officers

July 24 (UPI) — Three Ohio police officers were shot when a gunman opened fire on two of while they were eating pizza in their patrol cars during their lunch break, authorities said, with the third being wounded while responding to the scene.

The shooting occurred shortly after 1 p.m. local time Wednesday in an undeveloped industrial park in the northeastern Ohio city of Lorain, located on the coast of Lake Erie.

Acting Lorain Police Chief Michael Failing told reporters during a press conference that the suspect had been “lying in wait” with an “arsenal of weapons” when he opened fire on officers Philip Wagner and Peter Gale, who were parked side by side eating pizza.

A third officer, Brent Payne, was also shot by the suspect when he arrived at the scene in response to his fellow officers’ call for assistance.

More officers responded, and the suspect was shot dead at the scene.

Failing said Payne suffered a gunshot wound to the hand at was treated at a local hospital, while Wagner and Gale were shot multiple times and were airlifted to a larger facility.

“They are currently undergoing medical treatment and if you could all pray for these officers,” Failing said.

The suspect has not been identified.

Elyria Police Chief James Welsh told reporters in a separate press conference that he could not confirm whether the suspect died from return fire from law enforcement or if he took his own life.

“This was an ambush situation,” he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he had been briefed on the “horrible” shooting.

“Fran and I are praying for the three Lorain Police Department officers who were shot in the line of duty today, and our thoughts are also with their families, friends and fellow officers in northeast Ohio,” he said in a statement.

“This situation reminds us that those who work in law enforcement risk their lives every day for the safety of their communities. We are so very grateful for the men and women who willingly and bravely serve and protect.”

Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna said there is ‘no threat to the community’ after the deadly blast closed local roads.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed that an explosion at one of its training facilities in southern California killed three of its members.

The explosion took place shortly after 7:30am local time (14:30 GMT) on Friday at the Biscailuz Training Facility in East Los Angeles.

“Tragically, there were three Department member fatalities. Sheriff’s homicide detectives are on scene,” the department said on social media.

The department described the explosion as a “critical workplace incident”. The blast closed roads in the surrounding area, though the sheriff’s department reassured locals that there was no threat to the wider community.

Sheriff Robert Luna held a midday news conference not far from the blast site, where he declined to identify the three victims. He did, however, say that one had served 19 years with the force, another 22 years, and a third 33 years.

“This is unfortunately the largest loss of life for us as the LA County Sheriff’s Department since 1857. Between all three sworn members, they had served our community proudly for 74 years,” Luna said.

The sheriff also said the three victims were part of a special enforcement bureau tasked with arson and explosives enforcement.

On social media earlier in the day, United States Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated that members of the local bureau of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were on the ground to probe what happened.

“I just spoke to [US Attorney Bill Essayli] about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles,” Bondi wrote on social media. “Please pray for the families of the sheriff’s deputies killed.”

At his midday news conference, Sheriff Luna said that details about the explosion were forthcoming as the investigation was only in its initial stages.

“At this time, we do not know the cause of the explosion,” Luna said. “There is no threat to this community. This is an isolated incident.”

Luna added that he is prioritising notifying the relatives of the victims before releasing further information to the public.

He has met two of the three families so far, he said. “As you can imagine, those were extremely challenging conversations.”

The sheriff also thanked the bomb squad of the Los Angeles Police Department for helping to secure the blast site.

“They immediately came out to assist after this explosion occurred to render the devices safe,” he said. “And just so all of you know, they were just rendered safe within the last minutes, right before we walked out here, so it was still an active scene. It wasn’t stable and definitely a very active crime scene.”

He explained that investigators can only go on site now that there is no further risk of explosions.

“There’s a lot more that we don’t know than what we do know,” he added.

Luna, however, was quick to defend the professionalism of the special enforcement bureau, calling its members “the best of the best”.

“The individuals who work our arsons explosives detail, they have years of training,” Luna said. “Usually, the average calls that they go to in dealing with some very dangerous situations or items average about 11,000 per year. So these aren’t people who don’t do this very often. They are fantastic experts. And unfortunately, I lost three of them today.”

The UK sanctions three units of the Russian military intelligence GRU agency and 18 of its officers.

The United Kingdom says it has sanctioned more than 20 Russian spies, hackers and agencies over what it called a “sustained campaign of malicious cyber activity” to destabilise Europe.

The Foreign Office said on Friday it was sanctioning three units of the Russian military intelligence GRU agency and 18 of its officers.

Those sanctioned include officers it said were involved in preparing the attack against Ukraine’s Mariupol theatre in the first month of the war in 2022, which killed hundreds of civilians of taking shelter inside the building.

It also sanctioned those it accuses of involvement in targeting former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were the victims of a nerve agent Novichok poisoning attack in 2018 in the UK.

“GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilise Europe, undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement.

The UK also said Russia had targeted media outlets, telecoms providers, political and democratic institutions, and energy infrastructure in the UK.

British authorities have repeatedly accused Moscow of orchestrating malign activity, ranging from traditional espionage and actions to undermine democracy, to sabotage and assassinations.

Russia denies claims

Earlier this month, three men were convicted over an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked business in London that police said was carried out at the behest of the Wagner mercenary group.

Moscow has rejected such accusations, saying they were politically motivated and that it posed no threat to the UK.

In addition to the sanctions aimed at GRU, the British foreign ministry said it was sanctioning three leaders of the “African Initiative,” which it said was a Russian-funded social media content mill conducting information operations in West Africa.

The UK has recently ramped up its military spending to help change its approach to defence, partly to address threats from Russia, nuclear risks and cyberattacks.

The European Union and NATO also issued statements on Friday condemning what they described as Russia’s destabilising hybrid activities.

The UK move came on the same day the EU approved a new host of stiff sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine.

The EU sanctions package includes a lower oil price cap, a ban on transactions with Nord Stream gas pipelines, and the targeting of more shadow fleet ships.

June 24 (UPI) — Customs and Border Protection officers earlier this month seized 695 pounds of the hallucinogenic drug dimethyltryptamine that was bound for an address in Harford County, Md.

On June 11, CBP officers seized three shipments of DMT that were transported via air cargo from Chiapas, Mexico, between May 7 and May 27, the CBP announced on Tuesday.

“The global marketplace has allowed unscrupulous people in our communities to order dangerous drugs, such as DMT, from overseas manufacturers that could hurt and potentially kill abusers,” said Jason Kropiewnicki, CBP acting area port director in Baltimore.

“Inspecting imports remains a critical component of Customs and Border Protection’s border security mission,” Kropiewnicki said. “Seizures like this are one way in which CBP helps to protect our communities.”

Each shipment contained four boxes containing a total of 100 vacuum-sealed bags filled with a powdery and brown substance, which CBP scientists identified as DMT.

The 300 bags of DMT weighed a total of about 695 pounds and had a street value of $550,000.

Commonly called DMT, the drug is a Schedule 1 controlled substance that has no known medicinal use but has a high potential for abuse, according to the federal government.

DMT is a naturally occurring substance that is found in some plants and animals and can be used as a mind-altering drug.

Large doses can deliver a high while distorting users’ senses and causing hallucinations due to the active ingredients found in ayahuasca, which is a tea that is native to South America.

Synthetic varieties of DMT are made in labs, and organic and synthetic varieties often are used recreationally to cause a short and powerful “trip” that is akin to LSD.

DMT often is known by its street names of “Dimitri,” “elf spice,” “the spirit molecule” and “the businessman’s special.”

Various cultures have used the drug for centuries for religious and ritualistic purposes.

Some studies indicate DMT might provide physical and mental health benefits, but its side effects generally negate them.

Recent research suggests DMT might increase the production of proteins that could enhance learning, memory, and synaptic formation and maintenance within the brain.

DMT also lessened the production of proteins that could cause inflammation, brain lesions and degeneration.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — A powerful U.S. senator on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to fix a growing backlog and longtime management problems at the program that promises benefits when police and firefighters die or become disabled in the line of duty.

Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program is failing the spouses and children of deceased and disabled first responders and needs new leadership. He said the mismanagement has caused significant hardship for grieving families, who often experience yearslong delays in processing and approving claims.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” he wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which he suggested she consider replacing longtime program leader Hope Janke.

Grassley’s letter comes days after The Associated Press published an investigation detailing the claims backlog at the program, which provides a nearly $450,000 one-time payment to the families of deceased and disabled officers and firefighters in addition to education benefits.

The AP found dozens of families are waiting five years or more to learn whether they qualify for the life-changing payments, and more are being denied. As of late April, nearly 900 claims had been pending for more than one year, more than triple the number from five years ago, with a small number languishing for a decade.

Grassley cited a Government Accountability Office report issued last year that detailed deficiencies in the program’s management dating back to 2009. He said the program had failed to make changes recommended by outside reviewers but that “government bureaucrats” such as Janke have never been held accountable.

Janke has not responded to AP emails seeking comment, including one Tuesday. A request for comment to the DOJ wasn’t immediately returned.

DOJ officials said earlier this year that they are adopting several recommendations from the GAO, including improvements to make the program’s electronic claims management system more user-friendly. They say they are responding to a surge of claims after Congress has made more categories of deaths and injuries eligible for benefits.

Grassley demanded the DOJ provide updates and documents within two weeks related to the status of those changes.

Texas widow Lisa Afolayan, who is still fighting the program for benefits 16 years after her husband died while training for the Border Patrol, welcomed Grassley’s oversight of the program.

“We need movement. We need change and not only for my family,” she said. “They’ve lost sight of why the program was started.”

Foley writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Coming to court this week, a police officer’s widow wanted to prove that a man assaulted her husband during a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol and ultimately was responsible for her husband’s suicide nine days later. A jury’s verdict on Friday amounted to only a partial victory for Erin Smith in a lawsuit over her husband’s death.

The eight-member jury held a 69-year-old chiropractor, David Walls-Kaufman, liable for assaulting Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They will hear more trial testimony before deciding whether to award Erin Smith any monetary damages over her husband’s assault.

But the judge presiding over the civil trial dismissed Erin Smith’s wrongful death claim against Walls-Kaufman before jurors began deliberating. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said no reasonable juror could conclude that Walls-Kaufman’s actions were capable of causing a traumatic brain injury leading to Jeffrey Smith’s death.

Reyes divided the trial into two stages: one on the merits of Erin Smith’s claims and another on damages. The damages phase is expected to stretch into next week.

Erin Smith claimed Walls-Kaufman gave her husband a concussion as they scuffled inside the Capitol. Jeffrey Smith was driving to work for the first time after the Capitol riot when he shot and killed himself with his service weapon.

His widow claims Walls-Kaufman struck her 35-year-old husband in the head with his own police baton inside the Capitol, causing psychological and physical trauma that led to his suicide. Jeffrey Smith had no history of mental health problems before the Jan. 6 riot, but his mood and behavior changed after suffering a concussion, according to his wife and parents.

Walls-Kaufman, who lived near the Capitol, denies assaulting Jeffrey Smith. He says any injuries that the officer suffered on Jan. 6 occurred later in the day, when another rioter threw a pole that struck Jeffrey Smith around his head.

Walls-Kaufman served a 60-day prison sentence after pleading guilty to a Capitol riot-related misdemeanor in January 2023, but he was pardoned in January. On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack.

Trump’s sweeping act of clemency didn’t erase Erin Smith’s lawsuit against Walls-Kaufman.

Erin Smith, the trial’s first witness, recalled packing a lunch for her husband and kissing him as he headed off to work on Jan. 15, 2021, for the first time after the riot.

“I told him I loved him, said I would see him when he got home,” she testified.

Within hours, police officers knocked on her door and informed her that her husband was dead. She was stunned to learn that he shot himself with his service weapon in his own car.

“It was the most traumatic words I’ve ever heard,” she recalled. “You just don’t know what to do.”

Walls-Kaufman’s attorney, Hughie Hunt, urged jurors to “separate emotion” and concentrate on the facts of the case.

“This is tragic, but that doesn’t place anything at the foot of my client,” Hunt said during the trial’s opening statements.

Jeffrey Smith’s body camera captured video of his scuffle with Walls-Kaufman. In his testimony, Walls-Kaufman said he was overcome by “sensory overload” and “mass confusion” as police tried to usher the crowd out of the Capitol.

“I couldn’t tell who was pushing who or from what direction,” he said.

The police department medically evaluated Jeffrey Smith and cleared him to return to full duty before he killed himself. Hunt said there is no evidence that his client intentionally struck Jeffrey Smith.

“The claim rests entirely on ambiguous video footage subject to interpretation and lacks corroborating eyewitness testimony,” Hunt wrote in a court filing in the case.

More than 100 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died a day after engaging with the rioters. A medical examiner later determined he suffered a stroke and died of natural causes. Howard Liebengood, a Capitol police officer who responded to the riot, also died by suicide after the attack.

In 2022, the District of Columbia Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board determined that Jeffrey Smith was injured in the line of duty and the injury was the “sole and direct cause of his death,” according to the lawsuit.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

June 16 (UPI) — Two court security officers were stabbed in an apparent “targeted attack” while screening people at metal detectors in the Lower Manhattan criminal courthouse on Monday morning, the New York Police Department said.

At about 9:35 a.m, the man ran into the lobby and charged the officers, WCBS-TV reported.

Both officers were taken to a local hospital in stable condition, sources told WABC-TV. One person was slashed in the face and the other stabbed in the neck. A third officer was hurt after being thrown into a barrier.

In the shooting, surveillance video shows the man taking knife out of a bag, running at one of the victims, turning around and attacking the other.

“The assaults, captured on surveillance video, appeared preliminarily to be a targeted attack of the uniformed officers working security details at the courthouse,” a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration said in a statement. “Several court officers immediately rushed to stop the assailant, subduing him near a bank of magnetometers, disarming him and taking him into custody.”

Police said the unnamed suspect had 18 prior arrests, including assaulting an officer. He is considered emotionally disturbed with past incidents at the courthouse, officials said.

The accused assailant didn’t have a scheduled hearing at the courthouse.

“I’ve been coming here for over 20 years. I’ve never seen an incident of that nature toward the court officers,” criminal defense attorney Charles Miller told WCBS. “It’s very unlikely to see people try to come in with weapons, because there’s magnetometers that would see them. But the overwhelming majority of what I see here are fights that happen between people in the hallway, the general public, usually that are connected in some way to the case.

“That’s why the court staff is primarily here to maintain security and order. Assaults directly against them are rare.”

Patrick Cullen, president of the New York State Supreme Court Officers Association, said the courthouse is at least 15% understaffed.

“Every courthouse needs more people,” Cullen told WCBS. “If somebody came in and attacked our officers right at the entrance, we could have had 100 officers there and this still may have happened, but the fact is that if we had more officers, someone would be less inclined to do this.”

With the holiday season fast approaching, most people will be busy seeking out the perfect destination. However, for chief holiday officers (CHOs), trip planning goes well beyond the simple question of “where to go?”. While everyone else is dreaming about sipping cocktails by the pool or taking in the unforgettable vistas from a popular hiking path, CHOs are the ones building the “who’s paid what?” spreadsheets, reading every single review in painstaking detail, and downloading the multitude of apps that will introduce everyone to a wealth of local experiences. Yes, they are the people who thrive on good planning. CHOs love a bit of legwork, get great satisfaction in thinking of the unthinkable, and exude the role of organiser – especially when it comes to putting together a trip to remember.

June 11 (UPI) — The Police Service of Northern Ireland announced Wednesday that things are currently quiet in a County Antrim town after violent attacks on police over a two-night stretch left 17 officers injured.

“Calm has been restored in Ballymena following serious disorder in the Clonavon Terrace, North Road and Bridge Street areas last night,” said officials in one of a series of press releases that has documented recent unrest in that community in Northern Ireland. Five people have since been arrested “on suspicion of riotous behavior” with a sixth taken into custody “on suspicion of disorderly behavior.”

Police report that stone and gas bombs were hurled at officers and their vehicles over several hours of riots that also saw residences and businesses attacked. The police also announced there was “public disorder in Ballymena” Monday evening.

Officials also confirmed that rubber bullets and a water cannon were used to try and quell the crowds involved in what Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson described in a Sunday release as a “racially motivated disorder in Ballymena” that followed a protest.

The rioting, which has also been reported in Belfast among other communities in Northern Ireland, has been widely described in the media as related to “anti-immigration protests.”

The uproar allegedly followed the arrest of a 28-year-old man on Monday in connection to the Saturday sexual assault of a teenage girl in Ballymena. That arrest was the third connected to the incident, as police previously announced Sunday that two teenage boys were charged with attempted rape in connection to the assault.

First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill posted to X Wednesday that “Those responsible for this violence bring nothing to our communities but hatred, fear, and division.”

WASHINGTON — Migrants placed on a deportation flight originally bound for South Sudan are now being held in a converted shipping container on a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the men and their guards are contending with baking hot temperatures, smoke from nearby burn pits and the looming threat of rocket attacks, the Trump administration said.

Officials outlined grim conditions in court documents filed Thursday before a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to swiftly remove migrants to countries they didn’t come from.

Authorities landed the flight at the base in Djibouti, about 1,000 miles from South Sudan, more than two weeks ago after U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston found the Trump administration had violated his order by swiftly sending eight migrants from countries including Cuba and Vietnam to the east African nation.

The judge said that men from other countries must have a real chance to raise fears about dangers they could face in South Sudan.

The men’s lawyers, though, have still not been able to talk to them, said Robyn Barnard, senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, whose stated mission is to ensure the United States is a global leader on human rights. Barnard spoke Friday at a hearing of Democratic members of Congress and said some family members of the men had been able to talk to them Thursday.

The migrants have been previously convicted of serious crimes in the U.S., and President Trump’s administration has said that it was unable to return them quickly to their home countries. The Justice Department has also appealed to the Supreme Court to immediately intervene and allow swift deportations to third countries to resume.

The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The legal fight became another flashpoint as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president’s policies.

The Trump administration said the converted conference room in the shipping container is the only viable place to house the men on the base in Djibouti, where outdoor daily temperatures rise above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the declaration from an ICE official.

Nearby burn pits are used to dispose of trash and human waste, and the smog cloud makes it hard to breathe, sickening both ICE officers guarding the men and the detainees, the documents state. They don’t have access to all the medication they need to protect against infection, and the ICE officers were unable to complete antimalarial treatment before landing, an ICE official said.

“It is unknown how long the medical supply will last,” Mellissa B. Harper, acting executive deputy associate director of enforcement and removal operations, said in the declaration.

The group also lacks protective gear in case of a rocket attack from terrorist groups in Yemen, a risk outlined by the Department of Defense, the documents state.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

The California Department of Justice will investigate a fatal shooting by Los Angeles Police Department officers under a law that empowers the state attorney general to probe police shootings of unarmed people — despite the LAPD saying the man killed Tuesday was holding a gun.

At 10 p.m. Tuesday, officers responded to a reported shooting in an apartment building in the 1000 block of Ardmore Avenue in Koreatown, LAPD officials said in an unsigned statement.

As they entered the building, Ronald Gainer Jr. exited an apartment holding a handgun, officials said. The officers fired at Gainer, who retreated into the apartment.

The officers entered the unit and took Gainer into custody, according to the LAPD. Gainer, 35, died at a hospital, according to the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s office.

Officers found a handgun and discharged cartridge casings “at scene,” the LAPD said, along with a second gun and ammunition inside the apartment.

According to the police statement, Gainer was involved earlier that evening in a “domestic violence incident” with his girlfriend. After she fled, Gainer allegedly fired a gun into the air and toward a building, prompting the response by the officers who shot him, the LAPD said.

The LAPD’s Force Investigation Division was already probing the shooting — standard protocol for all uses of force by officers — when on Wednesday
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced his office was investigating as well.

In a press release, Bonta cited Assembly Bill 1506, which requires the state’s Department of Justice to investigate police shootings of unarmed people.

Alexandra Duquet, a spokeswoman for Bonta, said state prosecutors will investigate cases when it isn’t immediately clear whether the person killed had control of a weapon.

Assembly Bill 1506 defines “possession” of a weapon as being “under the civilian’s dominion and control at the time of the shooting.”

Agents from the Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement will conduct an investigation separate from the LAPD’s and present their findings to prosecutors in Bonta’s office, who will make a decision to bring criminal charges.

If no case is filed, state prosecutors must release a report detailing the evidence and the legal reasoning for why charges were not warranted.

BRITAIN’S top cop has criticised Labour plans to slash jail time — saying police will struggle to cope with the surge in crime.

Met Police boss Sir Mark Rowley warned putting more criminals back on the street risked overwhelming officers.

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He accused the Government of doing “no analysis whatsoever” on the impact of freeing thousands and risking the prospect of “generating a lot of work for police”.

He told the BBC: “Every time you put an offender into the community, a proportion of them will commit crime, a proportion of them will need chasing down by the police.”

But the Ministry of Justice hit back in the war of words, saying its top priority was to “keep people safe”.

Standing by its changes, it said: “That is why we are building prisons faster than at any time since the Victorian era and, through our sentencing reforms, we will make sure the public are never again put at risk of running out of prison places.”

Sources also insisted a full impact assessment on early release is under way.

The Sun revealed last week Sir Mark was among senior officers who wrote to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood questioning prison reforms.

Her plans include scrapping most short sentences, releasing lags after a third of time served and monitoring with tags to free up cells.

Sir Mark said: “If probation are going to spend more money on trying to reform offenders, reduce their repeat offending, that’s fantastic.

But a proportion will be committing further offences because probation can’t do a perfect job — it’s impossible.”

The Scotland Yard chief also said forces are still “carrying the scar tissue of years of austerity cuts”.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday that police do not have a broad authority to enter a home to check on someone who may be suicidal and then search and seize evidence that may be used against the person.

In a 9-0 decision, the justices rejected what some courts called a “community caretaking” rule that might authorize police to enter a home even if they had no evidence of a crime or an emergency.

The case before the court began when the wife of a Rhode Island man called police because she was worried about her husband. They had argued the night before, and he possessed a handgun. Officers found the man, Edward Caniglia, sitting on his front porch. He denied that he was suicidal, but the officers called an ambulance and insisted he go to a hospital for an evaluation. He agreed but told them they could not enter his home and take his guns.

After he left, they did just that and confiscated two handguns.

The homeowner sued, alleging a violation of the 4th Amendment, which forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures” and usually requires officers to have a search warrant before going into a residence without the owner’s permission. But the 1st Circuit Court in Boston rejected his claim and said the police were acting to protect the safety and welfare of the homeowner.

The Supreme Court took up his appeal and overturned the lower court’s ruling in a short opinion in Caniglia vs. Strom.

“The 1st Circuit’s community caretaking rule goes beyond anything this court has recognized” under the 4th Amendment, said Justice Clarence Thomas. The police “lacked a warrant or consent” to enter the home, and they were not “reacting to a crime.” Nor was there an emergency that required officers to enter immediately, he added.

In the past, the court had upheld an officer’s search of a car in a similar situation. But “what is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is reasonable for homes,” Thomas wrote.

Several justices wrote separately to say the decision on Monday was narrow. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said “police officers may enter a home without a warrant in circumstances where they are reasonably trying to prevent a potential suicide or to help an elderly person who has been out of contact and may have fallen and suffered a serious injury.”

Washington lawyer Shay Dvoretsky, who represented the homeowner, called Monday’s decision “a significant victory for Americans concerned about the sanctity of their homes. The Supreme Court reaffirmed bedrock 4th Amendment principles and held that police do not have an open-ended license to perform community caretaking tasks in the home.”

Meanwhile, the court limited the reach of last year’s ruling that rejected non-unanimous jury verdicts in serious criminal cases. The justices said then that the Constitution as originally understood meant a jury must be unanimous to find someone guilty.

Only two states — Louisiana and Oregon — had permitted guilty verdicts based on a 10-2 or 11-1 vote, and both had agreed to end the practice.

In Edwards vs. Vannoy, the court said it would not apply the new rule retroactively to old cases. Thedrick Edwards was convicted on multiple counts of robbery, kidnapping and rape in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison, but the jury verdicts were not unanimous.

The justices split along ideological lines on whether he could obtain a new trial. The court’s conservatives insisted the justices had said in the past they would not apply new decisions to old cases. But the court’s liberals said an exception existed for “watershed” rulings and that last year’s ruling met that standard.

In 1989, the court left open the possibility that it might extend new rules to past cases if they involved an issue of “fundamental” fairness. Since then, however, the justices have never agreed that a new rule is so “fundamental” as to be such a “watershed” decision.

In police circles, it’s known as the “LAPD lottery.”

Speaking at a city budget presentation this month, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said some officers have sought to “weaponize” the department’s disciplinary system to settle grievances, leaving city taxpayers on the hook for the legal bills.

Los Angeles has paid out at least $68.5 million over the last five years to resolve lawsuits filed by officers who claimed to be the victim of sexual harassment, racial discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers, according to a Times analysis of payout data released by the city attorney’s office.

Skeptics inside the Los Angeles Police Department write off the claims as opportunistic officers trying to hit the jackpot, twisting paper trails created by the department’s much-maligned internal discipline system into the basis for lawsuits.

But the officers who sue and their labor attorneys argue the department’s continued failure to thoroughly investigate complaints or fix systemic issues leaves no other recourse.

Several recent civil trials have resulted in settlements or jury awards in the seven figures or more, including $11.5 million to a former K-9 officer who alleged colleagues spread false rumors about him and mocked his Samoan heritage. Dozens of other suits remain pending, likely leaving the city staring down more substantial payouts in the coming years.

The question of how to deal with the suits has emerged as one of the most pressing issues since McDonnell’s tenure as chief began in November. Mayor Karen Bass has said the city’s $1-billion budget deficit is at least partly driven by expensive legal payouts, as well as emergency response costs related to the Palisades fire and “downward national economic trends.”

Last year, the LAPD’s private fundraising arm gave $240,000 to hire an outside consultant to help the department analyze “the results of litigation to see if there are lessons to be learned from that.”

The consultant, Arif Alikhan, the department’s former director of constitutional policing, said he and his team are seeking to identify trends of risky behavior, improve tracking of problem employees and hold supervisors accountable for not addressing conduct that exposes the department to liability.

Part of the challenge, he said, is that cases take years to resolve, leading to lag time in awareness. “Then it kind of bubbles up and becomes a bigger issue and then you have multiple people suing.”

The city attorney’s office, which is responsible for defending the department against lawsuits, said in response to questions from The Times that cases are settled when “there could be a jury finding of liability, and when we can reach an agreement for a reasonable amount of money.”

“We will always do what is in the best interests of the city and continue to aggressively defend lawsuits—especially when plaintiffs’ attorneys try to make a fortune off of the City with unreasonable non-economic damages claims,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement. “Our office will aggressively defend against lawsuits that lack merit, as well as lawsuits in which the plaintiff’s attorney is making unreasonable demands for taxpayer dollars to resolve a case.”

The LAPD has long wrestled with costly litigation, and many claims by aggrieved officers are dismissed. But according to the data released to The Times, payouts for officer-driven lawsuits have increased recently: At least 13 verdicts or settlements worth $1 million or more have come since 2019, including nine in the last three years.

Beyond the cost to taxpayers, the public airing of workplace disputes can prove embarrassing to a department that has long fancied itself a spit-and-polish institution.

Take the Transit Services Division, where years of troubles and finger-pointing have led to a snarl of more than half a dozen lawsuits.

A former detective, Heather Rolland, received a $949,000 payout after she accused male colleagues of disparaging her for being injured on the job and of fostering a hostile work environment for women who worked in the division, which holds a lucrative contract with the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide security on bus and train lines.

Among the male officials mentioned in her lawsuit is Randy Rangel, a former Transit Services sergeant, who filed his own claim against the city alleging he was retaliated against after reporting another officer for abusing his overtime pay. Last month, an L.A. County jury awarded him $4.5 million, which may still be challenged on appeal.

One of the witnesses who testified on Rangel’s behalf was his former captain, Brian Pratt, who also has a pending suit against the city. Pratt contends he was targeted with an anonymous personnel complaint after accusing a deputy chief of inappropriately using division staff to do nontransit work — a claim the city has denied in court filings.

The cycle of litigation continued with an internal affairs detective assigned to investigate Pratt. The detective alleged in a whistleblower claim that his bosses demanded unfavorable findings despite no evidence of wrongdoing. The lawsuit by Det. Hamilton Alvarenga also remains pending, with the city disputing his allegations.

Yet another Transit Services supervisor, Ashraf “Andy” Hanna, is pursuing legal action over what he alleged is a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. Hanna is also named as a defendant in several lawsuits, with co-workers accusing him of workplace hostility, which he disputes. One of his accusers, an officer named Natalie Bustamante, recently settled her sexual harassment lawsuit with the city for an undisclosed sum.

LAPD officers are supposed to report wrongdoing — or attempts to cover it up — to their supervisors, internal affairs or the Office of the Inspector General, which can investigate and potentially refer cases of misconduct to the chief for discipline. Those complaints are sealed from the public under state law, but the plaintiffs in several recent civil lawsuits alleged that the internal investigations tended to drag on unnecessarily and rarely led to punishment for the accused.

Attorney Matthew McNicholas, who has represented scores of officers in civil lawsuits, said he thinks that the growing payouts are a reflection of the city attorney’s hardball approach to civil litigation. This tough stance is costing taxpayers money by insisting on fighting cases even when it was clear they would lose in court, he said.

He pointed to the cases of Lou and Stacey Vince, a police couple who filed separate lawsuits against the department for retaliation and discrimination they faced while working in the San Fernando Valley. Lou Vince had alleged mistreatment after he returned from a work injury. In her claim, Stacey Vince said that after speaking up in her husband’s defense, she was denied a promotion and moved into a cramped office underneath the gym floor at the Police Academy with no furniture or Wi-Fi.

The couple, represented by McNicholas, received nearly $11 million in combined payouts.

“We tried to settle them both for low seven figures,” he said.

Joanna Schwartz, a UCLA law professor, said risk managers in L.A. and other cities should be looking for “policy changes or adjustments to staffing” after getting sued repeatedly.

“Best practices include internally investigating all allegations brought in lawsuits and then reviewing all the information that comes out during the course of discovery and trial,” Schwartz said.

The issue is not unique to the LAPD: Los Angeles County spent $150 million last year alone to defend the Sheriff’s Department from a slew of legal claims. And employment-related awards are only a fraction of the $358.8 million paid out in all LAPD lawsuits since 2019, including for traffic accidents, crackdowns on protesters and a botched fireworks detonation that leveled several city blocks and left dozens of residents displaced.

But the department’s handling of workplace complaints has drawn criticism on multiple fronts, including from the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

The union for rank-and-file officers, which sometimes helps members bring lawsuits, has cited the large verdicts as a sign senior LAPD officials are turning a blind eye to injustices in the workplace.

Last week, Jamie McBride, an outspoken union board member, filed a lawsuit in which he accused an assistant police chief of unfairly reprimanding him for speaking out about the LAPD’s grooming policy, the rules for how officers can keep their hair and mustaches.

McBride said in his suit that his remarks came during a union meeting in August 2023, when someone in the audience asked whether the department intended to change its rules to allow beards without a medical exemption, which is commonly granted to Black officers with skin conditions that make shaving painful.

McBride said he replied, “Well, I hope not ‘cause I think it looks like s—.”

He learned, according to his lawsuit, that that the department opened an investigation for what it deemed “racially discriminatory comments.”

McBride’s suit argues that his statement — “however controversial” — was made in the “context of protected union activity.”

The city has not yet filed a response in court to McBride’s claim. He didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

McBride, who previously received $1.5 million after suing over alleged retaliation by his LAPD supervisors, is part of an internal work group looking at potential changes to the discipline system, along with Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Rimkunas defended the department’s “thorough and comprehensive process” for addressing officer complaints, but said he is also pushing for “additional safeguards to be certain the complaint system is properly used.”

He said internal investigators are being more judicious about screening complaints before starting a formal inquiry. Cases involving apparent personality conflicts between employees are referred back to their supervisors for mediation “within weeks, even when the behavior may not have reached the level of misconduct,” he said.

It used to take up to a year, Rimkunas said, to “reach a point for potential intervention.”