Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. A police officer in Germany uses a pipette to transfer urine from a sample cup to a rapid drug test last month. A small percentage of alcohol tests used in California have shown accuracy problems. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here .

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. L.A. grand jury now probing mystery of dead teen stuffed in trunk of D4vd's Tesla, sources say D4vd (David Anthony Burke) performs at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, in June 2024. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . A Los Angeles County grand jury is hearing evidence related to the death of a teenage girl whose body was discovered stuffed inside the trunk of singer D4vd's Tesla earlier this year, two law enforcement sources told The Times.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. A killer targeted men using Grindr, police say. The Grindr logo is seen among other dating apps on a mobile phone screen. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here .

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. L.A. County employee charged with alleged hate crimes against Asian co-worker Bhavin Patel allegedly broke into the county's downtown headquarters, pictured above, on Aug. 25, Aug. 26 and Sept. 4 with "prepared threats," which he scattered on his co-worker's desk and nearby cubicles, according to the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. Voice comes from the use of AI. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . A Los Angeles County employee has been charged with felony hate crimes after allegedly breaking into the government's downtown headquarters three times in the last two weeks and placing death threats on the desk of an Asian co-worker.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Online dating murder suspect lured men into brutal robberies, L.A. County prosecutors allege Rockim Prowell allegedly met his victims online. Above, a person uses a cellphone. Rockim Prowell, 44, fis accused of murder, attempted murder, carjacking and burglary. Prosecutors allege Prowell lured robbery victims using a dating site.

A serial rapist who used dating apps to meet his victims was sentenced to 111 years to life in state prison on Thursday, according to a statement from the Ventura County district attorney's office. Dustin Ronald Alba, a 31-year-old from Oxnard, was found guilty of the rape and sexual assault of five women last month. He committed his offenses from 2012 to 2020 in the cities of Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Los Angeles, the release said. Multiple victims of Alba said they met him online through dating apps and social media. After meeting in person, they said he would use his body weight to confine and then assault them, the statement said.

Madi Hime is taking a deep drag on a blue vape in the video, her eyes shut, her face flushed with pleasure. The 16-year-old exhales with her head thrown back, collapsing into laughter that causes smoke to billow out of her mouth. The clip is grainy and shaky – as if shot in low light by someone who had zoomed in on Madi's face – but it was damning. Madi was a cheerleader with the Victory Vipers, a highly competitive "all-star" squad based in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The Vipers had a strict code of conduct; being caught partying and vaping could have got her thrown out of the team. And in July 2020, an anonymous person sent the incriminating video directly to Madi's coaches. Eight months later, that footage was the subject of a police news conference. "The police reviewed the video and other photographic images and found them to be what we now know to be called deepfakes," district attorney Matt Weintraub told the assembled journalists at the Bucks County courthouse on 15 March 2021. Someone was deploying cutting-edge technology to tarnish a teenage cheerleader's reputation. The vaping video was just one of many disturbing communications brought to the attention of Hilltown Township police department, Weintraub said. Madi had been receiving messages telling her she should kill herself. Her mother, Jennifer Hime, had told officers someone had been taking images from Madi's social media and manipulating them "to make her appear to be drinking".

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, left, announces a new AI tool that will curb racial biases when deciding criminal charges, alongside Alex Chohlas-Wood, right, who helped develop the tool.ASSOCIATED PRESS San Francisco says it will start using an artificial intelligence tool to reduce possible racial bias among prosecutors reviewing police reports, a "first-in-the-nation" use of a technology whose applications have been criticized for compounding bias. On Wednesday, District Attorney George Gascón announced that the city on July 1 would begin to use a "bias mitigation tool" that automatically redacts anything on the police report that might be suggestive of race, from hair color to zip code. Information about the police officer, such as badge number, will also be hidden. Currently, the district attorney's office manually removes the first few pages of the report, but if any race details are in the narrative--the section where the police officer describes the crime--prosecutors can see them. "This technology will reduce the threat that implicit bias poses to the purity of decisions which have serious ramifications for the accused, and that will help make our system of justice more fair and just," Gascón said.

Despite having a $12 billion budget and being located adjacent to Silicon Valley, San Francisco doesn't always take advantage of the ways in which tech can improve civic life or the work of its city employees. But there is one office that is pushing the envelope and collaborating with programmers, nonprofits, and computer scientists with the vital goal of improving its criminal justice practices. Just last month District Attorney Geroge Gascón announced that a partnership with Code for America had enabled his office to clear all old marijuana convictions made defunct with the passage of Proposition 64. And on Wednesday, he shared the news that a new collaboration with Stanford was in the works, to employ artificial intelligence as a means of mitigating implicit racial bias among his staff. If the words "artificial intelligence" combined with "criminal justice system" give you goosebumps, you're not alone.

A new machine learning algorithm developed by the nonprofit Code for America can read through charging documents, identify codes for various crimes, and then automatically determine which felony convictions can be downgraded to a misdemeanor (those who also committed violent crimes, for example, can't have their records downgraded). Then the tool automatically fills out required forms that the district attorney can file with the court. For those with a criminal record, the changes could have meaningful impacts on their lives. "If you have a felony conviction, or in many cases, if you have a misdemeanor conviction, there are many employers who will not hire you," says George Gascón, San Francisco district attorney. "There are many landlords that will not allow you to rent or lease a place for them. There are certain types of student loans that you would not qualify because of the felony conviction. So we know that having a felony conviction–for offenses that have been legalized–still holds back a lot of people. Though rates of marijuana use are similar in black and white populations, nationally, someone who is black is nearly four times as likely to be arrested for possession. In California, until marijuana use was legalized, black people were more than twice as likely to be arrested. Clearing records can also improve public safety, Gascón says. "There are two major components to reducing the likelihood that people will commit crimes.