Oakland Police arrest more than 100 Occupy Oakland protesters

OAKLAND

100 Occupy Oakland protesters are in the process of being arrested for failing to disperse according to Oakland officials. Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton says protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of the protesters entering a YMCA building in the city’s downtown. The 100 arrests Saturday night come after 19 people were arrested in Occupy Oakland protests during the day making Saturday a busy day at the Oakland Police Department.

Tear gas and “flash” grenades were reported used by the police on the group of protesters Saturday afternoon after some of them threw rocks and other objects at the police and tore down fencing.

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27-year veteran LAPD Gang and Narcotics detective charged with grand theft

LOS ANGELES

27-year veteran detective Ramon Alvarez of the Los Angeles Police Department Gang and Narcotics Division was arrested Friday and charged with grand theft upon him serving an arrest warrant at a suspected narcotics location when a fellow detective witnessed Alvarez take money from said site, according to a statement released by the LAPD.

The detective that witnessed Alvarez take money from the site immediately notified his supervisor, and Alvarez’s official vehicle was searched. Money that was believed to belong to the narcotics suspect was found inside Alvarez’s vehicle, according to the LAPD statement. LAPD’s Internal Affairs Criminal Investigation Division then arrested Alvarez for grand theft.

“I am extremely disturbed and shocked by the arrest, but heartened by the actions of the detective who immediately reported what appeared to be criminal behavior,” said Police Chief Charlie Beck in a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Bail was set at $20,000 and Alvarez was placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the criminal investigation, as well as the outcome of an administrative investigation.

“The arrest of an LAPD officer and a classmate is shocking and very disappointing,” said Tyler Izen, President of the Los Angeles Police Protective League in the Los Angeles Times report. “We expect law enforcement officers to hold themselves to the highest moral standards in their professional and personal lives, making the news doubly upsetting.”

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Fire kills 26 at unlicensed overcrowded rehab center

26 Died from fire at an unlicensed overcrowded rehabilitation center in the nation's capital

LIMA

In a country where firefighters are not just notoriously underfunded, they volunteer where the entire nation’s firefighting budget is only $19 million dollars per year, it is no surprise that a fire killed 26 people and injured 10 others at a 2-story unlicensed and overcrowded private rehabilitation center in the Peruvian capital, Lima on Saturday, officials said. The blaze started around 9 a.m. local time at the “God is Love” rehabilitation center for drug addicts and alcoholics located in the capital city’s poor Zarate district.

The cause of the fire is still unknown and the 10 injured were taken to Lima hospitals, said Zarate police chief Clever Zegarra. Peru’s chief fire fighter, Antonio Zavala, said the fire was of “Dantesque proportions, with most of the people having died from asphyxiation” Gianfranco Huerta, who was being treated at the center, told local radio station RPP that he jumped from the second floor of the center to escape the fire. “The doors were locked, there was no way to get out,” he said. Residents were apparently kept inside like prisoners, Health Minister Alberto Tejada told the Associated Press.

An AP journalist at scene said all the windows of the building were barred that he was able to see. As police cordoned off the block, Journalists were not allowed inside. By early afternoon, all bodies had been removed from the center.

“This rehabilitation center wasn’t authorized. It was a house that they had taken over… for patients with addictions and they had the habit of leaving people locked up with no medical supervision,” Tejada said.

Authorities said they did not know how many people were inside the center at the time of the fire and were looking for the center’s owners and staff, some of whom apparently fled the scene. “We’ve had to use electric saws to cut through the metal bars of the doors to be able to work,” Zavala said.

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