Hancock Park murder leads police to arrest couple in Palmdale
Two Palmdale residents have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man in what investigators believe involved a burglary in the Wilshire area, according to a release from the Los Angeles Police Department.
On Wednesday afternoon, police responded to a call of a stabbing on the 100 block of North Rossmore Avenue in the Hancock Park neighborhood. They found Gary Nelson, 84, "suffering from severe lacerations," the release said. The Los Angeles Fire Department pronounced Nelson dead at the scene, officials said.
The suspects were identified as 41-year-old Rolando Guardado and 45-year-old Madeline Fresia Rivas, who are currently being held without bail, the release said. The two were found at a home in Palmdale and taken into custody by the FBI with help from LAPD Metropolitan Division SWAT. A weapon was also recovered, according to police.
Officials said the motive was believed to be burglary-related but investigators did not elaborate. Guardado and Rivas have been booked on suspicion of murder. The case is pending charges by the Los Angeles County district attorney.
It is unknown if the suspects had any connection with the victim, the release said. Detectives were continuing to investigate the case.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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7 hours ago
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A New Trump Plan Gives DHS and the White House Greater Influence in the Fight Against Organized Crime
This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. The Trump administration has launched a major reorganization of the U.S. fight against drug traffickers and other transnational criminal groups, setting out a strategy that would give new authority to the Department of Homeland Security and deepen the influence of the White House. The administration's plans, described in internal documents and by government officials, would reduce federal prosecutors' control over investigations, shifting key decisions to a network of task forces jointly led by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of DHS. Officials said the plan to bring law enforcement agencies together in the new Homeland Security Task Forces has been driven primarily by President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, who is closely overseeing the project's implementation. Current and former officials said the proposed reorganization would make it easier for senior officials like Miller to disregard norms that have long walled off the White House from active criminal investigations. 'To the administration's credit, they are trying to break down barriers that are hard to break down,' said Adam W. Cohen, a career Justice Department attorney who was fired in March as head of the office that coordinates organized crime investigations involving often-competing federal agencies. 'But you won't have neutral prosecutors weighing the facts and making decisions about who to investigate,' he added of the task force plan. 'The White House will be able to decide.' The proposed reorganization would elevate the stature and influence of Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement among law enforcement agencies, while continuing to push other agencies to pursue immigration-related crimes. The task forces would at least formally subordinate the Drug Enforcement Administration to HSI and the FBI after half a century in which the DEA has been the government's lead agency for narcotics enforcement. Trump's directive to establish the new task forces was included in an Inauguration Day executive order, 'Protecting the American People Against Invasion,' which focused on immigration. The new task forces will seek 'to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States,' the order states. They will also aim to 'end the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such offenses involving children.' Since that order was issued, the administration has proceeded with considerable secrecy. Some Justice Department officials who work on organized crime have been excluded from planning meetings, as have leaders of the DEA, people familiar with the process said. A White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, did not comment on Miller's role in directing the task force project or the secrecy of the process. 'While the Biden Administration opened the border and looked the other way while Americans were put at risk,' she said, 'the Trump Administration is taking action to dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking and ensure the use of all available law enforcement tools to faithfully execute immigration laws and to Make America Safe Again.' The task force project was described in interviews with current and former officials who have been briefed on it. ProPublica also reviewed documents about the implementation of the task forces, including a briefing paper prepared for Cabinet-level officials on the president's Homeland Security Council. The Homeland Security Task Forces will take a 'coordinated, whole-of-government approach' to combatting transnational criminal groups, the paper states. They will also draw support from state and local police forces and U.S. intelligence agencies. Until now, the government has coordinated that same work through a Justice Department program established by President Ronald Reagan, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces — which the Trump administration is shutting down. Known by the ungainly acronym OCDETF (pronounced 'oh-suh-def'), the $550-million program is above all an incentive system: To receive funding, different agencies (including the DEA, the FBI and HSI) must come together to propose investigations, which are then vetted and approved by prosecutor-led OCDETF teams. The agents are required to include a financial investigation of the criminal activity, typically with help from the Treasury Department, and they often recruit support from state and local police. The OCDETF intelligence center, located in the northern Virginia suburbs, manages the only federal database in which different law-enforcement agencies share their raw investigative files. While officials describe OCDETF as an imperfect structure, they also say it has become a crucial means of law enforcement cooperation. Its mandate was expanded under the Biden and first Trump administrations to encompass all types of organized crime, not just drug trafficking. As recently as a few months ago, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, declared that OCDETF would play a central role in stopping illegal immigration, drug trafficking and street gangs. He even suggested that it investigate the governments of so-called sanctuary cities for obstructing immigration enforcement. But just weeks after Blanche's announcement, the administration informed OCDETF officials their operations would be shut down by the end of the fiscal year in September. In a letter to Democratic senators on June 23, the Justice Department confirmed that the Homeland Security Task Forces would absorb OCDETF's 'mission and resources' but did not explain how the new structure would take charge of the roughly 5,000 investigations OCDETF now oversees. 'These were not broken programs,' said a former Homeland Security official who, like others, would only discuss the administration's plans on condition of anonymity. 'If you wanted to build them out and make sure that the immigration side of things got more importance, you could have done that. You did not have to build a new wheel.' Officials also cited other concerns about the administration's plan, including whether the new task force system will incorporate some version of the elaborate safeguards OCDETF has used to persuade law enforcement agencies to share their case files in its intelligence database. Under those rules, OCDETF analysts must obtain permission from the agency that provided the records before sharing them with others. Many officials said they worried that the new task forces seem to be abandoning OCDETF's incentive structure. OCDETF funds are conditioned on multiple agencies working together on important cases; officials said the monies will now be distributed to law enforcement agencies directly and without the requirement that they collaborate. 'They are taking away a lot of the organization that the government uses to attack organized crime,' a Justice Department official said. 'If you want to improve something, great, but they don't even seem to have a vision for how this is going to work. There are no specifics.' The Homeland Security Task Forces will try to enforce interagency cooperation by a 'supremacy clause,' that gives task force leaders the right to pursue the cases they want and shut down others that might overlap. The clause will require 'that any new or existing investigative and/or intelligence initiatives' targeting transnational criminal organizations 'must be presented to the HSTF with a right of first refusal,' according to the briefing paper reviewed by ProPublica. 'Further,' it adds, 'the supremacy clause prohibits parallel or competitive activities by member agencies, effectively eliminating duplicative structures such as stand-alone task forces or specialized units, to include narcotics, financial, or others.' Several senior law enforcement officials said that approach would curtail the independence that investigators need to follow good leads when they see them; newer and less-visible criminal organizations would be more likely to escape scrutiny. In recent years, those officials noted, both Democratic and Republican administrations have tried at times to short-circuit competition for big cases among law enforcement agencies and judicial districts. But that has often led to as many problems as it has solved, they said. One notable example, several officials said, was a move by the Biden administration's DEA administrator, Anne Milgram, to limit her agency's cooperation with FBI and HSI investigations into fentanyl smuggling by Los Chapitos, the mafia led by sons of the Mexican drug boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as 'El Chapo.' Although the DEA eventually indicted the Chapitos' leaders in New York, officials from other agencies complained that Milgram's approach wasted months of work and delayed the indictments of some traffickers. Later, when the FBI secretly arranged the surrender of one of the sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, DEA officials were not told about the operation until it was underway, officials said. (Guzmán López initially pleaded not guilty but is believed to be negotiating with the government. Milgram did not respond to messages asking for comment.) As to the benefits of competition, prosecutors and agents cite the case of El Chapo himself. Before he was extradited to the United States in January 2017, Guzmán Loera had been indicted by seven U.S. attorneys' offices, reflecting yearslong investigations by the DEA, the FBI and HSI, among others. In the agreement that the Obama Justice Department brokered, three offices led the prosecution, which used the best evidence gathered by the others. Under the new structure of the Homeland Security Task Forces, several officials said, federal prosecutors will still generally decide whether to bring charges against criminal groups, but they will have less of a role in determining which criminals to investigate. Regional and national task forces will be overseen by 'executive committees' that are expected to include political appointees, officials said. The committees will guide broader decisions about which criminal groups to target, they said. 'The HSTF model unleashes the full might of our federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to deliver justice for the American people, whose plight Biden and Garland ignored for four years,' a Justice Department spokesperson said, referring to former Attorney General Merrick Garland. 'Any suggestion that the Department is abandoning its mission of cracking down on violent organized crime is unequivocally false.' During Trump's first term, veteran officials of the FBI, DEA and HSI all complained that the administration's overarching focus on immigration diverted agents from more urgent national security threats, including the fentanyl epidemic. Now, as hundreds more agents have been dispatched to immigration enforcement, those officials worry that the new task forces will focus on rounding up undocumented immigrants who have any sort of criminal record at the cost of more significant organized crime investigations. The first task forces to begin operating under the new model have not assuaged such concerns. In late May, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced that the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force had arrested more than 1,000 'criminal illegal aliens' in just two months, but the authorities have provided almost no details connecting those suspects to transnational criminal organizations. On June 16, the Gulf of America Homeland Security Task Force, a new unit based in Alabama and Georgia, announced the arrests of 60 people, nearly all of them undocumented immigrants, at a cockfighting event in northern Alabama. Although cockfighting is typically subject to a maximum fine of $50 in the state, a senior HSI official claimed the suspects were 'tied to a broader network of serious crimes, including illegal gambling, drug trafficking and violent offenses.' Once again, however, no details were provided. It is unclear how widely the new task force rules might be applied. While OCDETF funds the salaries of more than a thousand federal agents and hundreds of prosecutors, thousands more DEA, FBI and HSI agents work on other narcotics and organized crime cases. In early June, five Democratic senators wrote to Bondi questioning the decision to dismantle OCDETF. That decision was first reported by Bloomberg News. 'As the Department's website notes, OCDETF 'is the centerpiece of the Attorney General's strategy to combat transnational-organized crime and to reduce the availability of illicit narcotics in the nation,'' the senators wrote. In a June 23 response, a Justice Department official, Daniel Boatright, wrote that OCDETF's operations would be taken over by the new task forces and managed by the office of the Deputy Attorney General. But Boatright did not clarify what role federal prosecutors would play in the new system. 'A lot of good, smart people are trying to make this work,' said one former senior official. 'But without having prosecutors drive the process, it is going to completely fracture how we do things.' Veteran officials at the DEA — who appear to have had almost no say in the creation of the new task forces— are said to be even more concerned. Already the DEA has been fighting pressure to provide access to investigative files without assurances that the safeguards of the OCDETF intelligence center will remain in place, officials said. 'DEA has not even been invited to any of the task force meetings,' one former senior official said. 'It is mind-boggling. They're just getting orders saying, 'This is what Stephen Miller wants and you've got to give it to us.''
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9 hours ago
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Man who died along with LAPD sergeant in 405 Freeway crash identified
The Los Angeles County medical examiner has identified the man who was killed along with a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant in a multi-vehicle crash on the 405 Freeway this week. The medical examiner identified the man as 34-year-old Jesus Garcia. He and LAPD Sgt. Shiou Deng, 53, were killed after being struck by incoming traffic in the Sepulveda Pass. The tragic sequence of events began shortly before 2 a.m. on Monday, when Garcia was involved in a solo car accident on the southbound lanes of the 405 Freeway, just north of Moraga Drive in the Brentwood and Bel Air area, according to the California Highway Patrol. Deng, who was traveling on the same freeway, was in his police cruiser when he stopped with his rear emergency lights on to provide assistance, but upon exiting he and his cruiser were struck by another vehicle. Garcia, who was standing outside on the freeway, was also struck and killed in the collision. Deng was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Mario Bickham, the driver of the vehicle that struck the cruiser and ultimately the two victims, was taken to a hospital. His condition is unknown. The fatal crash prompted CHP to shut down the freeway for hours as it conducted an investigation. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell called Deng a hero during a morning news conference following his death. 'He was out there caring for others, putting their safety before his own,' he said. Deng had been promoted to sergeant about two years ago, McDonnell said. He spent the bulk of his career working in the agency's Mental Evaluation Unit, which helps officers respond to crisis calls. 'He was out there every day caring for the most vulnerable in our society,' McDonnell said. 'Just a great human being.' The loss of Garcia has also been devastating for his family. Lidia Zepeda, who identified herself as a childhood friend of Garcia, created a GoFundMe account to help the family with funeral expenses. On the site, She described Garcia as a loving son, brother, uncle and friend 'whose kindness and warmth touched everyone he met.' 'As we search for a funeral home and make arrangements,' Zepeda wrote, 'we want to honor his memory in a way that reflects the love and care he gave to those around him. Times staff writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
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A notorious hacker group is now targeting the aviation industry, the FBI says
Scattered Spider, a cybercriminal group, is targeting the aviation industry in the US and Canada. The FBI said the hackers are deceiving IT help desks into granting them access to data. Anyone part of the "airline ecosystem" could be at risk, the FBI said. Even IT pros are susceptible to hackers these days. According to an FBI warning, a notorious cybercriminal group known as Scattered Spider is deceiving IT help desks into targeting the US airline industry. Scattered Spider gained attention in 2023 for hacking both MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment within a week of each other. "These actors rely on social engineering techniques, often impersonating employees or contractors to deceive IT help desks into granting access," the FBI said on X. "These techniques frequently involve methods to bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA), such as convincing help desk services to add unauthorized MFA devices to compromised accounts." The FBI said the group is focused on large corporations and their third-party IT providers, so "anyone in the airline ecosystem, including trusted vendors and contractors, could be at risk." "Once inside, Scattered Spider actors steal sensitive data for extortion and often deploy ransomware," the agency said. The FBI did not indicate that the actions affect airline safety. Charles Carmakal, the chief technology officer at Google's Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm and subsidiary of Google Cloud, said on LinkedIn that the firm was "aware of multiple incidents in the airline and transportation sector which resemble the operations of UNC3944 or Scattered Spider." "We recommend that the industry immediately take steps to tighten up their help desk identity verification processes prior to adding new phone numbers to employee/contractor accounts (which can be used by the threat actor to perform self-service password resets), reset passwords, add devices to MFA solutions, or provide employee information (e.g. employee IDs) that could be used for a subsequent social engineering attacks," he said. Unit 42, a cybersecurity threat research team that is part of the larger Palo Alto Networks cybersecurity corporation, said it also observed Scattered Spider targeting the aviation industry. "Organizations should be on high alert for sophisticated and targeted social engineering attacks and suspicious MFA reset requests," Sam Rubin, senior vice president of consulting and threat intelligence for Unit 42, said on LinkedIn on Friday. Canada's WestJet announced earlier this month that it had uncovered a "cybersecurity incident involving internal systems and the WestJet app, which has restricted access for several users." A spokesperson told Business Insider the company has made "significant progress" regarding the matter, and investigations were ongoing. Hawaiian Airlines also said on Thursday that it experienced a "cybersecurity event" that affected some of its IT systems. "We continue to safely operate our full flight schedule, and guest travel is not impacted," the company said in a press release. Neither airline provided details about who or what caused the cybersecurity incidents. A Southwest Airlines spokesperson said that its systems had not been compromised. Read the original article on Business Insider
