officer

Actor James Tolkan, known for his role as the Hill Valley High principal in “Back to the Future” and the no-nonsense commanding officer in “Top Gun” has died. He was 94.

Tolkan died Thursday in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he lived, his booking agent, John Alcantar, told the Associated Press on Saturday.

In “Back to the Future,” Tolkan portrayed Vice Principal Gerald Strickland, who surveyed the school’s halls with a whistle around his neck and a tardy slip burning a hole in his pocket.

“You got a real attitude problem, McFly,” Tolkan’s character snaps at Michael J. Fox’s character, Marty McFly, in the cult classic 1985 film. “You’re a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker, too.”

The line became one of Tolkan’s most famous, and mega-fans would flock to Comic-Cons around the country to ask the star to call them a slacker, requests he typically obliged.

The actor had a number of film and television gigs through the 1960s and ’70s, but he was doing David Mement’s Broadway play “Glengarry Glen Ross” when he got the offer to play Strickland in “Back to the Future.”

“I always said, ‘I’m never going to Hollywood until they send for me,’ ” he told T.C. Restani during a 2015 interview. “And I said, OK, this is my chance. And of course, nobody realized that it was going to be such an important picture. But it was. It was one of those marvelous events where all the planets were aligned and ‘Back to the Future’ became this shooting star of a movie.”

Tolkan was also well known for drilling Maverick and Goose with swift reprimands and tough love between puffs of his cigar as their commanding officer, Tom “Stinger” Jardian, in the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun.”

“That was very special, because when you make a movie you never know, but in ‘Top Gun,’ everybody felt like it was going to be a success,” Tolkan told Bob McCarthy during a 2016 Comic-Con interview. “ They just felt it, knew it right from the first day.”

Born June 20, 1931, in Calumet, Mich., Tolkan was the son of a cattle dealer — Ralph M. Tolkan. He moved around in his adolescence, spending time in Chicago and landing in Arizona after his parents’ divorce. It was there that his athletic skills got him noticed by the Eastern Arizona College football coach. Tolkan landed a scholarship to the college, but his academic career was short-lived, and he left to enlist in the U.S. Navy.

After a year of service during the Korean War, he was discharged due to a heart ailment, and with $75 to his name he set out for the Big Apple to try his hand at acting. In New York, Tolkan studied under Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg at the famed Actors Studio and started landing stage roles before working his way to the big screen.

Although his experience in the military informed the types of roles Tolkan would play — Army office, Air Force commander, police lieutenant, attorney — his work as an actor was his passion. “If you choose to be an actor, you have to choose to be an actor, and you have to stick with it through thick and thin,” he told a FanX audience member during a 2023 panel at the Salt Lake City pop-culture convention. “When things get tough, you can’t think about doing something else. You’ve got to say to yourself, ‘I’m gonna do this.’ ”

Other notable acting projects of Tolkan’s include the 1973 film “Serpico,” starring Al Pacino; the 1981 movie “Prince of the City”; the role of Napolean in Woody Allen’s 1975 film, “Love and Death”; and the 1983 film “WarGames,” in which he acted alongside Matthew Broderick.

Tolkan is survived by his wife of 54 years, Parmelee Welles.

With fielding of the Army’s highly anticipated MV-75 Future Long Range Assault tiltrotor aircraft not set to begin until next year under an incredibly aggressive schedule, the service is already building plans for the aircraft into training for mid-grade officers and putting soldiers through recently installed full-size simulators, officials said Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, Gen. David Hodne, head of U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command, said that while some soldiers with special operations backgrounds had already experienced V-22 Osprey operations through work with other services, the Army Aviation Center of Excellence (AVCOE) was working to further socialize what the service is promoting as a radically different capability.

“[AVCOE Commander Maj. Gen. Claire Gill is] already introducing MV-75 planning factors into the Captains Career Course,” Hodne said, referring to a 21-week professional training program designed for officers with between four and seven years of service and split between general leadership principles and technical proficiency. “[You have] twice the range, twice the speed. So getting officers talking about that capability is the start.”

Army officials took delivery of two MV-75 FLRAA “virtual prototypes (VPs)” in June and July of last year at Redstone Arsenal and Fort Rucker, Alabama. Based on digital twins of the aircraft, the simulators highlight “the transformational power of digital engineering,” Brig. Gen. David Phillips, Program Executive Officer for Army Aviation, said last year.

“The VP replicates the cockpit design, mission software, and flight dynamics models of the MV-75; it allows RTC XPs to continue developing tiltrotor experience to prepare for future flight test activities,” Army officials said in a February release. “Additionally, the RTC team actively uses the VP to expose aviators to tiltrotor unique considerations, whether in the context of training and tactics development, Special User Evaluations (SUEs) or VIP demonstrations.”

With Gill at the helm for MV-75 integration, Mohan said the simulators will be a valuable familiarization tool.

“In terms of developing the right instructor base that can integrate this capability, he already has the capability to start that, with one of the simulators that’s already at Fort Rucker,” Mohan said.

Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army, described these early-delivery digital prototypes as critical to the service’s modernized fielding approach.

“That allows soldiers to get in, start the training, do a lot of the stuff up front, figure out all of the procedures and how they will execute the mission, right?” he said. “A lot of the stuff is being done now ahead of the first flight even occurring.”

Additional training on advanced composites is also beginning, according to Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, head of U.S. Army Materiel Command, so soldiers can become proficient at skin and structural repair, “as well as all the digital engineering that goes into the integration end of a truly digitally engineered platform.”

During the roundtable, Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal pushed back on a reporter’s question about the service having to contend with the reputation of tiltrotor aircraft for “catching fire and falling out of the sky” as it sought to make its new tiltrotor a keystone for future Army aviation operations. The question referred to the V-22 Osprey, which entered service in 2007 and has sustained multiple deadly mishaps unique to its design, such as the ability of the prop-rotors to churn up brownout conditions during landing; “vortex ring state,” a condition in which the Osprey faces rapid descent into its own downwash; and most recently, a gearbox issue linked to a fatal 2022 crash that led to widespread flight restrictions.

But the Army has maintained that MV-75 is entirely a different aircraft and that the “1980s technology” that bedeviled the Osprey is nowhere to be found in the new Valor.

“I think we have to be very careful about making sweeping statements about tiltrotor technology, and especially when you look at what [manufacturers] Bell-Textron and the Army are doing, because it is the most advanced manufacturing and digital backbone that exists,” Obadal said. “So General Electric creates the digital backbone for all of the intercontinental airliners that Boeing makes, the 777 [and] 787, and they’re applying that experience and technology to our MV-75.”

The MV-75 design has the rotors rotate between forward and vertical flight modes independent of the engine nacelles, rather than the entire nacelles rotating, which occurs on the V-22, “dramatically reduces the technical complexity” of the plane, he said, while the digital systems and controls give it cutting-edge reliability.

“From a technical perspective, it’s far more advanced than anything that exists in the military inventory, because of its fly-by-wire systems and its digital backbone,” Obadal said.

Regarding cultural comfort-building with a tiltrotor aircraft given the V-22’s mixed reputation, Obadal said it was a nonissue.

“When I talk to [soldiers] about it, they say they want to fly it, and so do I,” he said.

In January, the Army confirmed to The War Zone that it planned to accelerate its timeline for the MV-75 by multiple years, fielding the first planes in 2027 versus 2031. The impetus came from Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, who emphasized that the service needed the MV-75’s speed and range “very quickly,” especially due to the operational demands of the vast Pacific, and couldn’t wait until the next decade to integrate it.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

An off-duty Metropolitan Police officer was among a group filmed confronting Al Jazeera journalists reporting on a suspected arson attack in north London, the force has confirmed. The incident is raising questions about press freedom.

For the second time in recent months, the civilian commission that oversees the LAPD has overruled Chief Jim McDonnell in a police shooting, concluding that officers were in the wrong when they shot at Jillian Lauren, an author and the estranged wife of Weezer bass player Scott Shriner.

McDonnell wrote in a report made public Thursday that two officers were justified in using deadly force against Lauren, 52, who pointed a gun and fired at officers during a standoff in the backyard of her Eagle Rock home last April.

But the Police Commission took the rare step of going against McDonnell’s recommendation, finding fault with the shooting and concluding that the officers made serious tactical mistakes.

Although the five-member panel is the final authority on whether a police shooting is in or out of policy, the chief has final say on officer discipline. Such decisions are rarely made public because of state police privacy laws.

The incident began at about 5:20 p.m. on April 8, 2025, when police responded to a request for help from the California Highway Patrol in tracking down three suspects wanted in a hit-and-run crash. Officers Joshua Wolak and Dorian Zhou joined in the search, along with several others from the nearby Northeast patrol station.

Body-worn camera footage released by the department showed Wolak, Zhou and a CHP officer standing on a retaining wall next to a fence that separated a neighbor’s home from Lauren’s property. The LAPD video shows Lauren, wearing a purple Weezer T-shirt and black tights, walk around the yard with a black handgun, looking around as though she were on high alert.

Police said that officers yelled at Lauren to drop her gun for several minutes, before she shot a round in their direction. Wolak then fired seven rounds, while Zhou shot five from a distance of roughly 50 feet.

Lauren was not connected to the hit-and-run incident, authorities said. Audio from a 911 call by one of Lauren’s neighbors indicated that Lauren believed she was being fired at by armed suspects, who had been spotted running through neighboring properties.

After the shooting, Lauren retreated into her home, where she stayed for about an hour until an officer called her personal assistant, who was also inside. She was later taken to an area hospital with a gunshot wound to her left arm, police said.

During his interview with internal investigators, Zhou said he saw Lauren raise the handgun at a 45-degree angle, “rack” the slide to chamber a round and fire at officers. In response, he said, he fired five rounds, aiming at her center mass.

He responded that he stopped firing “because I lost sight of her.”

The commission voted unanimously to rule the officers’ decision to shoot out of policy. Officials typically do not publicly discuss the rationale for reaching certain decisions.

Both the commission and the chief were critical of the command decisions of Sgt. Albert Hoang at the scene, noting his failure to ensure that the officers involved were interviewed and the fact that he didn’t notify his higher-ups about the shooting until three hours after it occurred.

The civilian panel also diverged from McDonnell in assessing the tactical mistakes made by Hoang and the two officers. In his report, McDonnell found that the differing tactics used by CHP and LAPD only contributed to the confusion in what was already a fraught situation.

McDonnell wrote that he wants to develop protocols to ensure that if a similar incident were to arise “the other agency should be directed to disengage from the tactical portion of the incident or, as practicable, placed in a position and role that minimizes the co- mingling of tactics.”

In a 4-1 vote, the commission also decided that the officers’ decision to draw their weapons did not comply with LAPD policies — another rare finding.

Lauren was initially arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of a peace officer, a charge that carries a lengthy prison sentence, then later charged with assault and negligent discharge of a firearm. In December, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted her diversion due to mental health issues, sparing her potential jail time.

The bestselling author of “Everything You Ever Wanted,” she filed for divorce from her husband in December in Los Angeles County Superior Court. In her petition, she cited “irreconcilable differences” but did not list an official date of separation. The two married in November 2005 and share two teenage sons.

Before the confrontation with police, Lauren had been recovering from cancer treatment and a hysterectomy in March.

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.

March 24 (UPI) — Authorities in Washington, D.C., are hunting for at least two suspects after a U.S. Park Police officer was shot while on undercover duty in the nation’s capital.

The shooting occurred at about 7:30 p.m. EDT Monday near the 5000 block of Queens Stroll Place SE and the 4600 block of Hillside Road SE, the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement.

U.S. Park Police Deputy Chief Scott Bretch told reporters in a press conference that the officer was riding in an unmarked police car as part of an ongoing U.S. Park Police investigation when the office was “ambushed” by at least two gunmen.

The officer was struck by gunfire, he said. Authorities said police did not return fire.

Bretch said the police vehicle continued down the street until it pulled over, where the wounded officer received first aid before being airlifted to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Bretch would not say what kind of investigation U.S. Park Police was working on or how the suspects fled the scene. It was unclear how many police officers were in the targeted police car.

Interim Metropolitan Police Chief Jeff Carroll said that they believe the suspects had targeted the U.S. Park Police officer in the vehicle for being law enforcement.

Authorities are searching for two suspects both described as Black males. One was dressed in a white hoodie with blue jeans, and the other was dressed all in black with a white stripe down his sleeves and pant legs.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she had been briefed on the shooting.

“Our prayers are with the officer for a quick recovery and we are grateful for all our law enforcement officers and first responders for their quick response,” she said in a statement.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said she was also briefed on the shooting by Bowser and Carroll, stating the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies will assist the Metropolitan Police Department “in any way we can.

“Please pray for the officer’s recovery,” she said.

Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown was in the middle of a brand event at a Beverly Hills mansion on Valentine’s Day when police showed up.

It was 7 p.m., and the music for the event — an invite-only gathering for his 741 Performance brand — had long been silent. Brown came down to talk to an officer, expressing confusion at why police had been called.

“We’re just trying to have an event — a panel talking about culture, talking about future, talking about leadership, and for whatever reason I feel like we’re being targeted,” Brown said in a video of the encounter posted on social media.

He asked the officer why the city was shutting it down. “It’s beyond my pay grade,” the officer replied. “They want it shut down.”

The video immediately went viral, with many questioning why the city shut down what appeared to be a calm event. The debate was framed by a series of incidents in recent years in which the local Police Department was accused of profiling Black people.

Beverly Hills officials issued a statement defending their actions. But it didn’t take long for the city to reverse course, issuing an apology to the NBA star and the owner of the home that hosted the event, Oakley founder James Jannard, for initially putting out inaccurate information.

Brown told ESPN he is considering legal action against the city, saying the episode tarnished his and his brand’s image.

“I feel offended by it,” he said. “It’s hard to say that you were not being targeted.”

Beverly Hills officials insist the city did not unfairly single out Brown and stressed the incident was a code-enforcement matter, not one involving policing issues.

The police’s presence at the event on Trousdale Place was prompted by a resident reporting “excessive vehicles on the street,” Beverly Hills Deputy City Manger Keith Sterling said in an email to The Times. A traffic control officer then found “high vehicular traffic, numerous parking violations (including a vehicle blocking a driveway and several vehicles parked in the wrong direction) and numerous people congregating in the driveway.”

“Code enforcement was on site for several hours and observed what they believed to be well in excess of 50 people congregating for an event, which would require a public assembly permit for the safety of event attendees,” he added.

There was also the sound of a generator, which would require a permit, a check-in table, a metal detector and a temporary wall with branding, Sterling said.

Brown’s function occurred during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles. Sterling noted there were six other NBA-related events in the city at that time.

“The City was aware that the event was timed to coincide with NBA All-Star Weekend but did not have details on who was sponsoring or participating in the event,” Sterling wrote. “The event was shut down for safety reasons alone without regard to the event sponsor or participants.”

Still, the incident revived questions of policing in Beverly Hills — a majority white city in which Black residents make up about 2% of the population.

Some advocates called on Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to investigate allegations of racial profiling in Beverly Hills. Bonta’s office declined to comment.

In 2020, the Beverly Hills Police Department launched a special detail — the Rodeo Drive Team — amid complaints over what residents and shop owners said was a “criminal element” along the famed shopping corridor. Officers were tasked with combating what officials said was a rise in thefts, people spending money obtained by defrauding the state’s unemployment system and quality of life issues like loud music and the smell of marijuana drifting into stores, according to a 2021 Times investigation. One document The Times reviewed that year showed about 90% of those arrested by the task force were Black.

The task force was disbanded after just two months.

Attorneys Bradley Gage and Benjamin Crump filed a class-action lawsuit against the city in 2021 that remains ongoing. The lawsuit claims none of the arrests led to convictions and some were never prosecuted because police lacked probable cause to make the initial arrest.

The department has denied allegations that it targeted Black shoppers, saying in a statement in 2021 that officers are “committed to keeping our community safe while enforcing the law with respect and dignity for all.”

Shortly after the task force was disbanded, Salehe Bembury, then the vice president of sneakers and men’s footwear for Versace, was carrying a Versace shopping bag and crossing Rodeo Drive next to the luxury store when police stopped him for jaywalking, told him to put his hands behind his back and searched him for weapons.

Body camera footage showed Bembury repeatedly said he was uncomfortable and thought the pat-down was “excessive,” adding he’d designed the shoes inside the bag he was carrying. He started recording on his cellphone.

“I’m getting f— searched for shopping at the store I work for and just being Black,” Bembury said in the recording, holding up the Versace bag. One of the officers involved in the stop disagreed, saying Bembury was changing “the narrative.”

“It’s a very dangerous, scary situation for people of color, and one that we want to remedy so everyone is treated fairly. I don’t know why that’s such a novel idea, but it seems to be a foreign concept for a lot of folks,” Gage said.

In his clients’ lawsuit against the city, two plaintiffs say they were arrested for riding a scooter on the sidewalk. Another allegedly was jailed for three days after officers pulled him and his friend over on their way to the beach for stopping about three inches over the limit line at an intersection. He never was charged with a crime, according to the complaint.

Mike Asfall, president of Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch of the NAACP, said he’s been working behind the scenes with city officials and the police chief over issues of race and policing. Asfall was honored in February by the Beverly Hills City Council in recognition of Black History Month.

“I do know that we’ve had obstacles,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells or tiptoe around things just because of the color of our skin. But what I’m not going to do is create more of a rift to give us a problem that’s going to create drama for us.”

Staff writer Cierra Morgan contributed to this report.

Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.

“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.

Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.

On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.

Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.

Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.

(Lindsey Wasson / AP)

The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.

Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.

His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”

Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.

Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.

A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.

Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.

A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.

The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.

He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.

“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”

Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.

“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.

“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”