NATIONAL NEWS

Los Angeles DA files charges against 2 cops in 2020 shooting

Apr 12, 2023, 12:22 PM | Updated: 12:38 pm

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two former Los Angeles-area police detectives have been charged in the 2020 shooting of an unarmed man that left him paralyzed from the waist down, the district attorney said Wednesday.

Former Whittier detectives Cynthia Lopez and Salvador Murillo opened fire on April 30, 2020, as Nicholas Carrillo ran from them. Two bullets struck him in the back — one severing his spinal cord — as he climbed a fence to escape.

“Although he was lucky to survive, his life was forever changed and he must now begin using a wheelchair,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday during a news conference.

Murillo is charged with two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and two counts of assault under color of authority. Lopez faces two counts of assault under color of authority, one count of shooting into an occupied vehicle and one count of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Prosecutors filed the charges Tuesday.

The detectives were in plainclothes and an unmarked car when they spotted a sedan that had been supposedly used during an unarmed robbery the month before, Gascón said. A woman was the suspect in that robbery at a Walmart, where a television was stolen. Carrillo was alone in the car on the day he was shot.

The detectives followed the sedan into an alley, and emerged from their vehicle with their guns drawn. The sedan reversed and collided with the detectives’ car, Gascón said.

Lopez fired into the sedan’s rear windshield, prosecutors said. Carrillo then ran from the car and Lopez and Murillo opened fire as they chased him. He was not armed.

They are expected to be arraigned Monday. It was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.

The Whittier Police Officers’ Association, the union that represents the department’s rank-and-file officers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The detectives are no longer employed by the Whittier Police Department, which also did not respond to a request for comment. Whittier is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The Whittier case comes two weeks after Gascón’s office charged seven California Highway Patrol officers and a nurse with involuntary manslaughter in the 2020 death of a man who screamed “I can’t breathe” while multiple officers restrained him as they tried to take a blood sample.

National News

Associated Press

Universities of Wisconsin president proposes 3.75% tuition increase

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Tuition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and other campuses in the system would increase 3.75% next school year under a recommendation announced Thursday by UW President Jay Rothman. The proposal is up for a vote of approval by the UW Board of Regents on April 4. If approved, it would be […]

21 minutes ago

Associated Press

Barges are bringing cranes to Baltimore to help remove bridge wreckage and open shipping route

BALTIMORE (AP) — Massive barges carrying cranes streamed toward Baltimore on Thursday to begin the challenging work of removing twisted metal and concrete in an attempt to open a key shipping route blocked by the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. U.S. Coast Guard officials said Wednesday night that the barges were on their […]

58 minutes ago

Associated Press

Russia vetoes UN resolution, abolishing monitoring of UN sanctions against North Korea by UN experts

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia vetoed a UN resolution Thursday in a move that effectively abolishes the monitoring by United Nations experts of U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program, though the sanctions themselves remain in place. Russia’s vote sparked Western accusations that Moscow was acting to shield its weapons purchases from North […]

1 hour ago

Associated Press

Dethroned crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried to be sentenced for defrauding FTX investors

NEW YORK (AP) — Former crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, facing the potential of decades in prison, waited to hear his fate Thursday as a sentencing proceeding began in a New York court to assess the penalty for his role in the 2022 collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s most popular platforms for trading […]

11 hours ago

Associated Press

Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war’s toll on Palestinian children

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned. One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His […]

12 hours ago

Associated Press

US military drains fuel from tank facility that leaked fuel into Pearl Harbor’s drinking water

HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. military said it’s finished draining million of gallons of fuel from an underground fuel tank complex in Hawaii that poisoned 6,000 people when it leaked jet fuel into Pearl Harbor’s drinking water in 2021. Joint Task Force Red Hill began defueling the tanks in October after completing months of repairs […]

12 hours ago

Los Angeles DA files charges against 2 cops in 2020 shooting