Police | featured news

Wade M. Page, the man who the police say shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin this week, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said on Wednesday. The authorities had reported earlier that he was fatally shot by a police officer.

Anaheim officers have killed five people since Jan. 1. Police say the shootings are intertwined with the rise in violent, gang-related crimes. The controversy over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed Anaheim man is part of a significant increase in both violent crime and officer-involved shootings in the city so far this year, according to records reviewed by The Times.

A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant was executed Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for the death penalty.

Ohio police say a man brought a gun, ammunition and several knives to a showing of the latest Batman movie so he could protect himself, not because he had sinister intentions. Westlake Police Sgt. Mark Krumheuer said 37-year-old Scott A. Smith, of North Ridgeville, brought the weapons to a Saturday showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" for "his protection," but he would not elaborate.

The psychiatrist who treated suspected movie-theater shooter James Holmes contacted a University of Colorado police officer to express concerns about Holmes's behavior several weeks before his alleged rampage, ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources.

A woman disguised in scrubs was caught trying to steal a newborn girl from a Southern California hospital in a tote bag after sensors attached to the baby alerted employees, Garden Grove police said.

The gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin before he was shot to death by police was identified today as a 40-year-old Army veteran and former leader of a white supremacist metal band. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Haanstad in Milwaukee identified the shooter as Wade Michael Page. Page joined the Army in 1992 and was discharged in 1998, according to a defense official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information yet about the suspect.

A coroner’s office scheduled an autopsy Monday for a northeast Ohio woman who was shot in her bed at a hospital’s intensive care unit, allegedly by her husband in what police believe was a mercy killing. Capt. Dan Zampelli said an initial court appearance for John Wise likely wouldn’t come until at least Tuesday or even Wednesday. He said police needed results of the autopsy to decide what charge would be appropriate.

An 87-year-old man was charged with growing more than 400 marijuana plants at his Colorado home.

In what police called an act of domestic terrorism, a gunman opened fire in a Sikh temple here on Sunday, killing at least six and injuring three others before being shot and killed in the parking lot. The rampage ended in a shootout with police. The gunman ambushed one of first officers arriving at the temple, shooting him several times, before he was killed by another officer, the authorities said Sunday afternoon. The officer remained in critical condition at a nearby hospital, along with two other shooting victims.