Prop. 8 sponsors ask U.S. Supreme Court to stop same-sex weddings

SAN FRANCISCO — As same-sex couples raced to marry in California, the sponsors of Proposition 8 filed an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to stop weddings on the grounds that its decision was not yet legally final.

"If courts were free to disregard well-defined procedures at their whim, the public's confidence in the judiciary would suffer," lawyers for ProtectMarriage said in their 12-page application.

An attorney for the challengers of Proposition 8 expressed certainty that the request would be denied.

It went to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who hears matters involving the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit issued an order late Friday that allowed gay marriages to resume, a decision ProtectMarriage said was premature and in violation of procedural rules.

Kennedy wrote Wednesday's ruling that required the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages. He dissented in the Proposition 8 decision, which said ProtectMarriage and other initiative sponsors could not stand in the place of state officials to defend their measures in federal court.

UC Davis law professor Vikram Amar said Kennedy would agree to stop the marriages only if the court was willing to consider reopening the Proposition 8 case at the request of ProtectMarriage. Amar estimated that only one or two such requests are granted in a decade.

"I would be pretty shocked if he granted a stay," Amar said.

ProtectMarriage contended that the 9th Circuit should not have taken any action in the case until Wednesday's Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8 was technically final. The group said high court rulings are not binding for 25 days, a period in which a party in a case can ask for reconsideration.

The 9th Circuit normally waits 25 days before acting on a case just decided by the Supreme Court. But in a surprise move, a three-judge panel that included liberal jurist Stephen Reinhardt lifted a hold it had placed on a 2010 injunction ordering state officials to stop enforcing the gay marriage ban.

Gay couples were marrying up and down the state within hours.

Amar said the appeals court had the power to take such action. Chapman University law professor John Eastman, a supporter of Proposition 8, disagreed, saying the court's action had violated legal rules.

The couples who filed the federal challenge of the 2008 ballot measure headed out to get marriage licenses within an hour of the 9th Circuit's decision. One couple married Friday evening at Los Angeles City Hall, the other at San Francisco City Hall. San Francisco will continue to issue licenses and perform marriages through the weekend.

ProtectMarriage said the 9th Circuit's decision smacked of "corruption."

"Suspiciously, the 9th Circuit's announcement late Friday ordering same-sex marriages came as a surprise, without any warning or notice to Proposition 8's official proponents," ProtectMarriage said in a statement.

"However, the same-sex couple plaintiffs in the case, their media teams, San Francisco City Hall, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the California attorney general all happened to be in position to perform same-sex marriages just minutes after the 9th Circuit's 'unexpected' announcement."

The Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by deciding 5 to 4 that ProtectMarriage did not have the legal authority to appeal the injunction against the measure. State officials, who did have the power, refused to appeal the injunction by now-retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker.

ProtectMarriage has argued that the injunction applied only to the two same-sex couples who sued, and the group has not ruled out a long-shot challenge in a state or federal district court to limit the effect of Walker's ruling.

But Gov. Jerry Brown and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, supporters of gay marriage, said Walker's order compelled them to stop enforcing the marriage ban statewide.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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In San Francisco, a weekend of gay weddings at City Hall

SAN FRANCISCO — They piled into their white Prius in Los Alamitos at midnight and arrived at City Hall here not long after sunrise Saturday with one simple goal in mind: A marriage license. Right now.

Sandy Palmer and Mary Dang knew they couldn't get the crucial piece of paper over the weekend in Orange County, where they have lived together for 10 years. And they worried that the right to marry granted by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday afternoon could be taken away again Monday morning.

Such a matrimonial bait and switch had happened to gay and lesbian couples before — not once, but twice. Hence the sleepless night, the moonlit sprint up Interstate 5, the 90-minute wait on the steps of City Hall as early morning traffic rushed by and the line for licenses swelled.

PHOTOS: Gay marriage

"We had a wedding in 2010," said Palmer, 33, a pirate-themed affair with swords and hats, friends and family. "It was amazing, but the legal piece was missing. I wanted to make this a part of my personal history, to grab the moment, be part of something special — not just for me, but for the country."

That combination of joy and tension radiated throughout the beaux-arts building all day Saturday, as couples from throughout the state converged on what was believed to be the only government office in California issuing marriage licenses. By the time the ornate doors swung open at 9:10 a.m., a line of more than 100 people snaked along the building's north side.

And on its south side? That's where a miniature tent city for the San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade opened for business Saturday afternoon. The two-day fete usually draws a million people; organizers expect the crowd to swell by 20% because of last week's court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage in California and striking provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

For some couples, Saturday in San Francisco offered a chance to make up for lost opportunities, for not having wed during the brief windows in 2004, when more than 4,000 same-sex marriages were performed in San Francisco, and in 2008, when such unions were legal statewide before Proposition 8 was passed.

For others, such as Greg Van Dyke and Andrew Zack, lining up for a marriage license "was completely serendipitous." Saturday was Van Dyke's 43rd birthday, and the Los Angeles couple had bought plane tickets weeks earlier so they could celebrate his big day here.

The dermatologist and the Hollywood agent have been together for a year. They have a house in Mid-City. They have a wedding planned for Santa Barbara on Thanksgiving weekend. Zack's cousin, a rabbi, is flying in from London to do the honors. A surrogate is pregnant with their son, due in January.

But "we got in late last night," Van Dyke said, "had dinner, got up this morning, walked over to City Hall to see it."

And ended up in line for a marriage license.

In the first hour of business Saturday morning alone, San Francisco officials issued about 100 marriage licenses. All told, 246 were granted and 188 couples were married on the first full day of legal, post-Proposition 8 marriage.

The process was summed up nicely by a small sign outside the county clerk's office: "License = $99. Ceremony = $75. Both = $174. Equality = Priceless."

Everyone working at City Hall — which will be open again Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — was a volunteer, from the cashiers taking the license payments to the greeters keeping the process running smoothly and the marriage commissioners in their long black robes intoning, "By virtue of the authority vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you spouses for life."

The grand rotunda with its sweeping marble staircase rang with cheers, "I do's" and the sounds of decisions made on the fly: Are the witnesses here? Shall we do the ceremony by the steps? Do you have a ring? Where did my family go?

Wedding photographers Danielle Fernandez, 33, and Janeen Singer, 32, had planned to celebrate Pride weekend together in Dolores Park, home of Saturday's Dyke March, with a bottle of champagne.

Instead, they headed to City Hall in matching black shirts emblazoned with "lesbian and wedding photographer." Rates started at a discounted $40. Until Friday, Fernandez said, their job has been "pretty hetero."

But not anymore. "There's something about the energy around today," Fernandez said. "It's validation…. People are glowing. It makes for good photographs."

When Tom Rothgiesser and George Lucas (no, not that one) arrived at the Civic Center to cap off half a century of togetherness, they did not need a marriage commissioner to officiate.

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Maywood gets straight talk about its water quality

In most towns, state officials showing up to announce that the drinking water was neither the best nor the worst in California would not be a big deal.

But in Maywood, where water has been a political blood sport, a peaceful meeting Saturday at the local YMCA, dominated by science and not verbal fisticuffs, was unusual. And welcomed.

The few dozen residents who showed up were told that the water they drank did not pose a public health risk, although officials expressed concern about the presence of one chemical in a few wells.

Maywood, a city of 27,000 residents packed into 1.2 square miles, has developed a reputation for being politically pugnacious and became known as a town where people fought over occasionally brown or tea-colored water. It was the result of a concentration of the mineral manganese in the water supply of two of Maywood's three water companies.

Manganese is naturally occurring and many people take it as part of multiple vitamins, said Roger Kintz, environmental coordinator for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has done water sampling in the city since 2010. It can have adverse health effects at very high levels over long periods of time, he said, but that does not appear to have been the problem in Maywood.

As a teenager, Mayor Oscar Magana said, he found himself showering in brown water.

"When I was 15 years old, I started washing my own clothes because I thought my mom was ruining my white shirts," the 31-year-old politician said. "About four years ago, I had to apologize to her. It wasn't her ruining the shirts. It was the water."

Some residents went to Sacramento, where they showed off bottles of water that looked like tamarind drink. It has become the subject of state legislation, including a newly proposed bill. The water issue became so heated that it led to yelling matches at Maywood City Hall. At times, the debates had a strong undertone of politics rather than science.

About four years ago, Cynthia Babich of the Del Amo Action Committee got together with activists in the city to form the Maywood Community Inter-Agency Partnership. Soon, the partnership engaged the Department of Toxic Substances Control to test Maywood's water. Sampling in 2010 and 2012 showed concentrations of manganese in water from Maywood Mutual Water Co. No. 1 and especially Maywood Mutual Water Co. No. 2.

More troubling, though, was a previously overlooked problem that the sampling found in a few of the source wells of Maywood Mutual Water Co. No. 3: the presence of trichloroethylene, or TCE, an industrial solvent that Kintz said could pose serious health risks at high enough levels. But the concentration of TCE has been kept below the regulatory limits.

Rick Fears, an engineering geologist for the state's toxic substances department, said the TCE had seeped into the water supply underground from industrial operations. He said a priority was to identify the source of the TCE and make whoever was responsible pay to clean it up.

Fears said installing certain filters had proved effective to reduce the presence of heavy metals and some chemicals. In recent years, the three water companies have also taken steps to improve the water supply, including building new treatment plants. Kintz said the water situation in Maywood was significantly better than it had been in the past, though there's more work to be done.

Sergio Palos, the general manager of Maywood Mutual Water No. 1, said a new treatment plant should be online in about a year and a half. In the meantime, his company has blended manganese-free water with its water that includes the mineral so manganese does not reach the tap in significant amounts.

Magana said it was important to have the scientists run the meeting in a city where "fear mongering" was rampant.

"You had different political groups all vying for attention and all spreading different messages," he said. "By bringing in the state, we have an independent group that is presenting the facts and allowing the community to make decisions based on facts."

hector.becerra@latimes.com

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BET Experience black music fest at L.A. Live sizzles

In a parking lot across the street from the L.A. Live complex in downtown L.A. on Saturday afternoon, the temperature outside the BET Experience matched the star wattage of the weekend's performances.

"I feel like my shoes are sticking to the asphalt," said Drew Gordon, a 22-year-old music fan from San Jose who came to L.A. for the festival. "But you don't see something like this often. This is a really good way to get people to step out of what they're used to."

That goes for BET as well. This year the network, America's major hub for African American music culture, turned its annual awards ceremony into a weekendlong blowout of concerts by stars including Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg and R. Kelly, along with live broadcasts, panel discussions and outdoor festivities over the entire L.A. Live complex.

The BET Experience was a festival dedicated to showcasing contemporary black music in the heart of Los Angeles, at a time when the city's hip-hop and R&B artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Miguel are dominating charts and winning critical acclaim. But it was also an experiment in using the downtown complex as a cohesive music destination.

Starting Friday and concluding Sunday, the festival turned almost the entirety of L.A. Live into an open-air fan bazaar punctuated with pop shows. Friday's Beyoncé concert at the 18,000-capacity Staples Center showcased one of the music industry's biggest stars, with a set of bass-rattling, soulful pop that announced the lofty goals of the fest: to bring nearly every major name in black music together.

The experimental R&B singer Erykah Badu played her own bewitching set at the 2,300-capacity Club Nokia that same night, while an after-party at the Conga Room raged until dawn. The BET Awards will take place at the 7,000-capacity Nokia Theatre on Sunday night.

Though temperatures edged into the 90s Saturday, hundreds of fans milled about the Fan Fest area in the afternoon, as bands and DJs played on several outdoor stages and an array of food trucks hawked Jamaican curries, New Orleans-style crawfish and more traditional soul food fare (there were even a few vegan-friendly soul food stalls, such as Grandma's House Catering).

One of the most popular daytime attractions was a tent where fans could meets the casts of BET staple shows such as "The Game" and "Let's Stay Together" — or perhaps they just wanted to enjoy some time in an air-conditioned tent.

But unlike MTV — BET's pop-culture analogue, which has almost entirely abandoned music programming — the network's focus for the festival was celebrating musicianship.

"It's a great time for hip-hop, especially if you look at someone like Kendrick Lamar," said Shawn Sanders, an L.A.-based talent scout who said he'd worked on BET's marquee show "106 & Park," which was broadcasting live from the event. He too was hiding from the heat under an outdoor umbrella Saturday but enjoying the company. "This is a great way to bring our whole community together."

The scope of the music on offer at BET Experience cast a wide net, from pop luminaries such as Beyoncé; a deep bill of ambitious hip-hop and R&B including Kendrick Lamar, Miguel, Snoop Dogg and ScHoolboy Q; gospel from Kirk Franklin; a long-form jam from hip-hop's house band the Roots; and the lascivious soul of R. Kelly.

Although not without growing pains — lines were considerable at almost every turn — the big achievement of the event was to provide a showcase for contemporary black music culture in a way fans can experience on par with fests like New Orleans' Essence Music Festival, the only comparable festival in America.

Though most of the major shows were individually ticketed, the festival's unifying theme and the walkable proximity of all the events suggested that, at an excellent time for ambitious black music in L.A., this festival could be an annual kingmaker, as well as an example of how to use downtown L.A.'s venues in a music-fest format.

It's easy to imagine CMT or MTV taking a similar long-form, in-person approach to their own awards seasons. Not only did the BET Experience give fans another platform to enter the BET universe, it proved that downtown L.A. can host a major, weekend-long music event and show off the area's growing renown as a live entertainment hub.

For hip-hop fan Elise Gordon, Drew's younger sister who also came down from San Jose, it's been a long time coming, and it can't happen again soon enough.

"I'd love to see this annually," she said. "Maybe even more than annually."

august.brown@latimes.com

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St. Callistus Catholic Church moves to Crystal Cathedral site

On the plaza of the future Christ Cathedral, 3,000 chairs and 7,000 water bottles awaited the faithful. On Saturday, before Mass welcomed families from St. Callistus Church to their new home, an organizer said into the microphone: "Those sitting in the sun will get more blessings from God."

The service on the grounds once belonging to the Crystal Cathedral started on time at 4 p.m., as a parade of priests led by Bishop Kevin Vann let their words — English, sprinkled with Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese — embrace the multicultural crowd.

"No matter the weather, we must be here," said Rosa Maria Rosales, a 26-year member of the Garden Grove Catholic church. After lunch, she had attended the parish's farewell service at the old church, then continued on to this gathering with her friend Mary Sanchez, who cradled a 5-month-old baby.

"Hello and goodbye. Of course, we don't like to leave the old place, but look at this new place!" Sanchez exclaimed, gesturing at the wide expanse of 35 acres — nearly four times the size of the former place of worship less than a mile away.

"And look at all the people together, for the same reason. Es un milagro," she added, describing it as a miracle.

The women kept to the shade, while striped umbrellas popped open to shield those closer to the stage. Women sported flip-flops and stilettos, their children eye-catching in pastel sundresses. A grandmother offered napkins to Father Juan Navarro of St. Callistus after he rubbed sunscreen on his cheeks.

"We weren't looking for a new beginning. Suddenly, we were called," he said of the move across town. "It's a way to reflect how we will serve better."

Last year, the Diocese of Orange bought the property from Crystal Cathedral ministries, which was in bankruptcy, for $57.5 million. Workers then took on seismic upgrades and restored fountains to their original beauty.

Moving St. Callistus to its new home will mean more than just new buildings, the faithful hope. What they really wish for is plenty of new faces.

"This will be a place of welcome for people of all faiths or no faith," said Father Christopher Smith, rector at Christ Cathedral. "We want it to be a shiny example of what it means to do outreach to the poor or the marginalized."

And with more than 1.2 million Catholics in Orange County, he said the intent is to "unify the diocese itself."

"Here we will honor the human person," Smith said. "We will support the arts, music, dance, painting. We will make it a wonderful home."

"This is a gift from God," said Father Tuyen Van Nguyen, pastor at St. Callistus for 10 years. The parish has nearly 10,000 members, 50% of them Latino, 40% Vietnamese, and the rest white or Filipino.

"We're the very first people God chose to cross the 22 bridge," Nguyen added, alluding to the Garden Grove Freeway, "and we will work with everyone who needs us."

Come fall, students will enroll in Christ Cathedral Academy, with classes for preschoolers through eighth grade. Mass will be celebrated at the arboretum on the campus but not inside the former Crystal Cathedral until architectural and Catholic liturgical alterations are finished, officials said. That probably will be sometime in 2015.

Meanwhile, worshipers from Crystal Cathedral, now known as Shepherd's Grove, will move to the rented former St. Callistus site next month.

Changing locations doesn't affect how St. Callistus parishioner Lorna Villanueva and her Filipino family feel about their spiritual devotion. All three of her children participate in church activities, from altar service to liturgy readings.

"Because we are here — and it's bigger — more people will join us," she says. "The more, the better."

anh.do@latimes.com

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Actors find roles as drivers with ride-sharing services

By day, Jimmy Lucia is an actor. By night, he roams the streets of Los Angeles as BatLyft.

Cruising in his blue 2013 Kia Rio hatchback, Batman-masked Lucia picks up strangers and takes them wherever they want to go. On a Friday or Saturday night, Lucia will transport as many as 60 people.

But while Lucia's a nice guy, he doesn't give them a lift for free. He is one of hundreds of actors, musicians and filmmakers who are making extra cash with their cars by hooking up as drivers with ride-sharing firm Lyft.

"Everybody has a survival job, and some people, like me, are lucky to have a 'thrival' job — I can thrive in this job while I pursue my dreams," Lucia said.

The ride-sharing service is only a year old but already has attracted thousands of customers a week who get around the city in rides by Lyft drivers — usually at a lower price than they would pay for a taxicab. Lyft uses smartphone apps to connect ride-needy users with car-ready drivers.

Lyft and rivals Sidecar and Uber Technologies Inc., which operates the Uber and uberX services, are now in a handful of major cities. The mini-economy they have created is disrupting the established business model of taxicab drivers, who want local officials to crack down on the burgeoning operations.

About 300 cabbies drove in circles around Los Angeles City Hall for about 15 minutes Tuesday morning honking in protest over what they called "high-tech bandit cabs."

Lyft, Sidecar and Uber ignored an order Monday from the city's Transportation Department to cease operating because they were violating city ordinances by not having permits or licenses. The firms said they had agreements to operate from the California Public Utilities Commission.

William Rouse, general manager of L.A. Yellow Cab, said he's outraged about the new companies, especially when they advertise themselves as being 20% cheaper than regular cabs.

Rouse, who also is president of the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Assn., said Lyft, Sidecar and Uber are able to offer lower fares than conventional taxis because they don't comply with the same regulations that his industry does and their drivers don't have taxicab licenses.

"We spend a lot of money to comply with regulation," he said. "We jump through a lot of hoops. So yes, if a company doesn't have to spend any money complying with regulation, then of course it gives them an unfair competitive advantage."

Rouse also complained about the lack of inspections and background checks performed by ride-sharing companies on their drivers and their drivers' cars. And he questioned the adequacy of insurance.

"This is no safer than hitchhiking," Rouse said. "People don't hitchhike anymore because hitchhiking is dangerous. If you take one of these services, you're essentially doing the same thing as hitchhiking."

Lyft, Uber and Sidecar said they indeed comply with regulations, screen drivers through background checks and make sure that both their drivers and riders are safe. Lyft, for instance, said it has $1-million liability insurance coverage for each incident; drivers also are required to have their own private auto insurance.

The services say they also pre-inspect the drivers' vehicles, which must be a 2000 model or newer for Lyft and Sidecar and a 2006 model or newer for Uber. Lyft said it may begin to require regular vehicle inspections as the service moves forward, and Uber said it conducts more inspections if it receives feedback that an uberX driver's car may not be up to standards.

Lyft driver Lucia said he understood the concerns, but he said many riders are turning to Lyft and other services because they feel safer and more comfortable than they do taking other forms of transportation.

"The most common thing I get asked is if I can be personally requested," Lucia said. "They don't feel like they're in some cab. They feel like I'm their friend who's just continuing the party."

There isn't hard data yet on whether these services could become a permanent fixture or fade away, but they are establishing themselves as viable transportation options, said Lauren Setar, lead transportation analyst for research firm IBISWorld Inc.

Because users need smartphones to request a ride, she said, the services are particularly attractive to young and middle-aged users.

"It's not really using anything that they don't have," she said. "It's using smartphone technology, so it's something that's pretty widely adopted."

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L.A. voters mostly upbeat as new mayor Eric Garcetti starts his job

Los Angeles voters are upbeat about the city's quality of life as Eric Garcetti prepares to take over as mayor — even if they remain frustrated by traffic jams, substandard schools, costly housing and the backlog of unrepaired streets, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll .

Those long-standing gripes aside, solid majorities said they were satisfied with the city's police, parks, libraries, public transportation, emergency services and healthcare system.

Most were also optimistic that after four years with Garcetti as mayor, Los Angeles will be better off than it is today. The councilman from Silver Lake will hold an inaugural ceremony at City Hall on Sunday and start work as mayor Monday.

Garcetti opens his term with a positive, if undefined, public image: 53% of voters viewed him favorably, 17% unfavorably. The rest offered no opinion.

"Garcetti's still a blank slate with most voters," said pollster Jeff Harrelson of M4 Strategies, the Republican firm on the bipartisan team that conducted the survey for the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Los Angeles Times.

Many know little about the incoming mayor, he said, but "they're willing to give him a chance."

Indeed, at least two-thirds of voters said they were confident in Garcetti's ability to handle crime and transportation. Most also had faith in his capacity to improve schools and create jobs.

Overall, the poll results suggested a significant mood shift from the deep pessimism that took hold statewide and nationally after the 2008 economic crisis. Today's voters were split evenly on whether things in Los Angeles were moving in the right direction or off on the wrong track, but even that represented improvement over state and national poll findings in recent years.

In Los Angeles, the recovery has been slow; the unemployment rate still exceeds 10%. Yet tellingly, job creation ranked not first, but second on voters' priority list for the mayor and City Council over the next few years, just behind improving the school system.

"There is definitely a sense nationwide that things are trending in the right direction, and the worst is behind us," said Amy Levin of Benenson Strategy Group, the Democratic firm on the polling team.

On a quality-of-life scale of 1 to 9, the higher the better, nearly half of the city's voters gave Los Angeles a grade of 7, 8 or 9.

The reasons cited most often were jobs, proximity to family and friends, diversity of the population, entertainment, arts, culture, beaches, parks and the outdoors.

"Angelenos aren't completely satisfied with life in their city, but by and large they're very optimistic and very happy," said poll director Dan Schnur.

Not surprisingly, traffic congestion jumped out as the biggest negative effect on the quality of life, followed by the high cost of housing. Traffic was most irksome to white voters and residents of the Westside, where bumper-to-bumper jams on the 405 Freeway epitomize the downside of life in Los Angeles.

Poll respondent John Jackson, a librarian who lives in Westchester, said in a follow-up interview that he was "very happy" with the quality of life in L.A., especially its cultural attractions. But Jackson, a 31-year-old Democrat, has learned to plan ahead for extra drive time to cope with the chronic slowdowns.

"I've just come to expect traffic is going to be bad," he said.

Voter opinions on other aspects of L.A. life also varied by region and ethnicity. In an era of new rail lines opening across Los Angeles, nearly two-thirds of voters citywide were satisfied with the public transit system. Nearly three-quarters of Latinos were happy with it.

But white voters and Westside residents were less satisfied than others, another sign of their dependence on automobiles and their exasperation over traffic.

The poll showed signs of happiness among voters with the steady drop in crime since the 1990s. Citywide, crime reduction scored low on voters' priority list for the mayor and council members. The poll found that 55% of voters were satisfied with the city's police and crime prevention efforts. But Latinos, African Americans and South L.A. residents, traditionally more vulnerable to crime, were less satisfied than whites.

One source of deep dissatisfaction was street repairs, with two-thirds of voters dissatisfied with the city's performance. White voters were unhappiest about the condition of city streets, while Latinos were less concerned about it. In his campaign advertising, Garcetti promised to "do the basics better, like answering phones, filling potholes and picking up trash."

The high cost of housing was a concern for nearly two-thirds of voters. Black voters were especially unhappy with the availability of affordable housing. On the question of access to hospitals and emergency care, voters citywide were satisfied, but Latinos and African Americans were less so.

By and large, however, Latino voters were more content than others with the quality of life, reflecting an optimism that surfaces regularly in polls. Just over half of Latinos said things in the city were going in the right direction.

For Garcetti, a top challenge will be to get the city's spending in line with its tax and fee collections after years of budget shortfalls. Although most voters were confident in his ability to handle fiscal matters, they had more faith in his capacity to meet crime and transportation challenges, among others.

Given a menu of potential spending cuts, voters' top choice was to reduce city worker salaries and administrative costs, followed by cuts to their health and retirement benefits.

"We're going to go the way of Detroit," said poll respondent Rodrick Su, 43, a computer system administrator who lives in Woodland Hills. The salary and pension obligations approved by city leaders are unrealistic, he said.

"Let's be honest," said Su, a Republican. "And hey — I'm paying for it. It's been going on for quite a while."

The poll found an ethnic divide on slashing the health and retirement benefits of city workers. Only 7% of Latino voters favored that option, but 29% of whites supported the idea. The least favored choice for all voters was to cut the number of police officers, firefighters or emergency dispatchers.

The USC Price/L.A. Times poll of 500 registered voters was taken Monday through Wednesday. The margin of sampling error for the telephone survey was 4.4 percentage points in either direction for the full sample and wider for subgroups.

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

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Poll shows split in approval for outgoing Mayor Villaraigosa

As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa leaves office, the city's voters are deeply split over his tumultuous eight-year tenure, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll.

Villaraigosa will turn over the reins of the city Sunday night to Eric Garcetti in a markedly different environment from the euphoric one that greeted him in 2005, when he was elected the first Latino mayor in the city's modern history. He came into office with soaring marks — nearly two-thirds of the city's voters viewed him favorably.

Voters surveyed in recent days do not look as kindly upon him, with 47% giving him a favorable rating and 40% disapproving of his time in office.

"The mayor's leaving office with some very mixed voter opinions of his accomplishments," said Jeff Harrelson, a partner at M4 Strategies, the Republican firm on the bipartisan polling team that conducted the survey for the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and The Times. Still, he said, "it's not overall all that bad for someone whose time in office included a national recession."

Villaraigosa's two terms in office coincided with high unemployment and the crash of the housing market across the nation, both of which hit California and Los Angeles particularly hard.

"Given the length and the severity of the state's and region's recession, these are very good numbers for an outgoing mayor," said poll director Dan Schnur, head of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and a former GOP operative.

Demographic and partisan divides drove poll respondents' feelings about Villaraigosa. Latinos, younger voters and Democrats tended to have more favorable views of Villaraigosa; less favorable views came from whites, Republicans, older voters and those who had lived in the city for three decades or more.

The contrast among white and Latino voters was the starkest. Villaraigosa was effectively tied among white voters, whereas 58% of Latinos viewed him favorably and only 33% viewed him unfavorably.

Several Latino poll respondents who approved of the mayor's performance said Villaraigosa's ethnicity did not affect their views.

"That doesn't matter to me," Adriana Navarro, a 43-year-old grocery store supervisor, said in a follow-up interview.

The Winnetka resident, a Democrat, said she especially appreciated the improvements under Villaraigosa in public transportation and development in downtown Los Angeles, which she enjoys visiting.

"He did a lot of good things in the downtown, and I like that because I'm a downtown girl," Navarro said.

As expected, Villaraigosa did as well among Democrats as with Latinos, with 58% viewing him favorably.

"As his term has gone on, he's become more visible on the national stage," said Amy Levin of Benenson Strategy Group, the Democratic firm that worked on the poll. "There's more of a partisan split going on here than there has been in the past."

Republicans widely viewed Villaraigosa unfavorably. In interviews, some said that was due to their perception that he paid greater attention to raising his profile — chairing the Democratic Party's 2012 presidential convention, making the rounds on cable television to support President Obama and self-aggrandizing, they said — than to his duties at home.

"He spent more time out of the office than in the office, always on TV, always at sports games," said Don Gray, who lives in West Los Angeles and identified himself as a "strong Republican."

"Villaraigosa's a very good talker, and he can be likable to a certain extent, but when it comes to actually putting your foot down and doing what's necessary, he shakes."

Villaraigosa won the highest marks for his work on public transportation and public safety, and his lowest grades on education, the city's gaping budget deficit and job creation.

His standing on education marked a repudiation because one of the hallmarks of Villaraigosa's tenure was his effort to shake up the city's schools. Twenty-two percent of poll respondents said schools had declined the most during the last eight years, making it their greatest concern.

Villaraigosa sought unsuccessfully to take over the schools, took a strong stance against the city's teachers union, shaped the school board through his support of candidates and took over some of the city's most struggling campuses, with mixed results.

Navarro, who gave Villaraigosa a "very favorable" rating, said that during his tenure she was most disappointed in the performance of the city's schools. Her two children both attended public school, and she saw steady declines in services, from music education to after-school tutoring.

"A lot of the sports got cut. Now we have to pay; the parents need to pay and donate time for the programs to continue. We have to raise money," she said.

Schnur, of USC's Unruh Institute, noted that many voters do not realize that the mayor has no formal authority over the schools. Funding was slashed in recent years by lawmakers in Sacramento.

Typically, perceptions of mayoral tenures are most affected by economic conditions, which are largely out of mayors' control. In Villaraigosa's case, his two terms were hobbled in some voters' minds by the national recession.

Alexandria Polsky-Bethune, a self-described moderate Democrat who gave Villaraigosa a "very unfavorable" rating, said many of her classmates at Cal State Northridge have graduated but not been able to find work.

"I'm worried," said the 21-year-old communications major, who will start her senior year in the fall. "Most of them move back home with no jobs. I love my family, but I don't plan on moving back home."

The poll, which interviewed 500 registered voters by telephone, was conducted June 24-26. The survey has an overall margin of error of 4.4 percentage points in either direction, with a higher margin of error for subgroups.

seema.mehta@latimes.com

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U.S. says sheriff's deputies harassed Antelope Valley residents

Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies harassed and intimidated blacks, Latinos and other residents in the Antelope Valley, the U.S. Justice Department has concluded after a two-year investigation.

Federal officials found a pattern of sheriff's deputies using unreasonable force, intimidation and "widespread" unlawful detentions and searches. Many of the findings involved residents who received low-income subsidized housing.

The allegations mark another setback for a troubled department that is also the subject of a federal investigation into deputy misconduct and brutality in the jail system.

Sheriff's officials said they are still negotiating with the Department of Justice over a settlement in the Antelope Valley case. But documents released Friday indicate that both sides are seeking a court-enforceable order and an independent monitor who would track the department's progress.

The findings are a vindication for Antelope Valley residents, who have long complained of surprise inspections of government-subsidized, or Section 8, housing. The checks were intended to ensure that residents meet the terms of their assistance. The inspections often involved armed sheriff's deputies, they said, which added a level of intimidation.

"This report confirms what we've been saying all along," said V. Jesse Smith, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. "There is a great deal of injustice against blacks and Latinos in this community, and the good thing is that they are on the path to implementing some of these recommendations as we speak."

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice agreed, adding that it was gratifying that the Justice Department was able to expose the alleged misconduct.

"This is stuff like you used to find in the 1950s," Rice said. "It's 2013 in the big city, but when you get out into the rural areas and rural counties, things change. They don't always get the message."

The Justice Department laid out multiple areas in which deputies in the Antelope Valley abused their power:

Blacks, and to a lesser extent Latinos, were more likely than whites to be stopped and searched by deputies, even when controlling for factors other than race. Investigators concluded that deputies made stops "that appear motivated by racial bias."

Deputies commonly and improperly detained people in the back seat of their patrol cars — a tactic that must have a clear justification or else violates the Constitution and sheriff's policy. This kind of treatment was reserved not only for suspects, investigators said. Federal authorities found one instance in which two deputies handcuffed and detained in the back of their patrol car a woman who was the victim of domestic violence. They said there was "no articulated reason" for the treatment.

The department showed a pattern of unreasonable force, even against people who were handcuffed.

Supervisors failed to intervene when deputies were involved in unconstitutional policing. The investigators said the department had good policies against misconduct but found they were not often followed.

The investigators also said city officials in Palmdale and Lancaster expressed hostility toward some residents of subsidized housing. Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said Friday he rejected the criticism.

"It is the most useless decision I have seen. All they do is come down and tell us how bad we did," Parris said. "I expected a lot more, and they are going to have to do a lot more if they want me to sign off on anything.... The idea we are at war with African Americans is not true."

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore also took issue with the findings.

"We disagree with their assessment about us racially profiling," he said. "We've been tracking this since 2000, and our information is completely different."

He added, however, that Sheriff Lee Baca "always believes we can improve."

There are a number of possibilities after federal authorities find a pattern of misconduct in a local law enforcement agency. But based on the documents released Friday, the county's longtime monitor of the Sheriff's Department, Merrick Bobb, said it appears both sides are moving toward a consent decree. Whitmore, however, said it's too early to know if a decree will be issued.

Under a decree, both sides agree to a set of reforms, a federal judge signs off on the agreement, and a monitor is appointed to make sure the local agency follows through and reports those findings back to the judge.

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L.A. Zoo's nonprofit partner will take on marketing duties

Marketing for the Los Angeles Zoo will be handed over to its nonprofit partner, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., in an attempt to boost ticket sales and memberships at the Griffith Park attraction.

Two attempts by members of the Los Angeles City Council on Friday to water down a memorandum of understanding hammered out in May were defeated when they failed to muster enough votes in support. That leaves a three-year contract between the city and the association intact.

The agreement grants the association the function of promoting the zoo, along with arranging site rentals and catering. Those activities previously had been handled by zoo department staff.

Recent deep cuts to the zoo department's budget, however, have left it without the staff or expertise to draw up its own marketing and business plan, city Chief Administrative Officer Miguel Santana told the council. The city in 2007 budgeted $10.6 million for its zoo; that dwindled to $264,000 in the current fiscal year.

The association stepped forward to fill the gap, offering to spend $2 million a year on efforts to lure more visitors to the compound. The zoo attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year, but city officials believe those numbers can go even higher, stabilizing the department's budget.

Under the agreement, the association will keep a greater portion of ticket revenue up to a capped amount. Any revenues over the cap will go back to the zoo for special exhibits and new development.

Zoo privatization was a goal of outgoing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, but those efforts were defeated by union opposition. Union leaders Friday also opposed privatization of its marketing, saying the city was giving away too much revenue and power.

"What we're asking you to do is reject this agreement today, do your due diligence and get the best deal for the city," said Jason Elias, a spokesman for SEIU 721, which represents city workers.

Two separate motions aimed at adding more council scrutiny of the memorandum of understanding, one by Councilman Bernard C. Parks and the other by Councilman Tom La Bonge, were defeated.

The association must submit a marketing plan and have it approved by Nov. 1 or the agreement will be voided.

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

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Veteran educator Don Brann will lead Inglewood Unified

Don Brann, the former head of the Wiseburn School District in Hawthorne, was selected Friday to lead Inglewood Unified — the third person to take the helm after the state takeover of the financially troubled school district.

Brann, who most recently served as interim superintendent of the San Gabriel Unified School District, will start next week.

Brann has worked as a teacher, principal and superintendent in several school districts across the state for more than 40 years. He was superintendent at Wiseburn for 15.

His experience and judgment make him an ideal candidate to help Inglewood schools return to local control, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson.

"Bringing the district back to sound financial footing — so that it can continue serving students and their community — remains my top priority, and Don Brann has the experience and vision to make it happen," Torlakson said in a statement.

That task, however, has proved difficult and rankled many in the community who view state administrators as having bungled the recovery.

The state Department of Education took over the debt-saddled school system in September, infusing the district with $55 million in emergency loans.

Since then, the district has depleted its reserves, burned through nearly half of the emergency funds and is operating at a $17.7-million deficit.

The district may receive some relief through a change in state law. Under proposed legislation, the $55-million emergency loan would be financed by the state's general fund.

That change would reduce the amount of money the district must pay in interest by as much as $2 million a year, according to an email obtained by The Times from Richard Zeiger, the state chief deputy superintendent, to Inglewood district and union officials.

"Although it comes nowhere close to solving all our problems, it certainly helps," Zeiger wrote.

Budget woes are exacerbated by the loss of funding for students who have been fleeing the district for nearby independently run charter schools. Without cuts, officials have said, the school system could be dissolved.

Officials have previously laid out plans to reduce the deficit by about $6.6 million through other means but have made clear that more cuts are needed and employees will be affected.

"I look forward to working with teachers and parents to help Inglewood Unified live up to its potential as a thriving learning community," Brann said in a statement. "There are some hard choices ahead, but we can get through them if we work together to rebuild our schools and system."

When the state moved in, Kent Taylor, an alumnus, was appointed as the first state monitor — essentially the superintendent in charge of all operations.

But Taylor resigned within two months, after the Department of Education's discovery that he had made a tentative agreement with the teachers union. State officials say he had no authority to enter into such a pact.

His deputy, La Tanya Kirk-Carter, was thrust into the position to the chagrin of much of the community. Many in Inglewood, among them teachers, parents and unions, contend that Kirk-Carter was not qualified to make necessary changes.

Torlakson praised the work of Kirk-Carter on Friday. "Ms. Kirk-Carter has provided considerable expertise in a challenging time," Torlakson said. Kirk-Carter will remain as the district's assistant superintendent of business services.

Brann will face a teachers union that had refused to return to the bargaining table with state officials. Further cuts to salaries and benefits are unsustainable, said Peter Somberg, president of the Inglewood Teachers Assn.

The union maintains that the agreement reached with Taylor, before his resignation, is legitimate. The state has said repeatedly that the contract is void. The union, in turn, brought an unfair-labor charge against the district.

Somberg said he is optimistic that new leadership will help the district, but he said he knows very little about Brann.

"We're continuously concerned with what is in the best interest of the students of Inglewood and the teachers of Inglewood. We hope it's a fine working relationship," he said.

stephen.ceasar@latimes.com

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Homeless numbers grow in L.A. County

The number of homeless people in Los Angeles County jumped by 16% over the last two years, fueled by lingering economic devastation from the recession and rising rents and housing prices, according to a survey released Friday.

The sharp increase from 50,000 to more than 58,000 homeless people marked a departure from counts in 2011 and 2012, which showed reductions of 3% to 7% over previous years. And it came despite hundreds of millions of dollars in government aid pouring into the county each year to get people off the streets.

"These numbers are troubling," said Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti, who pledged during his campaign to end homelessness. "The recovery has been more jobless than we would have liked."

It could get worse. More than $80 million in federal stimulus funds for emergency housing dried up in August, said Michael Arnold, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the joint city and county agency that conducted the count in January. Federal sequestration has frozen emergency housing vouchers in the city of Los Angeles, the housing department said.

Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment program diverted more than 15,000 low-level felons to Los Angeles County jails and probation programs, the Los Angeles County Probation Department reported. Arnold said that led to more people being released from jail without adequate services or housing.

"The environment has conspired to make it look bad for Los Angeles," Arnold said. "We really need the economy to recover at a faster pace."

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has required a biannual homeless count since 2005 for jurisdictions that receive federal aid. This year's street count, involving 71 of the county's 88 cities and more than 5,000 volunteers, is considered the most accurate to date. The 58,000 figure reflects how many people are without homes on any given day; 190,000 lose their homes over the course of a year, authorities said.

The biggest jumps in the homeless numbers were among single men and people who have been without permanent shelter for a year or more, the study found. More white people are becoming homeless; the number was up 12% from 2011.

Homelessness among veterans and their families, on the other hand, showed a marked drop. Arnold said the improvement is an outgrowth of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal aid directed to veteran families.

"If we could have that same commitment to every other population, I think we would see a big dent," said Flora Gil Krisiloff, a deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and a member of the commission that governs the Homeless Services Authority.

Homelessness traditionally lags behind economic downturns, Arnold said, as people hit with job losses or other setbacks struggle to stay afloat and then finally run out of options. The Los Angeles County unemployment rate was 11.2 % in 2012 and 13.2 % in 2011, one of the highest in the country.

"It takes a long time to burn through your resources and become homeless," Arnold said.

At the same time, the rising economy has pulled up housing costs. In 2009, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area was $1,361. In 2013, that jumped to $1,421, according to a study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The number of emergency shelters has dropped by 8%, also because of the downturn, the study found.

"We have a real erosion in emergency shelter," said Kerry Morrison, another member of the homeless services commission. "It's worrisome that we're slipping down the slope with no place to put people."

Some homeless people were drawn to the county from outside by the weather, beaches, food banks and other assistance, the study found. Only 62% of those surveyed reported their previous address in Los Angeles County. An additional 18% said they were from other areas, and 20% refused to answer the question.

The rise in homelessness stemmed largely from an increase in the "hidden homeless" — people who stay in garages or backyards where they are difficult to find. But some homeless advocates questioned whether the hike in this category was accurate. Unlike the other numbers, it was based on telephone surveys of random households asking if they knew of people sleeping in cars, vans, carports, backyards or unconverted garages.

Garcetti said the homeless population is multifaceted, and every part of it needs to be studied.

"I've worked with homeless people since high school, and you cannot create one single portrait of who that is," Garcetti said. "I don't think there will ever be a one-size-fits-all solution."

gale.holland@latimes.com

emily.alpert@latimes.com

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L.A. City Council votes to let mall developer keep tax revenue

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday backed a plan to let shopping mall giant Westfield keep up to $59 million in tax revenue over 25 years, one in a flurry of decisions made before six council members leave office.

The council voted 10 to 0 to let Westfield keep up to 42% of the net new tax revenue produced by a planned shopping mall and hotel in Warner Center over 25 years. The project is expected to generate $140 million in taxes during that period.

Departing Councilman Dennis Zine spearheaded the effort, saying the additional funds would allow Westfield to speed construction of its mall. But Woodland Hills resident Colleen Marmor urged the council to reject the deal, saying neighborhood councils had little opportunity to weigh in on it.

"We are a city that is financially strapped," Marmor said. "And yet it was at the end of the agenda and heard in a bum's rush fashion at the eleventh hour."

The terms of Westfield's financial package were unveiled one week ago and had no review in any council committee. After a send-off for departing Councilman Bill Rosendahl that featured video testimonials and lasted more than an hour, Council President Herb Wesson gave the public 10 minutes to speak on the Westfield deal.

Woodland Hills resident Siegfried Othmer asked to speak against the Westfield deal for three minutes but was rebuffed by Wesson, who informed him that a total of five minutes had been allocated for every opponent of the plan. "I've spent several hours here. This is important," Othmer said.

"I will give you one minute starting now," Wesson responded. "Do not debate me. You're wasting your time."

The council instructed city lawyers to draft documents that would let Westfield keep tax money that would typically go into the general fund, which pays for police officers, firefighters and other basic services. Council members also signed off on a plan backed by departing Councilman Ed Reyes to sell city-owned land to an auto dealer in the Glassell Park section of his district. And they gave preliminary approval to a proposal from real estate developer Casden West L.A. to build hundreds of homes next to an Expo light-rail station on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Casden scaled back the size of the project earlier this week, dropping plans for a Target and a supermarket. Attorney Ben Reznik, who represents a homeowner group fighting the project, said the changes were made without proper public input.

The Westfield deal drew support from labor unions and San Fernando Valley business groups. The proposal was supposed to come up for a vote Wednesday but was delayed to give Zine time to marshal support for it, including an endorsement from the Los Angeles Daily News, said David Fleming, who serves on the "Los Angeles 2020" Commission convened by Wesson to address the city's financial problems.

Fleming said the mall and hotel project would ultimately give the city a financial boost, helping it avoid cuts in services. "The only way to solve this [budget] problem is to get more revenue for the city," he said.

Still, one taxpayer watchdog promised the Westfield deal would become a campaign issue the next time L.A. voters are asked to raise local taxes.

"If this giveaway passes, Westfield will be the poster child of why we do not need [a] street repair tax," said Jack Humphreville in an email to council members earlier this week. Humphreville helped defeat Proposition A, a sales tax increase, earlier this year.

Wesson said he was not troubled by such warnings. "Jack Humphreville thinks the sky is always falling," he said.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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Agency says Pacific great white shark not in danger of extinction

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday that the northeastern Pacific Ocean population of great white sharks is not in danger of extinction and does not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.

NOAA had been researching the health of the great white population since last year, when the environmental groups Oceana, Shark Stewards and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition calling for endangered species protection.

The petitioners were reacting to the first census of great whites ever attempted. Conducted by UC Davis and Stanford University researchers, and published in the journal Biology Letters in 2011, the census estimated that only 219 adult and sub-adult great whites lived off the Central California coast, and perhaps double that many were in the entire northeastern Pacific Ocean, including Southern California.

"We are disappointed and feel this is the wrong decision, one that flies in the face of best available science," said Geoff Shester, Oceana's California program director. "This battle is far from over."

NOAA scientists concluded that the white shark population is a distinct genetic group with a low to very low risk of extinction now and in the foreseeable future.

"Our team felt that there were more than 200 mature females alone, an indication of a total population of at least 3,000," Heidi Dewar, a fisheries research biologist at NOAA, said in an interview.

NOAA's analysis, which will be made public Monday, was based on a comprehensive review of threats to the population, direct and indirect indicators of abundance trends and analysis of fisheries by catch in the United States and Mexico, Dewar said.

Some of the data reviewed by NOAA was provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was encouraged by the results.

"We will continue this work so we can gain a better understanding of population trends and the overall health of sharks that play a vital role in ocean health," said Margaret Spring, vice president of conservation and science at the aquarium.

Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology at Cal State Long Beach who has been conducting state and federally permitted white shark research since 2002, said NOAA's findings confirm his own conclusion: The white shark population is rebounding for reasons that include federal laws that curb pollution, ban near-shore gill netting, protect sharks and halt the slaughter of marine mammals that sharks prey on for food.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife later this year is expected to announce its own determination of the status of the great white population.

George H. Burgess, curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, is among nine scientists who recently completed an independent census that will show there are more than 2,000 adult and sub-adult white sharks off Central California.

That study was not submitted for review by NOAA until after it reached its conclusion, Dewar said.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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Southland's heat wave just getting started

The first day of a heat wave produced extreme temperatures Friday across Southern California, but forecasters say the real broiling will come this weekend.

Heat records in Palmdale and Lancaster, which stand at 113 and 114 degrees, respectively, could be broken, National Weather Service specialist Stuart Seto said.

The last significant heat wave to hit Southern California was five years ago, Seto said. The 2009 heat wave baked the region for about two weeks.

In Los Angeles, the hot weather is a particular concern to firefighters because it comes in a year of record dry conditions that have already sparked several brush fires across the region. Fireworks went on sale in some areas Friday, adding another fire danger.

Many weather experts will keep a special eye on Death Valley, where the hottest temperature in the world — 134 degrees — was recorded nearly 100 years ago, on July 10, 1913.

"It's very warm, and people are coming here to see what it feels like," said Ann Wegner, executive administrative assistant at Furnace Creek Resort. "I don't think anybody can really be prepared."

Temperatures in Death Valley are expected to reach 129 degrees Sunday and Monday, breaking the record for the hottest June temperature: 128 degrees, set June 29, 1994, said Chris Stachelski, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Las Vegas.

An excessive heat warning is in place for the park. People going to or through Death Valley should travel during the coolest parts of the day and have water and food with them in case of a breakdown. Travelers should be prepared in the event something happens that strands them, Stachelski said.

"If you're not used to that kind of heat ... you can succumb to the elements," he said.

Several agencies in Los Angeles County have opened cooling centers — air-conditioned public facilities that can be used to escape the heat. Information about them is available by dialing 211, the county'' information line.

samantha.schaefer@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

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Gay couples rush to marry in wake of Prop. 8 ruling

Los Angeles' first marriage between gay men since this week's Supreme Court ruling on Proposition 8 — and Friday's lifting of a stay on same-sex weddings by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — united Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo in a ceremony presided over by outgoing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The two Burbank residents had raced from Los Angeles to the county registrar's office in Norwalk on Friday afternoon after learning that an expected 25-day delay in issuing wedding licenses for same-sex couples was voided. Heavy freeway traffic slowed the trip and delayed their plans to tie the knot about 5 p.m.

The snarled freeway caused them to miss out on being the first couple in the state to marry following the high court's ruling. Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, a Bay Area couple who joined Katami and Zarrillo as plaintiffs in the court case, married late Friday afternoon in San Francisco.

PHOTOS: Supreme Court rules on gay marriage

The men's five-minute ceremony occurred in a wood-paneled conference room next to Villaraigosa's City Hall office and was packed with the couple's friends, reporters and photographers. Zarrillo, 39, a movie theater manager, wore a gray suit; Katami's was blue.

The couple kissed Villaraigosa on the cheek as he stepped forward to officiate.

"I've done a few of these over the years. Never have I been so joyful," the mayor said. "How happy we are for you. Thanks to you, ceremonies like this will be celebrated with joy throughout California. Today, your wait is finally over. You're just as in love today as you were when you met 12 years ago."

The couple held hands as Villaraigosa asked each man if he took the other as his spouse. "We do," they replied in unison, and the mayor directed each to place a ring on the finger of the other's left hand.

"On behalf of the state of California let me pronounce you married," Villaraigosa said at 6:20 p.m., and the couple embraced and kissed.

Zarrillo told the onlookers that marriage had "always been a natural next step for us."

Katami, 40, a fitness instructor, drew laughter from friends and reporters by joking, "It's funny, people were saying you have the right to be as miserable as anyone else." Zarrillo laughed about having "taken the mayor off his farewell tour" to conduct the wedding.

Because of anticipated demand for marriage licenses, the Orange County clerk said late Friday that its offices in Santa Ana, Fullerton and Laguna Hills will open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Orange County may be the closest place for Los Angeles area residents to get a license before 8 a.m. Monday, when the Los Angeles County clerk's office opens.

The weekend closure in Los Angeles County was frustrating to people such as Jessie Keyser. When a co-worker told him the state would begin issuing licenses to same-sex couples, he dropped everything and sprinted to his car.

Keyser, 26, searched for county registrar's offices that were open late Friday and filled out the county's online marriage license application, while his partner, Adam Welsh, 26, hurried across downtown to meet up with him. They headed to Norwalk at 4:15 p.m., 45 minutes before the county clerk's office was scheduled to close. The freeway was stop-and-go traffic, and the couple called the offices several times from the car, pleading with them to stay open.

By the time they rushed through the sliding glass doors of the Norwalk county clerk's office at 5:05 p.m., they were told it was too late. "It's very frustrating … a let-down," Keyser said.

Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/Clerk Dean Logan said he received a call from state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris at 4:07 p.m., informing him that marriage licenses were to be issued immediately. Couples who called were told they could obtain a license if they made the 5 p.m. cutoff. Keyser said he saw at least a dozen other people get turned away.

In Sacramento, Abby Maurer, 30, called her parents Friday afternoon to tell them that she and Kim Kearsing, 43, might be getting married in an hour. They all assembled at the Sacramento County clerk's office, which was staying open until 7 p.m., two hours later than usual. Someone picked up a small cake from a favorite bakery. Maurer, a lawyer, was wearing jeans for casual Friday at her office.

The clerk's office was bustling as couples, who had waited years for the court case to conclude, headed to finalize their vows. Some clutched hastily gathered bouquets of flowers. Staff members raced to process paperwork as fast as possible.

Nicolas Simmersbach, 50, was at home in Sacramento when her partner of seven years, Diana Luiz, 52, suddenly called from the other room.

"Get in here right now!" she said, and they watched breaking news about the 9th Circuit decision. They had agreed to get married as soon it was legal.

"We blew out of the house like there was a fire," Simmersbach said. But they moved so fast they forgot the rings, and Luiz had to return home to get them.

They were married in a small room at the Sacramento County clerk's office, the first ceremony in the county after Proposition 8 was voided. Luiz raised her bouquet of sunflowers and said, "History, baby!"

In gay-friendly West Hollywood, however, some were cautious.

Kirk Allen, 45, sat on a bar patio with his boyfriend of three years and recalled the way "the rug was pulled out from under us" following the short window in 2008 when gay marriage was legal in the state. He said he's going to wait a little longer before he and his partner set a date.

"When you've been beat down like this, you want to wait a couple more days until hundreds of people are getting married," he said. "Give me the numbers, and I'll feel more secure."

Still, Allen applauded the appellate court's quickness in lifting its stay: "We've been denied so long. Why make us suffer any longer?"

bob.pool@latimes.com

Times staff writers Hailey Branson-Potts, Chris Megerian and Matt Stevens contributed to this report.

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Jurors hear clashing accounts of sisters' fatal shooting at party

Robert Lee Phillips didn't get along with his two adult stepdaughters, prosecutors say.

They clashed over many things, including music. As a blues musician, he detested the loud and profane rap tunes they favored.

The bad blood came to a head Labor Day weekend in 2006, prosecutors said. Sabrina Taylor, 30, and her sister, Charlotte Johnson, 33, invited friends over for Sabrina's birthday. The party ended in gunfire that left both sisters dead. Phillips is accused of killing them.

L.A. prosecutors allege Phillips could no longer contain his irritation with the sisters. After drinking heavily, they said, he grabbed a gun and opened fire.

"That fatal, final straw was the disrespect they showed to him," Deputy Dist. Atty. Joy Roberts told jurors Thursday during closing arguments in Phillips' murder trial. "He made the decision to kill, and he killed them both."

Phillips' attorney, however, tells a different story. He said the 66-year-old veteran was trying to break up a rowdy party, which was attended by gang members, by discharging his gun into the ground. Someone at the party then returned fire, wounding Phillips in the thigh.

The attorney, Louis Sepe, said Phillips snapped. Amid "chaos and pandemonium," Sepe said, he fired several shots, unintentionally hitting his stepdaughters.

Citing ballistics evidence, the attorney argued that Phillips' gunshots killed only Johnson. Phillips wounded Taylor, Sepe said, but a bullet from another gun caused the fatality.

A Los Angeles jury on Thursday began deliberating Phillips' fate.

Phillips was tried twice before for the Sept. 2, 2006, deaths of the sisters. He was also charged with the attempted murder of four others at the party.

In the first trial, the jury acquitted Phillips of first-degree murder in Johnson's death and deadlocked in Taylor's death. In the second trial last October, the jury deadlocked on every charge including second-degree murder for Johnson's death and first-degree murder for Taylor's.

Jurors last week heard testimony from Phillips' ex-wife, Paulette Phillips, the mother of the two victims. She told the court that her ex-husband enjoyed hunting and that he stored a gun in his van. On the night of the killings, she said, the van was parked in front of their house on the 2000 block of West 84th Place in South Los Angeles.

Recounting the events of the party, she broke down on the witness stand. She said Phillips was angered by the "cussing" in the music, and said Johnson defended the loud music when he complained about it.

"Nobody scared of you, Bobby," Johnson told Phillips, according to her mother. He became more and more angry, Paulette Phillips said, and when she saw him heading for his van, she knew he was going for his gun.

The 911 call made by the victims' mother after the shooting began was played last week and replayed Thursday by prosecutors.

"Please hurry!" Paulette Phillips screamed into the phone. "My daughter had a birthday party and my husband got mad," she said. Later on, gunshots were heard in the background, and after a pause, more gunshots were fired.

Phillips' attorney said his client was shot at the outset of the gunfire, catalyzing the night's events.

But prosecutors used the timing of the gunshots on the 911 call to highlight inconsistencies with that account. They allege that Phillips roamed around the house, appearing to hunt his victims. He shot his stepdaughters before he was wounded, they said. Prosecutors also claim that the person who shot Phillips did so to subdue him.

Sepe, Phillips' attorney, warned jurors that the testimony during the trial often conflicted.

The victims' cousin testified that Phillips was "relaxed," talking with partygoers about sports. Sepe recounted how Phillips offered the DJ a glass of cognac when requesting that the volume be lowered.

"These aren't just minor inconsistencies. They are major discrepancies," he added.

"Please don't compound the tragedy by finding Mr. Phillips guilty of more than something he's actually guilty of," Sepe said, requesting jurors to convict him only of involuntary manslaughter for Johnson's death.

Jury deliberations resume Friday.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

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Antonio Villaraigosa leaves his mark on L.A. schools

In the middle of Watts, at one of the worst-performing high schools in Los Angeles Unified, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in his element.

As he sat with Jordan High students late last year, he shared snippets of his life story, as he's done during scores of school visits during his eight years as mayor. He was raised without a father, was kicked out of one school and dropped out of another before graduating from Roosevelt High with a 1.4 GPA — because his mother and a teacher believed in him, he told students.

"Do you believe in you?" he asked them. "I believe in you. I believe you can reach for the stars."

No other issue has stoked the mayor's personal passion as much as public education. Despite lacking any formal authority over the nation's second-largest school system, Villaraigosa has left a major imprint.

Soon after taking office in 2005, he tried to take control of L.A. Unified. When that ambitious effort failed, the school board allowed a nonprofit foundation he created to manage more than a dozen low-performing schools. He raised millions of dollars and vowed to turn the schools into incubators of reform.

His nationwide fundraising also helped elect a loyal school board majority that installed superintendents he favored. Through them, he has pushed for a brand of reform that includes tying teacher evaluations to test scores and providing more choices for parents, such as charter schools.

Along the way, the onetime teachers union organizer has confronted his former allies by challenging seniority-based layoffs and advocating a higher bar for tenure. He blasted the United Teachers Los Angeles union as "the one unwavering roadblock" to improving public education.

As he leaves office, Villaraigosa points to successes: an increase in the graduation rate to 66%. A doubling in high-performing schools, as measured by the state's Academic Performance Index, which is based on standardized test scores. An explosion in publicly financed, independent charter schools.

A Times analysis found a mixed record at the schools his nonprofit controls. Overall, the mayor's schools have performed comparably to district schools with similar demographics. Some of his schools, notably 99th Street Elementary, have seen significant improvements. But others, such as Gompers Middle School and Roosevelt High, have seen comparatively modest gains.

Villaraigosa sometimes exaggerates his effect: He has taken credit for the district's massive school-construction program, although it was firmly established by the time he took office. Overall, L.A. Unified has improved slightly faster than the state, but test scores remain below the state average. And the district's upward trend began before Villaraigosa became mayor.

Mixed record

L.A. Unified schools controlled by the mayor showed a range of results in the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in English and math in 2012.

California Dept. of Education

Data analysis by Sandra Poindexter

"The biggest impact Villaraigosa has had is simply changing the conversation," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "The fact that there is a debate in Los Angeles about charters and choice, about teacher support and evaluation, is due to the mayor's use of the bully pulpit."

Villaraigosa followed in the path of former Mayor Richard Riordan, who helped elect a school board that replaced a superintendent, launched the nation's largest school construction program and returned phonics to classrooms.

Recent academic gains came despite a punishing economic recession.

School board President Monica Garcia, a close ally, praised the mayor for "having the guts to do what's really hard … fighting for better in a very difficult time."

The mayor's combative style, however, has alienated key players, starting with teachers, said school board member Steve Zimmer, who beat back a Villaraigosa attempt to unseat him.

"I don't think that he's wrong in insisting that every child has a right to an excellent teacher every day," Zimmer said. "The difference is really in the pathway. Not enough care was taken to make sure that teachers felt supported."

Villaraigosa's odyssey into education began haltingly and only at the instigation of others. His pledge to take over L.A. Unified in his second bid for mayor was among a series of one-upmanship moves with incumbent James Hahn over education.

The state takeover law was challenged by the school board and ruled unconstitutional by an L.A. County Superior Court judge in 2006.

By that time, however, the mayor's Plan B was already in progress. He set out to seize de facto authority by helping elect a school board majority in 2007.

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After 20 years of talk, Crenshaw/LAX rail line gets green light

After some last-minute fiscal reshuffling, transportation officials gave a green light to the proposed Crenshaw/LAX light-rail line on Thursday, capping years of controversy over the train's route through South Los Angeles.

The board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority unanimously approved the Crenshaw Line's $2.06-billion budget, the largest in the agency's history, and awarded the joint project contract to Walsh Construction and J.F. Shea Co.

The 8.5-mile line will connect the Expo Line to the Green Line. It's partially funded by Measure R, the half-cent sales tax Los Angeles County voters passed in 2008. When major construction begins next year, the Crenshaw Line will be one of five significant rail projects simultaneously under construction in the county. It's expected to open in 2019.

"What you have here is a regional, rational and equitable transportation plan," Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said. The line will reduce congestion and air pollution and increase jobs along Crenshaw Boulevard, he said.

Ridley-Thomas was one of the officials who led the charge to build the Crenshaw Line, which was discussed for more than two decades. The issue came to the forefront after county voters passed Measure R. Ridley-Thomas and South L.A. activists successfully fought to add two stations to the route, including a stop in Leimert Park Village, a hub of African American culture and history.

The project's funding includes an extra $160 million, in case construction runs over budget.

Officials had planned to take the extra money from a variety of other projects, including nearly $100 million for South Bay highway and road improvements. But after cities there protested, officials voted to take the money instead from two projects funded by Proposition C, another half-cent sales tax that county voters passed in 1990.

Activists had urged Metro to hire black workers to build the line, but the federal government prohibits hiring based on race. The Crenshaw Line contractors have agreed that construction workers from ZIP Codes with low income and chronic unemployment — many of which are in South L.A. — will handle many of the project work hours.

The line could still change in one significant way. In a separate motion Thursday, the Metro board voted to study another option for bringing airport travelers on the Crenshaw Line closer to Los Angeles International Airport. The new alternative would connect the Crenshaw Line to a facility along 96th Street, where travelers would take a transfer to the terminal.

laura.nelson@latimes.com

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Heat wave aggravates fire risk as Fourth of July nears

The first heat wave of the summer hit California on Thursday, producing some triple-digit temperatures that forecasters say are only a preview for a blistering weekend ahead.

The National Weather Service issued heat warnings for large swaths of the state, saying many inland valleys and desert areas could see temperatures well above 100 degrees for the next several days. The mercury could top 120 degrees in the Coachella Valley and 129 in Death Valley, still short of the 134-degree record set there in 1913.

The heat is a particular concern to firefighters because it comes in a year of record dry conditions that have already sparked several major brush fires across Southern California. On top of that, fireworks go on sale in some areas beginning Friday, adding another fire danger.

Fireworks are to be sold in 295 designated communities in the state through the Fourth of July.

Since January, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has responded to about 2,900 fires, department spokesman Daniel Berlant said. In an average year, he said, it would have responded to fewer than 1,800 by this time.

This increase in fire starts results from the prevalence of dry brush, Berlant said. He added that current weather conditions are more typical of late August or early September.

"We're in a long-term drought," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "The situation is extremely crispy and dry. That equals incendiary."

During a typical rain year, which runs from July 1 through June 30, California receives 15.1 inches of rain on average, Patzert said. During this rain year, which ends Sunday, the state has seen only 5.85 inches so far, making it the sixth-driest of the last 135 years, according to Patzert.

The high temperatures combined with low humidity and dry brush increase the danger of wildfires, said Bonnie Bartling, a weather specialist at the National Weather Service's Los Angeles station. But because high winds are not forecast for most areas, the service has issued a fire warning only in southern Santa Barbara County.

Somewhat lower temperatures are expected starting Monday, but most residents still will find it plenty hot. " 'Cooler' is a relative term," Bartling said.

Because of the rising heat levels and low humidity, the U.S. Forest Service has extended the hours of its staffing in the Angeles National Forest, effective at least through Monday.

Personnel will be on high alert July 4, although fireworks are never permitted in the park, spokesman Nathan Judy said. Some campgrounds may close early that day.

"If we have fires, the chance of their growing larger is that much greater," Judy said.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department is increasing its staffing Tuesday in anticipation of the holiday, spokesman Tony Akins said. Peak staffing of about 90 firefighters is scheduled for the Fourth of July.

Both the county and city fire departments support an anti-fireworks campaign, urging people to attend public fireworks shows rather than hold their own.

Officials have issued lists of recommendations: Don't leave pets or people in closed cars, drink plenty of water, and avoid consuming too much alcohol, which is dehydrating. People also are being urged to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day, to avoid strenuous physical activity outdoors and to call 911 at the first sign of heatstroke, which can be fatal.

The heat wave could be especially dangerous for the elderly, small children and people with chronic ailments, authorities said.

Several agencies opened cooling centers — air-conditioned public facilities that can be used to escape the heat. Information about the centers can be found by dialing 211, the county's information line.

Parts of Northern California — especially inland areas — will also be slammed by the heat. Temperatures in Sacramento could reach 108 degrees, but they are not expected to surpass 75 in San Francisco.

emily.foxhall@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jean Merl contributed to this report.

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Gov. Jerry Brown signs budget with few changes — or complaints

SACRAMENTO — Flanked by fellow Democrats and other political allies, Gov. Jerry Brown approved California's new budget Thursday, changing very little of the $96.3-billion spending plan before signing it into law.

Brown said California's finances are "in very solid shape" after years of deficits and touted increased spending on schools and healthcare for the poor.

"It is a big day for schoolkids. It's a big day for Californians who don't have healthcare," Brown said. "California is the leader. The rest of the country is looking to see how we did it."

The budget, which takes effect Monday, will change education funding, diverting some money from wealthier schools to districts with large numbers of poor students or English learners. Brown also signed bills expanding healthcare, part of President Obama's federal overhaul.

Although the final budget hews closely to the governor's original blueprint, it also includes new funding sought by Democratic lawmakers for welfare, university tuition assistance, mental health and dental care for poor adults.

"Today represents great progress," said Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). "Real people hurt for so long will get some help."

Tax revenue has continued to outpace Brown's expectations since he reached a budget deal with lawmakers, but the governor said it would be unwise to count on the surge to continue.

"We live in uncertain times," Brown said. "There's a lot of unknowns out there in Washington, in Europe, in Asia, in technology, in real-estate growth."

The governor used his blue pencil in several places.

He eliminated a measure that would have increased transparency at the Judiciary Council, the policymaking branch of the state court system. Brown's finance director, Ana Matosantos, said it would have cost the courts too much, though she said she did not have a specific estimate.

The measure "doesn't appear to be warranted or necessary at this time," she said.

Assembly Budget Chairman Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills) said the governor's decision was a "huge mistake" that would make it harder to root out wasteful spending.

"The public has a right to know the decisions affecting access to justice and the inner workings of an entire branch of government," he said in a statement.

In a conference call with reporters, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said she lobbied against the requirement, which she viewed as too broad and too hasty. She pledged to begin increasing transparency next year.

"It has to be thoughtful and deliberative," she said.

Brown also stripped out $30 million for special education, part of the Legislature's plan to ensure that all special education students receive the same amount of funding from the state. The governor said the plan would be too pricey in the long run, with costs reaching $300 million in future years.

Another veto scaled back money for preschool, reducing this year's increase from $30 million to $25 million.

Thursday marked the end of a relatively smooth budget process, particularly by California standards. Even Republican criticism was subdued.

Senate GOP leader Robert Huff (R-Diamond Bar) said the budget "includes some positive steps forward in education funding." But he said Democrats should have sent even more money to schools, and he criticized them for failing to address nearly $200 billion in unfunded retirement costs in coming decades.

"Keeping promises to the people of California on education funding and paying off our state debt load so as not to burden future generations with our mistakes should have been the first priority, but unfortunately that did not happen," Huff said in a statement.

In addition to a $96.3-billion general fund, the budget contains $42 billion from accounts funded by dedicated taxes and fees, and $7 billion in bond money.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

Times staff writer Paige St. John contributed to this report.

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Eric Garcetti inauguration: little pomp but plenty of people power

Los Angeles Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti is taking his power-to-the-people pitch to Sunday's inauguration festivities, planning an event that includes Steampunk carnival games, multi-culti music and an oath of office administered by the 13-year-old daughter of a janitor.

Hollywood, a major backer of Garcetti's campaign, will also be on hand. Jimmy Kimmel is emceeing, and techno master Moby, accompanied by a choir, will kick off the event with a song. For the most part, though, Garcetti has planned a ceremony with little pomp followed by a free public party in downtown's Grand Park.

"We've been saying this transition is less about symbolism and more about work," said Yusef Robb, Garcetti's chief spokesman. "This inauguration is definitely about sending a message to the people of Los Angeles that the power comes from you and that's the way it should be."

Garcetti has been vacationing with his family in Belize this week and is expected back Friday. He's putting the finishing touches on a speech that will probably carry a "back to basics" theme, Robb said, an emphasis the mayor-elect has talked about with community groups across the city as he prepared to take power July 1.

Sunday's inauguration is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. on the Spring Street steps outside City Hall. It's only ceremonial: Garcetti will officially be sworn in Friday by City Clerk June Lagmay, Robb said, and a power shift won't take place until midnight Sunday, when termed-out Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa leaves the post.

The public ceremony will start with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Lily Newman, a fifth-grader at Porter Ranch Community School.

Besides Moby, there will be performances by Afghan American singer Ariana Delawari and two-time Grammy winner Melanie Fiona.

Oaths will be taken by City Atty.-elect Mike Feuer (administered by California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris), City Controller-elect Ron Galperin (administered by state Controller John Chiang) and eight City Council members, six of whom are newly elected.

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FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article misspelled John Chiang's last name as Chung.

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Next will come the mayor-elect's oath. Robb said Garcetti didn't want to be sworn in by "a guy in a robe.... He said, 'Let's find someone who represents who I work for and what the city is all about.'"

That person will be Kenia Castillo, a Westlake eighth-grader who attends Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park. The mayor-elect met her when her mother, a janitor, was striking for better wages, and she went on to volunteer in his campaign, Robb said.

Reserved ticket holders will be able to watch from bleachers on Spring Street or stand in an adjacent section of the park.

After the oaths and speeches, the focus will shift to an entertainment stage in Grand Park just south of Broadway. DJ Canyon will kick things off, followed by L.A.-based acts Buyepongo, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Jungle Fire and Moonlight Trio.

Food trucks and carnival booths sponsored by Two Bit Circus will be on hand.

The public can enter at 1st Street and Broadway, with gates opening at 5 p.m. Garcetti's staff is warning that parking will be limited and that people should arrive early. To avoid traffic, people can take the Red Line subway to the Civic Center station, which has an exit near Grand Park.

Closures of Broadway and Spring Street between 1st and Temple streets will begin around 7 p.m. Friday to prepare for the event. Both streets will be reopened Monday morning.

The cost of the inauguration party is still be tallied and will be paid by donors to Garcetti's transition fund. Contributors have given $120,000 so far, including a dozen people at the $10,000 maximum, according to records provided by aides to City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Donors include Warner Bros. Chief Executive Barry Meyer, philanthropist and investor David Bohnett and San Pedro businessman Jayme Wilson, who unsuccessfully ran for City Council in 2011. One $10,000 donation came from Fire Commissioner Steven Fazio, who also gave to Greuel, Garcetti's opponent in the mayoral race.

Another donor is Kenneth Sampson, who serves on the North Valley Area Planning Commission. Like Fazio, he contributed to Greuel's campaign. Other San Fernando Valley contributors include former Police Commissioner Herbert F. Boeckmann and his wife, Jane Boeckmann.

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

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LAPD chief criticizes officers' conduct during deadly struggle

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck was sharply critical of how several officers acted during an arrest last year in which a woman died during a prolonged struggle with police, department records released this week show.

In a report to the Police Commission, the civilian board that oversees the LAPD, Beck concluded that a veteran female officer violated department policies when she repeatedly kicked and shoved 35-year-old Alesia Thomas in her genitals and midsection. The same officer, the chief and commission found, showed "apparent indifference" toward Thomas during the messy effort to restrain her and put her into the back of a police cruiser.

Beck raised concerns as well over the actions of three additional officers and a supervisor during the July 22 confrontation in South L.A. Two of the officers disregarded Thomas' request for medical help, while the third cop may have lied to investigators about the incident, Beck wrote in his report. A sergeant who responded to the scene may have failed to properly supervise the officers, according to the report.

Following the chief's findings, the department opened formal internal investigations, which could result in discipline of the officers and sergeant. The district attorney's office, meanwhile, is reviewing the case for possible criminal charges, said Cmdr. Andy Smith, a spokesman for Beck.

The officers and sergeant have been reassigned to other stations, and all but one have been taken out of the field during the investigations, Smith said. The officers' names have not been released because state law keeps issues related to police misconduct confidential.

In a unanimous vote during a closed-door meeting this week, the five-member commission agreed with the chief's finding that the female officer's forceful use of her feet was "ineffective and inappropriate," according to a commission report.

An autopsy by the Los Angeles County coroner determined that cocaine intoxication probably was "a major factor" in Thomas' death. It was impossible to determine what role, if any, the struggle with the officers played. Because of that uncertainty, the official cause of death was listed as "undetermined."

Last summer, The Times reported on the alleged kicks by the female officer and Thomas' decision to abandon her children outside the LAPD's Southeast area station, which led to the fatal confrontation with police. The chief's report provided details to how events unfolded.

About 1:30 a.m., Thomas, who suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and drug addiction, according to the autopsy report, left her 3-year-old and 12-year-old children outside the station, according to Beck's report. The children walked into the station lobby carrying a basket of clothing and told the officer at the front desk that their grandmother was supposed to pick them up. One of the children handed the officer a piece of paper with a telephone number and the name "Sandra" written on it, the report said.

In earlier accounts, police officials and relatives of Thomas said she was attempting to surrender the children to police custody because she thought she could no longer care for them.

Officers were dispatched to Thomas' home and were instructed to arrest Thomas on suspicion of child endangerment, according to Beck's account.

Thomas resisted as officers tried to place her in handcuffs, and the officers tackled her to the floor to restrain her. Once she was in handcuffs, Thomas asked for an ambulance, but when one of the officers asked her why, she appeared incoherent and asked only for a glass of water, Beck said.

With the sergeant now looking on, the officers carried Thomas down a flight of stairs to the street. The female officer and her partner arrived to assist and the four officers began trying to push and pull Thomas into the back of a patrol car as she continued to struggle.

When Thomas was partially in the back of the patrol car, the female officer on three separate instances delivered a series of kicks or shoves to Thomas in her groin and thighs. She repeatedly swore at Thomas and threatened to kick her if she did not "knock it off," the commission report said. The force from the officer's feet caused Thomas at one point to fall back and scream. When the female officer ordered Thomas to sit up, she stated repeatedly, "I can't," and the officer applied her foot again, according to the report.

Although a video camera in the car captured much of the incident, Beck and the commission said it could not be determined whether the officer maliciously kicked Thomas or was trying to move her further into the car, as the officer said.

Minutes after being in the car with the doors closed, the video shows Thomas losing consciousness. The officers quickly noticed she was unresponsive and called an ambulance. Thomas was dead by the time paramedics brought her to a hospital.

The LAPD has refused requests from The Times for a copy of the video, citing the ongoing investigations.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

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