Police Brutality

The Orange County district attorney's office has opened an investigation into a violent struggle between sheriff's deputies and an inmate who sustained life-threatening injuries, officials said Tuesday. The action is the latest setback to the department as it struggles to recover from a series of allegations involving the treatment of inmates.

They lied, they changed their stories and they compared notes even after being ordered not to by a special Orange County grand jury investigating a deadly beating at Theo Lacy Jail, the testimony shows. During 45 days of grand jury prodding, members of the Sheriff's Department repeatedly hindered the probe, according to thousands of pages of transcripts made public last week. Then-Sheriff Michael S.

Two members of a Bell Gardens family who said police beat them at a Halloween costume party in 2005 have been awarded a $4.5-million civil rights judgment, their attorneys said Monday.

The district attorney has cleared three San Diego police officers of criminal liability in an incident in which a 40-year-old man suffered fatal injuries while resisting arrest in July 2006, the Police Department announced Monday. Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis has concluded that officers Chris Tivinian, Michael DeWitt and Mark Brenner followed police procedure in using force to subdue Darryl Lamark Johnson, who had fled when officers sought to question him about riding a bicycle at night without a light.

As many as 1,000 police officers are poised for action if community unrest follows Friday's verdict in the trial of three detectives charged in a high-profile shooting death, authorities said Wednesday. The New York Police Department has organized crowd-control training for hundreds of officers and met with borough supervisors as part of the preparations.

A Philadelphia police sergeant and five officers were pulled from street duty as city officials investigated television footage showing a group of officers kicking and punching three shooting suspects during a traffic stop. More than a dozen officers were involved, but Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said investigators were having the videotape enhanced to help determine how many of them were actually striking the suspects. Police stopped the suspects' car while investigating a triple shooting Monday night.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday vetoed a City Council plan to spend $210,000 for nine outside law firms to defend the city against nearly two dozen lawsuits stemming from the MacArthur Park police melee on May 1, 2007. In a letter to council members, Villaraigosa called the number of law firms "excessive," saying he would support the hiring of just two in the midst of a budget crunch. He argued that the majority of 21 lawsuits and hundreds of claims filed against the city could be resolved through mediation, reducing the need for outside legal help.

A former Maywood police officer was convicted Wednesday of assaulting a handcuffed suspect and filing a false police report about the incident afterward. Prosecutors argued in a seven-day jury trial that Michael Joseph Singleton rammed the prisoner's head against a wall in retaliation for a stream of insults and behavior that included spitting at the officer. The victim, Jose Bernal, now 35, was knocked unconscious, his nose was broken and he suffered temporary paralysis to one side of his face.

At 1:28 p.m. on Jan. 17, Baron "Scooter" Pikes was a healthy 21-year-old. By 2:07 p.m., he was dead. What happened in the 39 minutes in between -- during which Pikes was handcuffed by police and shocked nine times with a Taser while reportedly pleading for mercy -- is spawning suspicions of a political cover-up in this lumber town infamous for backroom dealings. Racial tensions also are mounting; Pikes was black and the officer involved is white.

Seeking to defuse growing racial tensions in the small Louisiana town of Winnfield, the district attorney announced Monday that he would seek an indictment against a white officer in the death of a black man who was shocked nine times with a Taser while handcuffed. Winn Parish Dist. Atty. Chris Nevils said he would convene a grand jury Aug.