cases

A probation officer who was caught on video bending a teen in half.

A Torrance police officer who shot a man in the back as he walked away from a crime scene.

Seven California Highway Patrol officers who piled atop a man screaming “I can’t breathe” as he died following a drunk driving stop.

All three cases had similar outcomes: charges dropped or reduced to no time behind bars after a plea deal.

After a year in office, a pattern has emerged for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who found himself saddled with a number of misconduct and abuse cases against police officers filed by his predecessor, George Gascón.

During his 2024 campaign, Hochman often chastised Gascón for filing cases he claimed wouldn’t hold up before a jury — while also promising to continue bringing prosecutions against police when warranted.

In recent months, Hochman has downgraded or outright dismissed charges in many high-profile cases that Gascón filed. In the two misconduct cases Hochman’s prosecutors have brought to trial, the district attorney’s office failed to win a conviction.

Those outcomes have infuriated the loved ones of victims of police violence, local activists and even former prosecutors, who say Hochman’s backslide on the issue was predictable after he received millions in campaign contributions from police unions.

Greg Apt, a former public defender who served under Gascón as second-in-command of the unit that prosecutes police cases, said he quit last year out of frustration with the new leadership.

“I had concerns that the cases were not going to be treated the same way under Hochman that they were under Gascón, that alleged police wrongdoing would not be given the same level of oversight,” he said.

Hochman has scoffed at the idea that he’s too cozy with cops to hold their feet to the fire, saying his campaign’s war chest reflected bipartisan support that included Democrats who have been critical of police.

The district attorney said he’s made decisions based on what he can actually prove in court, and argued case reviews within the Justice Systems Integrity Division have become even more rigorous under his leadership.

“I’m going to look at the facts and the law of any case. I don’t believe in the spaghetti against the wall approach where you throw the spaghetti against the wall, and see if anything sticks, and let the jury figure it out,” he said. “That would be me abdicating my responsibility.”

Hochman’s supporters argue he has restored balance to an office that was often filing cases against police that were either legally dubious or flat out unwinnable.

Tom Yu, a defense attorney who often represents cops accused of wrongdoing, said Hochman is handling things in a more fair and objective manner.

Former Torrance Police Officers Cody Weldin, center, and Christopher Tomsic, right, pleaded guilty last year in a conspiracy and vandalism case in which they allegedly spray painted a swastika on a car. Attorney Tom Yu, defense for Weldin, is seen listening to the proceedings.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“By and large, he’s not going after the cops. But he didn’t dismiss all the cases either. I’m OK with that,” Yu said. “On a personal level, I think he’s doing a very difficult job in the police cases, because someone is always going to be unhappy with the decisions he made.”

It is difficult to win a guilty verdict for an on-duty shooting, with no such convictions in Los Angeles County since 2000. Laws governing use-of-force give officers great latitude, often protecting them even when they shoot someone who is later found to be unarmed or in situations where video evidence shows no apparent threat.

Hochman questioned why he is being criticized when the California attorney general’s office has reviewed dozens of fatal shootings of unarmed persons throughout the state since 2020 and filed no criminal cases.

“If you bring weak cases and you lose, it undercuts your credibility of being any good at your job,” Hochman said. “It undercuts your credibility in saying that we believe in the facts and the law and bringing righteous cases.”

Hochman brought 15 cases against police officers in 2025, according to documents provided to The Times in response to a public records request, compared with 17 filed by Gascón in his final year in office.

But while Gascón had a strong focus on the kinds of excessive force cases the public was clamoring to see charged when he was elected in 2020, Hochman has more often filed charges for offenses such as fraud and evidence tampering.

Hochman’s recent dismissal of charges against most of the officers involved in the death of Edward Bronstein has drawn outcry from his family and at least one former prosecutor.

Bronstein died after screaming in agony as six California Highway Patrol officers piled on top of him in Altadena in 2020. The officers were trying to get a court-ordered blood draw after Bronstein was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving.

Video from the scene shows Bronstein arguing with the officers while handcuffed and on his knees.

The officers warn Bronstein they’re going to force him down to get a sample. Right before they do, Bronstein mumbles that he’ll “do it willingly,” but they shove him face down while a seventh officer, Sgt. Michael Little, films the encounter. A minute passes. Then Bronstein’s body goes limp.

Officers can be seen trying to revive Bronstein, calling his name and slapping the side of his head, according to the video. But several minutes elapse before officers attempt to deliver oxygen or CPR. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announces he will ask a judge to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez for the killing of their parents in 1989, a decision that could free the brothers.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

In 2023, Gascón filed manslaughter charges against the seven officers, as well as the nurse who carried out the blood draw. But late last year, Hochman dismissed charges against all except Little, whose case was reduced to a misdemeanor, for which he received 12 months of probation. Little is no longer a CHP officer, according to an agency spokesman.

Prosecutors are still pursuing manslaughter charges against the nurse at the scene, Arbi Baghalian. His defense attorney, Joe Weimortz, said Baghalian had no control over the officers’ actions or the decision to pursue the blood draw. Weimortz also said he believed the officers were innocent.

Bronstein’s daughter, Brianna Ortega, 26, said in a recent interview that Hochman’s decision to drop the charges felt like a betrayal.

“It just seems like because they’re cops … they must get away with it,” Ortega said. “How are you going to put the blame on one person when all of you are grown men who know better? You have common sense. You have human decency. He is literally telling you he can’t breathe.”

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office could not conclusively determine Bronstein’s cause of death but attributed it to “acute methamphetamine intoxication during restraint by law enforcement.” Bronstein’s family was paid $24 million to settle a wrongful death suit in the case.

Hochman said his office reviewed depositions from the civil case — which he said Gascón did not do before filing a case — and did not believe he could win a manslaughter case because it was impossible to say any officer specifically caused Bronstein’s death. Hochman said the officers had no intent to harm the man and were following orders of a superior officer.

“We looked at each officer, what they knew, what their state of mind was at the time. Understanding that there was both a sergeant there and a nurse, who was in charge of not only taking the blood draw but obviously doing it in a safe manner, and then deciding whether or not we could meet the legal standard of involuntary manslaughter for each officer,” he said.

Edward Tapia, the father of Edward Bronstein, speaks at a news conference about his son, a 38-year-old Burbank man who died while being restrained by California Highway Patrol officers in 2020 after refusing to have his blood drawn after a traffic stop. The family received a $24-million civil rights settlement in 2023 after filing a lawsuit against the state.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Bronstein’s killing was one of three cases in which Hochman assigned new prosecutors in the months before a trial started or a plea deal was reached. Aside from the Bronstein case, the others ended in an acquittal or a hung jury. All three prosecutors who were removed from the unit that handles police misconduct cases had either been appointed by Gascón or had a political connection to the former district attorney.

“When somebody’s lived that case for years, and then you take them off, it suggests that you’re less than serious about winning that case,” said Apt, the former prosecutor on the Bronstein case.

Hochman said he was simply bringing in staff with more trial experience on each case, insisting politics had nothing to do with the transfers. One of the cases, which involved allegations of perjury against L.A. County sheriff’s deputies Jonathan Miramontes and Woodrow Kim, ended with a lightning fast acquittal. Records show jurors deliberated less than an hour before coming back with a not guilty verdict.

In the other case, Hochman’s staff came closer to convicting a cop for an on-duty shooting than anyone else has in L.A. County in a quarter-century.

Former Whittier police officers Salvador Murillo, left, and Cynthia Lopez during their arraignment at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles. Murillo was charged in a 2020 shooting that left an unarmed man paralyzed. Murillo’s trial ended with a deadlocked jury in November 2025.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Former Whittier Det. Salvador Murillo stood trial in November for shooting an unarmed man in the back as he fled down an alley in 2023. Nicholas Carrillo ran away on foot from a vehicle stop and was leaping over a fence — unarmed — when Murillo squeezed off four rounds. Two severed Carillo’s spine, paralyzing him.

The jury came back deadlocked, although a majority of the panel was leaning toward a conviction. Hochman said it is likely he will ask prosecutors to take Murillo to trial a second time, though a final decision has not been made.

This year, Hochman will have to weigh in on a pair of politically charged police killings.

Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father of two, was shot to death by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on New Year’s Eve, a case that has gained national attention following outcry over on-duty shootings by ICE officers in Minnesota and elsewhere.

The Department of Homeland Security said the off-duty ICE agent was responding to an “active shooter.” Porter’s family has said he was firing a rifle into the air as a celebration to ring in the new year.

Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter L.A., was part of a group that met with Hochman about Porter’s killing and other cases last month in South L.A.

She described the encounter as confrontational — and a disaster.

“I don’t know how we can expect any safety and accountability with this man in office,” Abdullah said.

Hochman must also decide how to proceed with the case of Clifford Proctor, a former LAPD officer charged for shooting an unarmed homeless man in the back in 2015.

Proctor left the LAPD in 2017 and was not indicted on murder charges until 2024. Gascón reopened the case in 2021, after prosecutors previously declined to file charges.

On Monday, The Times revealed Proctor was able to fly overseas and live at home for a year without the district attorney’s office making any attempt to arrest him on an active murder warrant in 2025.

Hochman has not said if he intends to take Proctor to trial.

Hochman said that while he knows cases of police violence drive emotional reactions, he has to constrain himself to a cold analysis of the facts in front of him.

Reflecting on his confrontational meeting with Black Lives Matter activists, which centered on his recent move to dismiss charges in the 2018 killing of Christopher Deandre Mitchell by Torrance police officers, Hochman said he can’t pursue cases just because people are upset.

“They couldn’t point out anything in that analysis that they disagreed with,” he said. “Other than the result.”

Two lawsuits accusing the world’s largest social media companies of harming children begin this week, marking the first legal efforts to hold companies like Meta responsible for the effects their products have on young users.

Opening arguments began today in a case brought by New Mexico’s attorney general’s office, which alleges that Meta failed to protect children from sexually explicit material. A separate case in Los Angeles, which accuses Meta and the Google-owned YouTube of deliberately designing their platforms to be addictive for children, is set to begin later this week.

TikTok and Snap were also named in the original California lawsuit but later settled under undisclosed terms.

The New Mexico and California lawsuits are the first of a wave of 40 lawsuits filed by state attorneys general around the US against Meta, specifically, that allege that the social media giant is harming the mental health of young Americans.

New Mexico case

In the opening argument in the New Mexico case, which was first filed in 2023, prosecutors told jurors on Monday that Meta – Facebook and Instagram’s parent company – had failed to disclose its platforms’ harmful effects on kids.

“The theme throughout this trial is going to be that Meta put profits over safety,” said lawyer Donald Migliori, who is representing the state of New Mexico against Meta.

“Meta clearly knew that youth safety was not its corporate priority… that youth safety was less important than growth and engagement.”

Prosecutors say they will provide evidence and testimony that Meta’s algorithms and account features not only enticed young people and made them addicted to social media, but also fostered a “breeding ground” for predators who target children for sexual exploitation.

Late last month, in the process of discovery, the New Mexico attorney general’s office said the company did not put in safeguards to protect children from accessing sexualised chatbots on Facebook and Instagram.

In emails obtained by the court, some of Meta’s safety staff had expressed objections that the company was building chatbots geared for companionship, including sexual and romantic interactions with users, according to the Reuters news agency.

The artificial intelligence chatbots were released in early 2024. The documents cited in the state’s filing do not include messages or memos authored by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In October 2025, Meta added parental controls to the chatbots.

California case

The California case is more wide-reaching and alleges that Meta and YouTube, which is a unit of Alphabet-owned Google, used deliberate design choices that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits.

The case centres around a 19-year-old identified only by the initials KGM. The case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out.

KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age made her addicted to the technology and exacerbated her depression and suicidal thoughts.

“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.

Executives, including Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. It is unclear if they will attend the New Mexico case.

The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevvy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.

“Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. “But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal.

Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse.”

A Meta spokesperson said in a recent statement that the company strongly disagrees with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit and that it is “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people”.

Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, said the allegations against YouTube are “simply not true”.

“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” he said in a statement.

High stakes

The outcome of the cases could shape the future of social media.

“In my mind, an existential question for social media services is whether they’re liable for harm suffered by users from using the services. If so, the damages could be more money than the defendants have, Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, told Al Jazeera.

“We’re talking about massive financial stakes, and we’re also talking about the ability of the plaintiffs to veto or potentially override editorial decisions by the services about what’s in the best interests of their audiences,” he said.

“It’s essentially taking away power from the services to decide and handing it to plaintiffs’ lawyers. So, not only could there be existential damages, but there could also be a massive loss of editorial control over their services. The stakes could not be higher for social media services or the internet.”

Goldman said this was because the same argument could be used to shape claims against video game makers and generative AI, which refers to AI that can create original content, including text and video.

“If these theories work against social media, they might also work against video games, against generative AI, and who knows what else. That’s why I said the stakes are so high for the internet,” he added.

There are already lawsuits that claim that interactions with OpenAI’s ChatGPT led to instances of suicide and murder-suicide.

On Wall Street, Meta stock is trending up by more than 3 percent in midday trading.

Feb. 7 (UPI) — Federal health officials reported 145 new measles cases amid outbreaks across 20 states over the past week, raising the nation’s total to 733 so far this year.

South Carolina, by far, has recorded the most measles cases among states this year after an outbreak began in the fall and has reported a total of 920 confirmed cases since then — including 44 new ones during the past week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the nation totaled 733 cases for the year as of Thursday, including 727 across 20 states. Another six cases were confirmed among international travelers.

The majority of cases, 671, or 92%, are linked to outbreaks that began in 2025 and have continued into 2026. Another nine cases are associated with new outbreaks reported so far in 2026.

The number of cases this year is much lower than the 2,276 cases reported across 45 states in 2025, but the number could top last year’s total if the infection rates continue throughout the year.

“Because it’s such an infectious virus, whenever you see measles outbreaks, it highlights areas of the country or communities in which vaccination rates are low,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis told ABC News. Daskalakis formerly led the CDC’s disease-tracking unit.

In addition to South Carolina, cases have been reported in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The United States in 2000 declared measles had been eradicated, but recent outbreaks among international travelers and the unvaccinated, plus this year’s rapid start, likely will end that designation.

Before 2025, the country averaged 180 measles cases per year, but the 2026 numbers already are more than four times that number.

Infants, children and teens account for the majority of cases, 203 among those under age 5 and 417 among those from ages 5 through 19, the combined total of which accounts for 85% of all cases.

Those ages 20 and over account for 92 and 13% of cases, and another 21 cases, 3% are among unknown ages.

Vaccination status plays an even greater role than age in the current measles outbreak.

Those who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown account for 689 cases — equal to 94% — so far this year.

Patients who have received just one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine account for another 14 cases, which is equal to 2%, while those who are fully vaccinated account for 30 cases and 4% of the current total. Those percentages are about the same as in 2025.

So far this year, 23 people have been hospitalized, which is equal to 3% of all cases, and no deaths have been reported so far this year.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a United Nations agency, has issued a new report warning of an uptick in measles cases throughout the region.

On Wednesday, the organisation issued an epidemiological alert that called for member states to strengthen “routine surveillance and vaccination activities” in order to combat the spread of the disease.

“The sharp increase in measles cases in the Americas Region during 2025 and early 2026 is a warning sign that requires immediate and coordinated action by Member States,” PAHO said in a statement.

Overall, in the first three weeks of 2026 alone, PAHO documented 1,031 cases of measles in the Americas. Throughout 2025, a total of 14,891 cases were confirmed.

Some of the biggest outbreaks the PAHO highlighted were unfolding in North America, with countries like the United States, Mexico and Canada facing high numbers of cases.

What is measles?

Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus capable of infecting nine out of every 10 people exposed to it, if they are unvaccinated.

In most cases, symptoms of the disease clear up within several weeks. However, measles can be deadly or cause life-altering health complications, particularly among young children.

Some sufferers find themselves with ear infections and lung inflammation. Others experience pneumonia or encephalitis, a swelling of the brain that can cause lasting damage, including seizures and memory loss.

The only way to prevent measles and halt its spread is by taking a vaccine. That care is often administered through a combination vaccine known by the acronym MMR, for measles, mumps and rubella.

Doctors typically advise patients to get vaccinated early. For healthy children, the general guidance is to receive the first MMR dose before 15 months of age. The second and final dose is recommended before age six.

The MMR vaccine is widely considered safe. But in countries like the US, vaccination rates have fallen in recent years, in part due to conspiracy theories and misleading statements.

The country’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, for instance, has previously asserted that the vaccine “wanes very quickly”, despite the fact that it offers lifelong protection.

Kennedy has also claimed there were health risks associated with the vaccine. But experts, including at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have repeatedly maintained that most people encounter no serious problems – and that the vaccine is far safer than exposure to measles itself.

“There have been no deaths shown to be related to the MMR vaccine in healthy people,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America says on its website.

High numbers in North America

According to PAHO’s report on Wednesday, the US has seen 171 new cases of measles in the first three weeks of 2026. The country experienced a total of 2,242 cases in 2025.

One of the ongoing outbreaks has been in South Carolina, where 876 incidents of measles have been reported in recent months. Of that total, 800 sufferers were unvaccinated, 16 had only received a partial vaccination, and 38 had an unknown vaccination status.

Meanwhile, in Texas, an outbreak resulted in 762 cases of measles between January and August. Two unvaccinated children died in that outbreak, and there were 99 hospitalisations.

In 2000, measles had been declared eliminated from the US, a sign that cases were no longer spreading domestically, though some cases did occur after exposure to the virus abroad.

Mexico, too, had achieved its measles elimination status in 1996, after an extensive vaccination campaign. The entire Americas region was declared measles-free in 2016.

But both the US and Mexico risk seeing their measles elimination status revoked, as outbreaks continue.

In Mexico, for instance, there were 6,428 cases of measles in 2025, the highest of any country in the Americas. For the first three weeks of 2026, there have been 740 more cases.

PAHO typically determines which countries have elimination status, and the organisation has indicated that it will review the situation in the US and Mexico during a virtual meeting on April 13.

Canada, meanwhile, already saw its measles elimination status rescinded in November. It has seen several measles outbreaks since October 2024.

PAHO found that there were 5,436 cases of measles last year, and 67 in the first three weeks of 2026.

The country can win back its elimination status only if it stops measles transmissions resulting from its outbreaks for more than one year.