby Seale felt lots of gun love as they drove up and down the streets of Oakland in 1966.

OAKLAND - A federal judge has placed Oakland Police Department reform efforts under his direct control, citing nearly a decade of inadequate attempts to comply with a legal settlement in a case that unmasked systemic police brutality and racial profiling. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on Wednesday signed off on an 11th-hour agreement reached last week between the city and plaintiffs' attorneys under which he will appoint a full-time "compliance director" with sweeping powers to dictate changes related to the case.

Prosecutors have dropped charges against a young man whose videotaped beating by New York police officers inside a Jewish community center where he had been sleeping sparked protests. The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, announced Monday that after reviewing the video and other facts of the case, there was no evidence that Ehud Halevy, 21, assaulted police officers and resisted arrest on Oct. 8. That morning, police confronted Halevy as he slept  inside the Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood.

MOSCOW - Two police officers in Kazan, Russia, were sentenced to less than three years in prison Tuesday after the first convictions in a high-profile case that involved the illegal detention and death of a resident. Human rights activists complained that the sentences were too short to discourage abuses by police. Officers Ilshat Garifullin and Ramil Nigmatzyanov received sentences of 2 1/2 and two years, respectively, for exceeding their authority after the court determined that they illegally arrested Sergei Nazarov on March 9. Investigators allege that on the night of the arrest, Nazarov, 52, was beaten and sexually assaulted by colleagues of the two officers.

Facing public concern over three videotaped incidents in which police used serious force to subdue people, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to host a series of community meetings to discuss with the public why officers use force and how the department investigates such encounters. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck ordered meetings held by the department's 21 stations throughout the city, Lt. Andrew Neiman said. The dates of the meetings have not yet been set, Neiman said, adding that he expected them to occur in the near future "because it is such a hot topic right now. " The meetings will give the public an opportunity to ask questions about the three incidents that reignited old concerns about Los Angeles officers using excessive force.

The official police account is terse and clear: Alesia Thomas left her two children, 12 and 3, outside a police station in Southeast Los Angeles in the middle of the night. When LAPD officers went to her apartment to find out why, she told them she was addicted to drugs and couldn't take care of the kids. They tried to place her under arrest but she "actively resisted" and a struggle ensued. A short time later, she was dead. A patrol car camera captured some of the action: She'd been wrestled to the ground and stomped.