Good Morning. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a shortage of a safe and adequate blood supply. Please join us for the LAPPL Community Blood Drive on February 14, 2021, from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Click here to schedule a COVID safe appointment to donate blood with the American Red Cross and help us save lives. 

A 25-year veteran officer with the LAPD died Monday of complications from COVID-19. Officer Philip Sudario, who was assigned to the Southeast Community Police Station in South Los Angeles, is the fourth LAPD officer and sixth department employee to die from the disease. "Tonight, the LAPD family is mourning," the department tweeted. "Our thoughts & prayers are with his friends and loved ones." Other LAPD employees who have died of complications from COVID-19 are Sgt. Amelia "Terry'' Martinez, 53, who died Jan. 12; police service representative Raymond Guerrero, 24, who died this month; Sgt. Fred Cueto, a 22-year veteran who died in December; and non-sworn detention officer Erica McAdoo, 39, and Officer Valentin Martinez, 45, who both died in July.

A deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has died of complications related to COVID-19, the department announced Monday. Deputy Santiago Carrillo was a 14-year veteran of the force assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. “We are grateful for his service to L.A. County,” the department said in a tweet. “Please keep his family and loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.” Just last month, LASD Deputy Timothy Tellez, a 20-year veteran of the force, died from complications of coronavirus.

A 39-year-old man was wounded early Monday in a drive-by shooting in the Cheviot Hills area of Los Angeles, police said. The shooting occurred at 12:45 a.m. around Manning Avenue and National Boulevard, said Officer A. Delatorre of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Operations Center. The man was approached by a vehicle with two males inside, and shots rang out, Delatorre said. The victim was taken by paramedics to a hospital, where his vital signs were stable, he said.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore spoke Monday about an increase in homicides and shootings in Los Angeles in 2020, as well as reforms the police department has implemented and ways the city is working to address crime in the new year. While overall crime decreased by 9% -- including property crime by 11.1%, violent crime by 3% and robberies by 17% -- homicides increased by 36.2% and victims shot by 41.4%, Garcetti said. He noted that the increase is similar to other U.S. cities, including Chicago, which had a 50% increase in homicides and New York City, which had an increase of 40%. Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore elaborated on the crime statistics. Among the increases were street gang violence, with 55% of homicides being identified as gang-related. There was also a 42% year-over-year increase in gang homicides, Moore said. He also said that in 2020, 65 people experiencing homelessness were murdered, compared to 41 in 2019. "This represents a 58% increase with just over one in five homicide victims in 2020 being a person experiencing homelessness,''

City Attorney Mike Feuer announced Monday that his office is suing the owners of a South Los Angeles apartment building that has been the scene of several arrests and two consecutive gang-related homicides in December. The six-unit complex, in the 900 block of East 91st Street, is 450 feet away from KIPP Academy Elementary School and “has been the epicenter of gun violence in a neighborhood where no one should have to live this way,” Feuer said. The lawsuit alleges that since Winston Yaw and Vannak Chim took ownership of the property in 2018, they have enabled criminal activity by not implementing reasonable security and other measures. Efforts to reach the defendants for comment were unsuccessful. On Dec. 9, 25-year-old Tyrone Wofford was standing at the property when he was shot by two rival gang members Feuer said. He bled to death at the scene. During a vigil for Wofford at the property the following night that attracted about 100 people, another rival gang member fired several rounds at the property and a 28-year-old woman was fatally struck, according to Feuer. “To give you a sense of what it’s like to live in this neighborhood when this kind of activity occurs, police recovered 80 rounds in just the course of that 48-hour period that were fired in around that scene back and forth,” he said. The location has also been the scene of several other crimes and arrests since December, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Regina Scott.

Another weekend, another large underground party broken up by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's superspreader task force. FOX 11 was once again there as LASD deputies raided the event Saturday night. The crackdown happened as the stunned homeowners showed up to find out their Airbnb guests had thrown the party behind their backs in Ladera Heights. "This is the LA County Sheriff's Department. You need to come out of the front door with your hands up," a deputy on scene said over an intercom. “Everyone inside of West 60th Street, the party's over," the deputy was heard saying over the intercom. Dozens of partygoers made their way out of the house and began gathering in front of the property, where LASD detained them and issued more than 60 citations.

Former Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander was sentenced Monday to 14 months in prison and fined $15,000 for lying to federal authorities about secret cash payments and a debauched night in Las Vegas he received from a businessman seeking introductions to real estate developers. Judge John F. Walter of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said Englander had shown arrogance and greed in “brazenly” covering up his misconduct, and he rejected his explanation that he’d simply been trying to protect his reputation. “There’s simply no adequate explanation as to how he totally lost his moral compass and committed this crime,” Walter said by video at sentencing hearing conducted by Zoom. Englander, 50, is the first person to be sentenced in a sprawling federal investigation into corruption at Los Angeles City Hall. He pleaded guilty in July to falsifying material facts, a felony.

A Los Angeles County lifeguard and a Hawthorne police officer were honored Monday with the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, awarded by Gov. Gavin Newsom, for heroic acts they performed. Hawthorne Police Department Officer Jose Gomez sustained a gunshot wound to his left thigh on April 7, 2019 while engaged in a shootout with a man dressed in full military gear who had already wounded a woman and another person near a hotel in the 14400 block of Aviation Boulevard, the statement said. When Gomez arrived at the scene, the suspect opened fire, striking Gomez’s patrol cruiser, then ran toward a nearby shopping center and took cover, where he once again opened fire on Gomez from a distance of about 100 yards. Gomez was able to take cover behind pillars and returned fire. As other officers arrived at the scene, the suspect jumped a wall and was shot by Gomez, who himself was shot by the suspect in his left thigh and left motionless and exposed, the governor’s office said.

California has paid out a staggering $11 billion worth of fraudulent unemployment claims since the COVID-19 pandemic began last spring, California Labor Secretary Julie Su said Monday. The fraudulent payments represent about 10% of all payments for pandemic era unemployment benefits, Su said. The percentage is likely to go higher. Another 17% of the dollars that have been paid out — more than $19 billion — are considered suspicious and “a large number of that could be confirmed fraud as well,” she said. “There is no sugarcoating the reality,” Su told a news conference. “California did not have enough security measures in place.” Most of the fraudulent claims have been made through the federally-funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. PUA was designed to provide unemployment benefits to people who do not qualify for traditional unemployment insurance, such as independent contractors and small business owners. Recipients can currently get up to $750 a week in benefits.

A man accused of shooting and killing his mother in Sacramento was arrested and booked in a strong-arm robbery case weeks earlier in San Francisco, but the district attorney did not charge him. Records show that instead of charging Ali Mustafa Hudson, 42, for allegedly stealing a phone from a passenger on board a Muni bus on Dec. 20, District Attorney Chesa Boudin had him transported to Solano County, where Hudson had a $5,000 misdemeanor warrant for drug possession and driving without a valid driver’s license. Officials in Solano County were not immediately able to confirm the date Hudson was released, but under COVID-19 emergency orders, counties generally do not hold people on misdemeanor warrants. On January 19, Sacramento sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of a domestic dispute at an apartment complex on the 5400 block of Auburn Blvd. They said Hudson shot and killed Ramona Hayes, a woman described by several law enforcement officials as his mother.

His daughter said that she and her boyfriend were coming home with some news. But as soon as they sat down in the living room that August day in 2016, John Reilly felt something was amiss. Rosemarie, usually goofy and gregarious, looked down at her feet. Her boyfriend, Jeremy, did all the talking. “We’re buying a trailer,” he said, adding that they had rented a lot in a suburban campground. Nothing about this news felt right to 59-year-old Reilly, who had been waiting four years for his elder daughter to grow weary of her high school boyfriend. Rosemarie loved the bustle of her life near her nursing school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but this campground was miles away from campus, surrounded by oak trees, grassy fields, and low-slung homes. Sensing that his 21-year-old daughter had her own reservations, Reilly decided to weigh in: A hook-up trailer would not be the money-saving arrangement they imagined, he argued. It would lose value fast, and the cost of propane would be crushing in a region that gets 70 inches of snow in a typical winter.

Two people, reportedly a father and daughter, were killed Monday in an apparent electrocution in Panorama City. Firefighters went to the 14700 block of Tupper Street about 2:45 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. A man in his 50s and a woman in her 20s died at the scene, the LAFD reported. The man was identified by the coroner's office as Ferdinand Tejada, 53, of Panorama City. The other victim's name was not immediately released by the coroner's office. It was reported Tejada went outside when he hear a "loud pop" and was electrocuted, and his daughter went to his aid and also was electrocuted. His wife called 911 and was told to stay inside until emergency crews arrived. Power was shut off in the immediate area by utility crews. The Los Angeles Police Department was investigating.

California officials lifted regional coronavirus stay-at-home orders across the state on Monday, a change that could allow restaurants and businesses in many counties to reopen outdoor dining and other services. All counties will return to the colored tier system that assigns local risk levels based on case numbers and rates of positive test results for coronavirus infections. Most areas will be classified under the “widespread” risk tier, which permits hair salons to offer limited services indoors but restricts many other nonessential indoor business operations. “Today, we can lay claim to starting to see some real light at the end of the tunnel as it relates to case numbers,” Newsom said at a Monday news conference. “Each region’s a little bit different, but we are in a position projecting four weeks forward with a significant decline in the case rates, positivity rates. We are anticipating...still more decline in hospitalizations and more declines in ICU, and that’s why we’re lifting that stay at home effective immediately today.”