Video Footage

A Los Angeles police officer shocked a handcuffed woman with a Taser stun gun while joking with other officers at the scene, according to interviews and law enforcement records, adding to a series of controversial use-of-force incidents at the LAPD. Officer Jorge Santander then appeared to lie about the December 2010 incident repeatedly in written reports. The three other LAPD officers who witnessed Santander stun the woman all corroborated his version of events when first questioned and failed to tell supervisors that one officer had recorded a video of the encounter, the records show.

WASHINGTON -- The FBI would like to interview individuals identified in video taken at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a House panel on Thursday. “There is some video that has raised the question of those that the FBI would like to speak with," Napolitano said, adding that she wouldn't characterize the individuals “as suspects under the technical term.” [Updated, 9:54 a.m. PDT: This post has been updated with Napolitano's full quote.

A man charged with spitting on a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was acquitted of battery this week after his defense attorney produced video footage that jurors said contradicted testimony by deputies. Several jurors said after the trial that deputies gave conflicting accounts of the October 2010 arrest of Steven Sartori and that the video did not show one of the deputies wiping away spit as she testified she had. The video, they said, also showed the deputies using more force than they acknowledged on the stand.

In an attempt to track down suspects, Long Beach police Monday released video footage from a gas station where two people, including a 10-year-old boy, were shot last week. The boy was sitting in a parked car with his parents at a gas station near Long Beach and Del Amo boulevards Friday night when a dispute between several other men escalated into gunfire, authorities said. At least one of the bullets hit the boy, critically wounding him. He was apparently not involved in the altercation.

Federal officials shuttered a Central California slaughterhouse after they concluded that cattle had been subjected to inhumane treatment but said Tuesday they had seen nothing to indicate that the company had compromised the safety of the public's food supply. The U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily closed Hanford-based Central Valley Meat Co. after reviewing video footage from the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing, which said it had captured images of torture and intentional cruelty to cows.

WASHINGTON -- A drive-by shooting early Monday morning in Washington, D.C., injured at least 11 people. None of the victims' injuries are life-threatening, a Washington Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman said Monday. The department is investigating whether a 12th person was hurt when two cars sped by a street corner in an up-and-coming part of the city, opening fire on a crowd gathered outside a building. Police have not yet released any information on the shooters' potential motives.

King Footage a Go: Rap artists BWP announced Tuesday that they have received permission from amateur cameraman George Holiday to feature his video footage of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police in their upcoming video, "Wanted." Holiday, who is being paid $1,500 for the footage, said he authorized the project because he felt "the overriding social statement made by this video is important."

A woman who bought a lottery ticket at her bank and left it on the counter after deciding it was worthless is $36,700 richer thanks to an honest customer. The Norwegian daily Verdens Gang said last week that the honest customer handed in the ticket and the bank traced the woman, whom it did not identify, with the help of video footage taken by security cameras.

Visceral video footage making the Internet rounds drops viewers into the scene of the fatal shooting of a knife-wielding man by New York police. As the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, New York police killed 51-year-old Darrius Kennedy in a very public shooting in Times Square .  The incident began with Kennedy allegedly smoking pot in the middle of Times Square. By the time it was over, Kennedy had a large knife in hand, and a phalanx of police officers was following him -- guns raised -- while onlookers trotted alongside with their camera phones.

Pat Polinger, co-owner of Vidiots, the Santa Monica video store and coffeehouse, joined an arts-oriented tour of the Soviet Union earlier this month, looking for two weeks of "fun and merriment." She got an unexpected bonus--political intrigue. She helped smuggle out video footage--possibly the first to reach the United States--of the brutal suppression by Russian soldiers of a peaceful demonstration in Soviet Georgia on April 9. The incident at Tbilisi, the capitol of Soviet Georgia, continues to rock Kremlin politics, according to recent news reports, with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev promising a full investigation.

WASHINGTON -- A drive-by shooting early Monday morning in Washington, D.C., injured at least 11 people. None of the victims' injuries are life-threatening, a Washington Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman said Monday. The department is investigating whether a 12th person was hurt when two cars sped by a street corner in an up-and-coming part of the city, opening fire on a crowd gathered outside a building. Police have not yet released any information on the shooters' potential motives.

Video footage of mischievous motorists cutting across traffic and ripping a set of tire-smoking doughnuts has again hit YouTube, causing an uproar among concerned citizens and authorities. The most recent videos, one shot in Oakland and the other in West Covina, show the latest in a string of incidents witnessed across the country as organized groups perform audacious choreographed tricks -- typically reserved for the most daring Hollywood stunt drivers -- on public streets. Such events have also been reported and prosecuted in Washington, D.C. , and Atlanta.

A Los Angeles police officer shocked a handcuffed woman with a Taser stun gun while joking with other officers at the scene, according to interviews and law enforcement records, adding to a series of controversial use-of-force incidents at the LAPD. Officer Jorge Santander then appeared to lie about the December 2010 incident repeatedly in written reports. The three other LAPD officers who witnessed Santander stun the woman all corroborated his version of events when first questioned and failed to tell supervisors that one officer had recorded a video of the encounter, the records show.

We want sophisticated technology to protect us. But we don't want it to stalk us. A new aerial surveillance system that the city of Lancaster put into place last week to reduce crime has the potential to do both, although with some strict monitoring, it might accomplish the former without subjecting residents to the latter. Officials in the high-desert city unveiled a program in which a small plane, manned by a pilot and equipped with cameras capturing real-time video footage of the landscape below, will fly in a loop at 3,000 feet.

The residents of Lancaster probably didn't notice it, but a small Cessna aircraft on Friday flew high above the desert city, capturing hours of video and ushering in a new era in law enforcement surveillance. The plane, equipped with sophisticated video equipment, is set fly a loop above the city for up to 10 hours a day, beaming a live video feed of what's going on below to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department dispatch center. The camera will inevitably pick up scenes of mundane day-to-day life.

Federal officials shuttered a Central California slaughterhouse after they concluded that cattle had been subjected to inhumane treatment but said Tuesday they had seen nothing to indicate that the company had compromised the safety of the public's food supply. The U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily closed Hanford-based Central Valley Meat Co. after reviewing video footage from the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing, which said it had captured images of torture and intentional cruelty to cows.

In an attempt to track down suspects, Long Beach police Monday released video footage from a gas station where two people, including a 10-year-old boy, were shot last week. The boy was sitting in a parked car with his parents at a gas station near Long Beach and Del Amo boulevards Friday night when a dispute between several other men escalated into gunfire, authorities said. At least one of the bullets hit the boy, critically wounding him. He was apparently not involved in the altercation.

In a cost-cutting move, three rival L.A. TV stations said Tuesday they would begin pooling some of their newsgathering operations June 15, sending out one camera crew instead of three to shoot video of news conferences and other general-interest events that all of them can use. The three are NBC-owned KNBC-TV Channel 4, Fox-owned KTTV-TV Channel 11 and KTLA-TV Channel 5, which is owned by Tribune Co. (which also owns The Times). They said they would continue to operate independently in all other aspects of their businesses, including editing and presenting the shared video footage as each newsroom chooses.

Visceral video footage making the Internet rounds drops viewers into the scene of the fatal shooting of a knife-wielding man by New York police. As the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, New York police killed 51-year-old Darrius Kennedy in a very public shooting in Times Square .  The incident began with Kennedy allegedly smoking pot in the middle of Times Square. By the time it was over, Kennedy had a large knife in hand, and a phalanx of police officers was following him -- guns raised -- while onlookers trotted alongside with their camera phones.

Police hope newly released surveillance video footage will help solve a homicide case in which a cook was shot to death last week at the Sherman Oaks restaurant where he worked. The slaying of Raul Lopez, 38, the father of five children, forced the temporary closure of Hoagies & Wings on Ventura Boulevard just west of Van Nuys Boulevard. Authorities said the killing began with a dispute last Friday around 11 p.m. and involved a group of five men who had ordered but were unhappy about how long it was taking to get their food.