Public Safety

What are the nature and purpose of a reward offered to help apprehend a criminal suspect? As generations of first-year law students have learned, a reward may be viewed as a contract in which someone, usually a public agency, makes an "offer" of money in return for information; a person with information then "accepts" that offer by providing the information and pocketing the cash. That's fine as a legal definition, but it ignores the larger purpose of a reward. A reward is an inducement - a way of engaging the public in the attempt to thwart some threat to safety.

Seven air-traffic control towers in Southern California will close next month as a result of forced federal budget cuts, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday. The FAA had considered closing as many as 189 towers at smaller airports across the nation, including 14 in Southern California. The agency must cut $637 million from its budget by Sept. 30 as part of $85 billion in so-called sequestration cuts across the federal government. Southern California will lose towers in Fullerton, Oxnard, Riverside, San Diego, Victorville, Pacoima and Lancaster.

Nearly every week, 70-year-old Barb Johnson hears word of a nearby robbery or car break-in in Vermont Knolls , her neighborhood of modest bungalows just west of the Harbor Freeway in South Los Angeles. So it was alarming, she says, to learn this week that voters had rejected a proposed city sales tax increase that the mayor, the police chief and other civic leaders said was vital to shoring up the Los Angeles Police Department and improving emergency services. "How are we supposed to keep our streets safe if there's no money?"

A Los Angeles sales tax hike being promoted as vital to preserving public safety and helping end years of budget deficits is drawing support from a narrow majority of likely voters, according to a new USC Price/L.A. Times poll. Fifty-three percent of surveyed voters said they definitely or probably would vote for Proposition A, which is on Tuesday's ballot and would raise $200 million a year by boosting the city's sales tax rate by half a cent to 9.5%, one of the highest in the state.

The Department of Homeland Security began releasing immigrants from detention centers across the country this week, in anticipation of looming budget cuts. Contrary to what some Republicans in Congress have said, those released are not criminals but rather low-risk detainees, such as asylum-seekers, foreign nationals who overstayed visas and undocumented immigrants arrested for minor offenses who were granted bail but were unable to post the money. In other words, immigrants who pose no risk to public safety but are still facing deportation trials.

In the three-plus years since Charlie Beck put on the chief's badge at the LAPD, his goal has been to consolidate a modern, multiethnic, publicly responsible 10,000-officer department, as envisioned in the rattling reforms of 15 and 20 years ago. The chief's recent trial by fire was about one ex-probationary cop named Christopher Dorner and the manhunt that ended in Dorner's death, consumed millions in law enforcement dollars and ate up, for the moment...

Somebody still enjoys getting the newspaper delivered in Gettysburg, Pa., where the "smack" of the bundle landing on the ground was so loud that it prompted a Gettysburg College student to report gunfire on campus. Before you could say "stop the presses," safety officials had locked down the campus in the city famous for the bloody and pivotal Civil War battle. Thankfully, this time there were no shots fired -- just copies of newspapers landing outside shortly before dawn on Saturday.

Five of the seven candidates seeking to represent a major portion of South Los Angeles on the City Council said Saturday they oppose the sales tax hike on the March 5 ballot, arguing it would disproportionately harm low-income residents. Appearing at their first candidate forum, the contenders seeking to replace Councilwoman Jan Perry staked out positions on public safety, economic development and Proposition A, which would bring the city's tax rate to 9.5%, among the highest in the state.

Scapadas Magicas LLC, the company that owns the tour bus involved in the deadly crash Sunday on California 38 that killed eight people and left dozens injured, is "an imminent hazard to public safety" and must close immediately, federal officials said Friday. "After the tragic crash earlier this week ... investigators quickly inspected this carrier's other two buses which had been operated on U.S. roads, and immediately shut them down," Anne S. Ferro of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said in a news release.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday backed the half-cent sales tax hike on the March 5 ballot, which is being pushed as a way to shield the Police Department and other public safety agencies from employee cuts. The increase, which is backed by some key business leaders and labor leaders as a means to preserve public services, would push the city's sales tax rate to 9.5%, among the highest in the state. Villaraigosa did not give his reasons for backing Proposition A, saying through a spokesman that he would make a statement next week.