Police Misconduct

A sheriff who made $212,000 in the last three years by feeding inmates what a judge said were skimpy meals was released from jail after submitting a plan to feed them better. Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett profited legally from a Depression-era state law that allows sheriffs to keep any money they can make by feeding inmates for less than what they receive in state funding. U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon had Bartlett arrested Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the Inglewood Police Department in the wake of several officer-involved shootings of unarmed suspects and other incidents in which the agency has been accused of using excessive force. A Justice Department spokeswoman described the investigation as a "pattern or practice" inquiry into the Police Department that is being handled by the federal agency's civil rights division in Washington. The probe marks the second ongoing investigation into the department, which was the focus of community protests last year when officers shot and killed four people -- three of them unarmed -- in the span of four months.

New Orleans police say a man first described as a police impersonator who ordered women to undress in their homes has turned out to be a rookie officer. Police Supt. Warren Riley said Darrius Clipps graduated from the police academy last April. They say he admitted two out of three home invasions and resigned. Clipps was booked on counts including malfeasance in office and sexual battery.

Two Mexican federal agents were deported Tuesday, one week after entering pleas on drug charges in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Immigration agents handed Carlos Cedano-Filippini, 35, and Victor Manuel Juarez-Cruz, 35, over to Mexican authorities at the San Ysidro border crossing Tuesday morning, "amid extraordinarily tight security," according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The men, both part of Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigations, were arrested in July at a West Covina house in connection with an ongoing narcotics investigation.

London's armed police officers, who had been refusing to carry guns in an unprecedented protest in support of two colleagues, called off their action. About 120 of the 400 members of the armed unit had joined the action to back the two men, who were suspended for shooting dead a man named Harry Stanley in 1999. The accused officers said they thought Stanley had a sawed-off shotgun, but he was carrying a table leg. They were found guilty last week of unlawful killing and were suspended from duty.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has suspended three deputies and opened a criminal investigation into allegations that they assaulted a jail inmate and pepper-sprayed his genital area. The investigation started after Alejandro Franco, 23, alleged that jailers, upset because he swore at one of them, took him to an isolated place and assaulted him in November.

The LAPD's investigation into the actions of its officers during the MacArthur Park melee last May will be presented to the district attorney's office and department managers by the end of the month, Deputy Chief Mark Perez told the city's Police Commission on Monday. A May 1 immigration rally turned violent after Metro Division police officers responded to a small group of people throwing rocks and plastic bottles. Officers marched across the park firing hundreds of foam-like bullets and wielding batons at the protesters and the media.

A director of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Multicultural Advisory Council has been stripped of his reserve deputy status after Glendale police complained that he showed up at the scene of a suicide last week, flashing his badge and demanding access to a restricted area. The Glendale incident marks the latest in a string of cases in which reserve deputies or volunteers working for sheriff's departments around Southern California have been accused of overstepping their authority.

The state attorney general is reviewing whether interim Orange County Sheriff Jack Anderson broke the law by appearing in uniform while trying to dissuade the San Clemente City Council from endorsing a former sheriff's lieutenant as a replacement for indicted Sheriff Michael S. Carona, who later resigned. During a council meeting in November, shortly after Carona was indicted on corruption charges, Anderson, then an assistant sheriff, told the council members that Lt.

Winston Hayes knows it was probably the "biggest mistake" of his life when he led Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies on a low-speed chase through a Compton neighborhood three years ago: He was driving under the influence, evading arrest and was shot at 120 times by deputies during a wild incident captured by a freelance cameraman and televised on newscasts nationwide. "Mr.