LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Loved ones traveled in a cluster of 100 or so vehicles, like a metallic herd on the 10 Freeway, as they made their way towards the cemetery.

But their funeral procession came to a halt when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled over one of their escorts, prompting all the other cars to pull over too.

Reporter Erica Nochlin sat down with the family for an interview you’ll only see on CBS2.

The family says they were outraged when that driver was handed a traffic ticket. That anger can clearly be heard in a female relative’s voice during cell phone video taken of the stop: “These people just lost their mom…you stoppin’ a whole funeral…this is ridiculous man.”

Family member Ricky Powers says he’s still mad his chance to mourn his aunt, Sandra, was interrupted by the officer: “I asked him, I said, ‘You really think this is the time and place for that? I mean, we’re grieving right now.'”

CHP Officer Chris Baldonado says that lead escort was ticketed for stopping traffic in the far right lane of the eastbound 10 when doesn’t have that authority.

“It is a sad situation,” said Baldonado, adding, “I think [the officer] acted within his powers, and his best discretion.”

2000

The allegation: In August of 2000, Howard was arrested in Cleveland after assaulting a flight attendant on Continental Airlines when she told him to return to his seat while the seat belt sign was on.

Howard's defense: Howard says he was just trying to take his daughter to the bathroom, and charges were dropped by the Cleveland District Attorney for lack of jurisdiction.

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2001

The allegation: Less than a year after the Continental incident, Howard was arrested in Whitemarsh, PA for assaulting his estranged wife, Lori McCommas. An argument over the phone led to Howard driving over to McCommas' home, kicking down her front door, and punching her three times in the face. Pleasant.

Howard's defense: According to The Smoking Gun, "Howard admitted, 'I broke the door down and hit my wife.' After being charged with a variety of crimes (simple assault, terroristic threats, harassment and stalking), Howard subsequently pleaded guilty in 2002 to disorderly conduct."
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2005

The allegation: Though the story is only coming to light now, Philadelphia Magazine reports that back in March of 2005, Howard was involved in another violent incident with two complete strangers: Danielle DiStefano and her then-fiance Kevin Saffell were in line at Ray's Dining Car in Philadelphia when Howard became violent after the couple was seated ahead of him (DiStefano and Saffell were in line first). After allegedly punching Saffell, a U.S. Marine, to the ground, Howard is said to have punched DiStefano in the chest, and continued to beat Saffell, before fleeing the scene. He was arrested and charged with simple assault and harassment, but those charges were later withdrawn and Howard only received charges for disorderly conduct.

Howard's defense: At the time, Howard admitted to the arresting officer that he'd hit both Saffell and DiStefano, but claimed it was in self-defense. When contacted more recently by Philadelphia Magazine, Howard's lawyer said that his client "has been unjustly accused of acts that never happened."
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2010 - 2011

The allegation: Howard married his second wife, Michelle Ghent, on January 20, 2010. It took less than a week for the alleged violence to begin. Ghent filed for divorce in January 2011, and the divorce papers detail a gruesome year: a slug in the face a week into the marriage, a beating and near-toss off a balcony in South Africa in July, and threats with a butcher knife in the week prior to her filing for divorce. The abuse apparently continued as Howard and Ghent tried to reconcile.

Howard's defense: Howard alleges that it was Ghent who was violent towards him, the judge granted Ghent a restraining order against Howard in December of 2011.
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2012

The allegation: On May 6, 2012 Howard's on again-off again girlfriend/mistress May Seng Yang alleged that during an argument at Howard's Pennsylvania home, Howard attacked her while his current girlfriend, Erica Jiles looked on. Yang "told Whitemarsh police that Howard had choked her, thrown her to the ground and punched her in the eye, then told his girlfriend, 'Fuck this, I’m going to jail for this tonight.' In a handwritten statement to police, Yang wrote that during their argument she told Howard that he had given her herpes and says he acknowledged doing so."

Howard's defense: Howard filed assault charges against Yang for punching him during the melee, and both parties dropped criminal charges and settled in a private civil suit.
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2013

The allegation: Howard and Ghent recently took another shot at a reconciliation, taking a trip to Costa Rica together August of 2013. Ghent alleges that Howard punched her in the face, after she told him she didn't think a reconciliation was going to work out, forcing her to pepper spray him in self defense. The photos are damning. A judge has granted Ghent a temporary restraining order.

Howard's defense: At the premiere of Lee Daniels' The Butler, Howard told Entertainment Tonight's Nancy O'Dell that he wanted to "set the record straight":

"It's just life, man. Chris is a great guy, man. He'll be all right. And Rihanna knows he loves her, you know? They'll be alright. 'Cause everybody gotta get out of their way, you know what I mean?"

An unarmed man who had reportedly fought a bar bouncer and harassed people in Venice on Tuesday night was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers after a struggle, authorities said.

The man, whom friends said was known by the nickname “Dizzle,” was described as a transient. He was in his 20s, L.A. County coroner’s officials said.

About 11:30 p.m., officers with the LAPD’s Pacific Division responded to a call from an employee at a local business reporting that a man was harassing customers near Windward and Pacific avenues.

Two officers found the man on the south sidewalk west of Windward Avenue and after a brief conversation he walked away toward the Venice boardwalk.

As officers returned to their police cruiser they saw the man get into a physical altercation with a bar security guard on the sidewalk nearby, police said.

"The officers attempted to detain the suspect and an altercation occurred between the two officers and the suspect," the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. "During the physical altercation, an officer-involved shooting occurred.”

Officers, according to the LAPD, performed CPR on the man until paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital. One of the officers hurt his knee during the struggle, Det. Meghan Aguilar said.

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Black people in the United States are more likely to be victims of violent confrontations with police officers than whites because they commit more violent crimes than whites per capita.

On Monday, according to an Associated Press report, stop signs at either end of the Pennsville street where his family lives bore stickers advertising Infowars.com, a website that discusses many of the same antigovernment ideas officials said Ciancia mentioned in a handwritten note found in his bag. It was not clear who put the stickers there or when.

Allen Bullock, the 18-year-old seen in photos smashing in a police car with a traffic cone, turned himself in after being encouraged by his parents. But now he is being held on $500,000 bail, an amount his parents cannot afford, The Guardian reports.

Bullock faces charges of rioting and malicious destruction of property, among other criminal counts, after turning himself in at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center with his stepfather, Maurice Hawkins, at his side.

According to Hawkins, who saw footage of his stepson on Saturday, the teen agreed to turn himself in after his stepfather told him that the police would “find him, knock down our door and beat him” if he didn’t, The Guardian notes.

However, no good deed goes unpunished, and Hawkins now believes that they are making an example of the teen. “By turning himself in, he also let me know he was growing as a man and he recognized what he did was wrong,” Hawkins told The Guardian on Wednesday. “But they are making an example of him, and it is not right.”

“As parents, we wanted Allen to do the right thing,” Bullock’s mother, Bobbi Smallwood, said. “He was dead wrong, and he does need to be punished. But he wasn’t leading this riot. He hasn’t got that much power.”

Hawkins noted that the proposed amount is higher than that placed on some accused murderers in the city. “Who could afford to pay that?” the stepfather asked.

“If they let him go, he could at least save some money and pay them back for the damage he did,” his mother agreed.

The eight misdemeanor charges Bullock face are his first as an adult, with rioting carrying a maximum of life in prison. The Guardian, however, says that his parents believe that four to eight years is a more likely sentence. Bullock, who was convicted of minor offenses as a juvenile, was working in city sanitation under a program for people in juvenile probation, The Guardian notes, earning more than $15,000 a year.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/04/balt_teen_encouraged_to_turn_self_in_by_parents_held_on_500_000_bail_faces.html

WEST JORDAN, Utah — A man has filed a lawsuit against the West Jordan Police Department that alleges his rights were violated when a police K9 was dispatched and subsequently injured him, but police said they stand behind their actions.

“I didn’t dare to move. I put my hands up and froze. If I would have blinked, I thought I was going to get shot,” said Lee Hoogveldt, recalling an incident which played out in his home on March 24, 2013.

His attorney, Robert Sykes, filed a civil rights lawsuit in Federal Court on Thursday, and he provided the media with copies of body camera video showing Hoogveldt being attacked by a police dog.

“At the time and place this force was used, there was no justification at all to sic a police dog on somebody,” Sykes said.

The video shows Hoogveldt seated on a sofa after police enter his home. After numerous commands from officers, he raises his hands in the air seconds before a dog named “Pyro” lunges at his face, bites, and holds on for about 15 seconds.

Hoogveldt is then pulled into a nearby room by another officer. The video shows large amounts of blood covering his face. Seconds later, Hoogveldt is face down, and as officers work to get him handcuffed, the dog bites him in the buttocks.

http://fox13now.com/2015/04/30/man-sues-west-jordan-police-over-injuries-suffered-in-k9-encounter/

People watching developments in Baltimore -- where rioting and protests followed the April 19 death of Freddie Gray -- are now turning their attention toward Baltimore City's State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, the chief prosecutor for the city. On Friday, Baltimore police officials are expected to present Mosby with results of an internal investigation into the death.

After reviewing the report, Mosby -- who will soon mark four months on the job -- will ultimately decide whether any or all of the six police officers suspended in connection with Gray's death will face criminal charges.

Mosby -- who at age 34 became the nation's youngest chief prosecutor when she took office in January -- was raised in inner-city Boston and grew up in a police household, the Daily Beast reported. Both of her parents and one of her grandfathers were police officers.

Prior to her election as Baltimore's state's attorney, Mosby won the endorsement of a city police union. But she has not been coy about advocating on the behalf of families who have sought answers in previous police-involved deaths of Baltimore residents.

After her predecessor decided not to bring charges against officers whose tussled last year with a Baltimore man named Tyrone Wright -- a case that ended with Wright's death -- Mosby said she would be "more transparent" in how she arrived at decisions in police-involved cases. “This family waited nine months to know how their loved one was killed,” Mosby said during her campaign for the elected office.

But despite that statement, Mosby has been a vocal supporter of the police, a stand fraught with political risk in a city with Baltimore's history of police brutality allegations. “It is my genuine belief, despite what we might all want to think, what we might want to believe, the police officers in this city are doing their jobs,” she said. “I repeat, the police officers in Baltimore city are doing their jobs and taking bad guys off the street.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/who-marilyn-mosby-baltimore-city-states-attorney-decide-if-officers-are-charged-1903068

In an aggressive posture designed to tamp down on early signs of unrest, the police arrested more than one hundred people in Manhattan on Wednesday night as protesters marched in a show of solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore protesting the death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed 25-year-old black man who died after being injured while in police custody this month.

One officer was injured when a bottle struck him on the chin, the police said.

Some protesters stopped traffic on Houston Street in Lower Manhattan while others blocked the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Another group marched uptown to Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen, where, later in the night, a police van filled with marchers who had been arrested sat idling in traffic.

The rally began in Union Square at sunset to denounce the death of Mr. Gray and to criticize the tactics of the police in both Baltimore and New York City, where the use of force has been a charged issue since the death of Eric Garner, a black man, following a confrontation with officers on Staten Island last year.

“It’s all about solidarity,” Carmen Perez, a director of a group that advocates criminal justice reform, Justice League, said during the Union Square rally. “We’re here to spread the message of peace from Baltimore’s initial protests.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/nyregion/hundreds-march-in-manhattan-to-protest-the-death-of-freddie-gray.html?_r=0