Swat

A suspected drug dealer killed by a SWAT officer raiding a South-Central area rock cocaine house was identified Friday as Isadore Lyman Green, 31, of Los Angeles. Officer Scott Reitz, 36, fired two shots from his 12-gauge shotgun at Green, striking him in the head and chest Thursday afternoon as he reached for a sawed-off shotgun when officers ordered him to put his hands over his head, Lt. William Hall said. Green was pronounced dead at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center shortly after the shooting.

Re " 'Spank Your Child, Go to Jail,' " Voices, Sept. 2: Spanking, defined as a swat to the bottom of a child with a hand, is generally not illegal. What can be classified as child abuse is hitting a child with any kind of instrument or weapon, hitting a child on the face or head, hitting a child that leaves bruises or draws blood. A swat on the bottom of a infant child could be life-threatening and could indeed be labeled as child abuse, but not on an older child. How old was this child?

This is in response to Kent Carroll's March 21 letter, "Police Too Eager to Pull the Trigger." His letter serves no other purpose than to show how ignorant and irresponsible people in our society can be. He used his soapbox to point blame at the very people who put their lives on the line 24 hours a day to protect all of us. The accident that led to the death of Officer Jim Jensen doesn't deserve to be Monday morning quarterbacked. It was an unfortunate sequence of events by dedicated community servants.

The Los Angeles Board of Pension Commissioners voted 4 to 1 to approve a hearing examiner's recommendation to discontinue the disability pension of a former Los Angeles police officer who is the sheriff of Josephine County (Grants Pass), Oregon. The former policeman, William E. Arnado, 44, took office last January while drawing his $1,700-a-month disability pension for back problems.

The Las Vegas police lieutenant who killed his wife, son and himself was Hans Pieter Walters, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner said in a statement Tuesday. Walters told a dispatcher Monday that he had shot his family and threatened to set his home on fire and harm any officers who responded, authorities said.  When police arrived, they found the family's Boulder City, Nev., home partially engulfed in flames and Walters in the doorway with a gun. He ignored police commands and went back into the house, authorities said.

An off-duty Las Vegas police officer shot his wife and young son before setting his home ablaze and committing suicide Monday, authorities said. A 52-year-old man dialed 911 from his Boulder City, Nev., home at 8:20 a.m.  and told a dispatcher that he had killed his wife and his son and that he planned to set his home on fire and harm any responding officers, said Keith Paul, a spokesman for the Henderson Police Department, which was handling the...

OAK CREEK, Wis. - A rampage at a Sikh temple that left seven dead and three critically wounded Sunday was called a possible case of domestic terrorism, prompting the FBI to take over the investigation. One of the dead was the suspected gunman. Tattoos on his body and certain biographical details led to the preliminary terrorism classification, according to a federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. In an afternoon press conference, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards called it a case of domestic terrorism.

Last week, on the second-season premiere of "Deadliest Warrior" (10 p.m. Tuesdays on Spike), a handsome, well-muscled gentleman named Tim stripped off his shirt and took one for history. A few feet away stood a man with a Taser, who fired it into Tim's back, its talons embedding into his skin while he convulsed and was laid on the ground by two aides. Geoffrey Desmoulin, one of the show's hosts and a pain enthusiast, screamed in ecstasy: "Tase him, bro!" Part fantasy sports league, part historical reenactment, part Consumer Reports field test, part video game, part torture porn, part monster-truck rally color commentary, "Deadliest Warrior" is an unconventional hybrid, yet unmistakably demographic-driven.

A 22-year-old man with a "history of mental illness" drove his car into the front of an Anaheim sporting goods store early Monday and was found dead nine hours later in a dressing room, where he had shot himself in the head, authorities said. Tape-recorded pleas from his family in Korean and English, crisis negotiators and a psychologist drew no response from Jeffrey Allen Kim, an Anaheim resident whose body was discovered inside the Big 5 Sporting Goods store on Harbor Boulevard about 10 a.m.

The Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday bestowed its highest honor for bravery in the line of duty on 25 officers. Five of the recipients were women -- more than in any previous year in the department's history. The annual Medal of Valor ceremony is one of the department's proudest: a chance to highlight moments of crisis when officers "performed an act displaying extreme courage while consciously facing imminent peril," according to the award guidelines.