Police Misconduct

Los Angeles commuters have been improperly detained, pushed, choked and struck by Metropolitan Transportation Authority security guards, according to interviews and internal law enforcement memos obtained by The Times. Alleged assaults over the last two years have prompted at least 11 investigations by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, which has repeatedly complained to MTA officials about abusive security officers, as the guards are called within the MTA.

On the last afternoon of his life, Bernard Monroe was hosting a cookout for family and friends in front of his dilapidated home in this small northern Louisiana town. Throat cancer had left the 73-year-old retired electric utility worker unable to talk, but family members said he clearly was enjoying the commotion of a dozen of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren cavorting in the grassless yard.

The City Council on Wednesday agreed to pay nearly $13 million to people injured or mistreated in a May Day melee in MacArthur Park, bringing to more than $30 million the money spent over the last two weeks to settle lawsuits alleging LAPD misconduct. The action served as a reminder of the Los Angeles Police Department's troubled past and its continuing path toward regaining the trust of some city residents and elected officials. For the LAPD, Wednesday's $12.

On the evening of Feb. 24, 1986, LAPD homicide detectives found Sherri Rae Rasmussen's badly beaten body on the living room floor of her Van Nuys town house with wounds from three .38-caliber bullets to her chest. Weeks later, Stephanie Lazarus, a young Los Angeles police officer, called the Santa Monica Police Department to report that someone had broken into her car on 2nd Street, blocks from the pier. A gym bag had been stolen, she said.

FBI officials confirmed Wednesday that they are investigating possible civil rights violations alleged by officers at the Burbank Police Department. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller would not comment on specifics of the probe by the agency's civil rights division or how long the probe would last. At least seven lawsuits alleging a pattern of racial discrimination and retaliation, as well as unlawful demotions or firings, have been filed by officers against the department. Burbank Mayor Gary Bric said he was confident that the investigations into the department, which also includes an independent probe by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, would be thorough and complete.

An independent examination of how the Los Angeles Police Department investigates officers accused of profiling people based on race, gender or sexual orientation found serious problems with a third of the sampled investigations, the inspector general for the L.A. Police Commission reported Tuesday. In six of 20 LAPD investigations into allegations of "biased policing" -- the department's new name for what has traditionally been termed racial profiling -- police failed to interview witnesses, did not ask important questions or made similar mistakes, concluded Andre Birotte, the inspector general, in the 41-page report.

A videotape shows two Hawthorne police officers slapping high-fives in the aftermath of an arrest in which one of their co-workers allegedly kicked a handcuffed suspect in the face, breaking his jaw. Confronted with the videotape, which was recorded at the city's jail, Hawthorne officials last week paid $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the 25-year-old suspect, Anthony Goodrow.

None of the Los Angeles police officers accused of using excessive force on demonstrators and journalists at a 2007 May Day gathering at MacArthur Park will be fired, officials said Tuesday. Police Chief William J. Bratton had sought to punish 11 officers and called for the termination of four others by sending them to disciplinary panels for their involvement in the melee, which has cost the city $13 million in legal settlements.

The chief of the Burbank Police Department announced Monday that he is stepping down, a month after the FBI revealed it was investigating several current and former officers at the agency. Tim Stehr, 51, who became chief in 2007, made his announcement in a statement released by the city. He did not give a reason for his resignation. "It has been my absolute privilege to serve as chief in the city of Burbank," Stehr said in the statement. "Our department is facing challenging times.

Did a sheriff's deputy violate the constitutional rights -- and derail the professional golf career -- of a Rancho Palos Verdes man when she raided his home in search of evidence to convict his parents of pimping and prostitution? A U.S. District Court jury thought so two years ago when it ordered Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Angela Walton to pay $80,000 in damages to Kim L. Johnson and $100 to his aunt, Sun Min Lee, who was subjected to what the court then deemed an unreasonable intrusion.