In the News

SAN FRANCISCO>> Four San Francisco police officers did not use excessive force in 2014 when they shot and killed a man who allegedly pointed a stun gun at them that they mistook for a pistol, a federal jury found Thursday in a lawsuit filed by the man’s family.

The eight-member jury decided that the officers had not violated the constitutional rights of Alejandro “Alex” Nieto, a 27-year-old City College of San Francisco student and security guard, when they fired multiple shots at him in Bernal Heights Park. Read More

April 5–6  |  Reno, Nevada Symposium Topics: Incidents and Issues Affecting the Environment for Law Enforcement   Ferguson Debrief The events in Ferguson, Missouri, will forever change policing in the […] Read More

The beautiful bronze and granite California Peace Officers’ Memorial located on State Capitol grounds in Sacramento contains the names of more than 1,500 courageous peace officers who have laid down their lives in the line of duty protecting and serving their fellow Californians. Tragically, every year more names are added. You can help the CPOMF… Read More

Amy Brown, legislative advocate and editor/publisher of the Public Retirement Journal and the PERS Public Agency Coalition Alert, chats with California City News’, Mike Madrid, about the ever-changing beast that […] Read More

Ninety minutes after midnight on a recent Saturday, Sacramento resident Jackie Andersen learned that her son – a lively 16-year-old student at American Legion High who played football and basketball – was dying. Read More

The LAPD sent its dive unit into a Van Nuys storm drain Thursday, looking for an “unknown dark object” that officers told investigators they saw a man holding before they fatally shot him.
Police said the man threw a 40-ounce beer bottle through the back window of the officers’ patrol car on Saturday night, prompting them to bail out and open fire. The man died at the scene. Read More

The Southern California Auxiliary – Wives Behind the Badge, Inc. is proud to bring Paint the Town Blue to Southern California to show support for law enforcement. Read More

When Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a 10-year ban on gun ownership for people who had been convicted of certain gun-related crimes, he said the bill was one of a group of measures that would needlessly clutter California’s law books by finding new ways to penalize conduct that was already illegal. Read More

Waving American flags and holding up signs that read “Blue Lives Matter,” about 100 Los Angeles police officers joined members of the community at a rally in Hollywood on Saturday intended to show support for the department at a time when crime is spiking and the ambush killings of police officers in cities elsewhere have left authorities across the nation feeling under siege.

The demonstrators gathered first in front of the CNN building on Sunset Boulevard and later at the nearby Hollywood Community Police Station. Motorists, including patrol officers and firefighters, expressed their appreciation by honking horns and sounding sirens. Read More

Former Mayor Chuck Reed said Friday he will either rewrite his state ballot measure that asks voters to approve public pensions or sue state Attorney General Kamala Harris for what he calls a “misleading and unfair” description designed to negatively sway voters.

It’s the second time Reed has taken issue with Harris’ title and summary of his pension reform initiative. The same argument in 2013 derailed efforts to place a similar measure on the ballot in time. Read More

One of three officers injured in two inmate attacks at Folsom prison is undergoing treatment for a concussion with brain bleeding, according to Lt. Aaron Konrad, public information officer for California State Prisons, Sacramento.

The officer was punched repeatedly in the head by an inmate in an incident that followed an earlier melee between 10 inmates and two other officers. Those officers were treated at an area hospital for sprains to the forearm. Read More

San Jose police officers shot and wounded a man Thursday after being sent to a mobile-home park to check on welfare of an individual, officials said Friday.

The shooting broke out at 6:34 p.m. at Monterey Oaks Mobile Home Park in the 6100 block of Monterey Road, said Sgt. Erique Garcia of the San Jose Police Department. He said officers received a call to check on the welfare of a person at the mobile-home park. Read More

Police: Body cam video highlights difficulty of discerning real from fake guns
WEST VALLEY CITY — Newly released body cam video documents an intense gunpoint encounter with West Valley City Police officers and two teens armed with guns that turned out to be fake.

Police are pointing to the ordeal as an example of why it’s difficult for officers to discern fake from real guns at times when the use of deadly force is possible.

The video, obtained by KSL through an open records request, offers a first-person police perspective of the exchange that took place the night of Sept. 11 on the grounds of Monroe Elementary. Read More

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department will now require a judge’s approval before it uses its high-tech Stingray surveillance tool, Sheriff Scott Jones said Tuesday, unveiling a new policy governing the controversial technology.

The device’s technology mimics a cellular network’s cell tower, tricking a cellphone and other mobile devices into connecting to it. The cellphones can be identified and text messages and outgoing calls can be intercepted without the users’ knowledge. Law enforcement can then use the information to collect location data from investigative targets. Read More

He was not a terrorist with a dirty bomb in his suitcase.

He was not a stalker with a Glock in his fist.

He was not even a mugger with a switchblade in his pocket.

James Blake was not, in other words, an imminent danger of the sort that might have justified a police officer in tackling him to the ground last week, as much of the world has now seen in a surveillance video. All Blake was — more accurately, all the police believed him to be — was a guy who had committed credit card fraud. Read More