Police Shootings

As a young man in South Los Angeles, Winston Hayes got to know the Compton courthouse well, getting hauled before judges more than a dozen times to answer charges of arson, assault and other crimes. On Friday, Hayes, 46, was back in court, but this time he walked out $1,326,468.60 richer after a civil court jury decided that Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies used excessive force on him three years ago.

The 27-year-old man who pulled off a daytime jewelry store robbery Sunday at a crowded Mission Viejo mall stumbled and fell while racing to his car before discovering he was on the wrong level of a parking structure. As he tried to jog down the flight of stairs to his car, a pair of deputies were climbing up -- an encounter that ended in fatal gunfire. It appears nothing went right for Kirk Christian Knight in a robbery that had a tragic ending for the Rancho Santa Margarita man.

An off-duty Costa Mesa police officer who shot and killed one man and wounded another in Temecula last weekend was attacked first and may have been defending himself, investigators said Tuesday. Riverside County sheriff's detectives based their conclusion -- vigorously denied by the dead man's family and friends -- on interviews with witnesses they said had no connection to either group involved in the incident.

The day after back-to-back shootings by Los Angeles police officers on the same Wilmington block, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton on Friday addressed the high number of deadly confrontations officers have been engaged in this year. "It is regrettable that there is so much violence in this city," Bratton said at a news conference, where he welcomed back an officer who had been wounded in one of the year's shootouts.

The unarmed wife of a Marine and her 8-year-old son were recovering Tuesday after an off-duty San Diego police officer shot them in a weekend road rage incident, authorities said. Police offered few details about the shooting, which occurred at 9:14 p.m. Saturday in Oceanside. Sgt. Kelan Poorman of the Oceanside Police Department said that the incident remains under investigation, and that detectives have not interviewed the woman, who was being treated at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.

The Oceanside Police Department on Thursday defended its investigation into an incident in which an off-duty San Diego police officer shot a woman and her 8-year-old son after a traffic altercation. Oceanside Police Capt. Tom Aguigui said investigators are still trying to figure out what led Officer Frank White to fire five shots at Oceanside resident Rachel Silva's car in a mall parking lot. White was not arrested or tested for drugs or alcohol.

. -- The three police officers on trial for killing a 23-year-old man on his wedding day behaved appropriately, a defense lawyer said in closing arguments Monday, casting blame for the incident on one of the young man's friends. But prosecutors asked the judge to consider the officers' actions more closely. "Before we pin medals on the defendants for their heroism, let's look at what they did," said prosecutor Charles Testagrossa.

Investigators say an off-duty Costa Mesa police officer acted in self-defense when he shot and killed one man and wounded another after he was attacked last month outside a restaurant in Old Town Temecula. Riverside County sheriff's detectives interviewed more than 20 people in the area where the incident took place, including eyewitnesses, before concluding that Officer Scott Dibble, 31, a nine-year veteran, was the victim in the assault. Shaun Vilan, 30, of Temecula was killed in the shooting.

A Fresno high school sophomore was shot dead by a campus police officer Wednesday after he struck the officer in the head with a bat inside the school, Fresno police said. The officer fired on the 17-year-old boy at least once as he struggled to regain his footing after being knocked to the ground, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer told reporters at an afternoon news conference. Officers tried to revive the student but he died at the scene, Dyer said.

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.