Santa Clara County Crime & Justice Digest

More than two dozen people gathered outside San Jose City Hall to demand the independent police auditor have full independent investigatory powers over the San Jose Police Department.

If you are running out of battery on your phone, it might be tempting to use one of the free charging stations you find in airports and shopping centers. But the FBI is advising people to avoid using these public charge stations because criminals can import malware and monitoring software onto devices via USB ports.

California will receive $175.8 million—the highest amount of any state settlement yet reached with Juul Labs—of the $462 million total settlement over marketing vaping to kids.

San Jose officials are reckoning with a path forward after federal investigators brought drug smuggling charges against the top San Jose police union administrator.

California law requires law enforcement agencies to release body cam footage of police shootings. Many departments shape those images into stories they want to tell.

Civil rights philosopher and California native Dr. Cornel West is supporting a proposal authored by Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Fremont) to make discrimination on the basis of caste illegal in California.

San Quentin housed California’s death row for decades. Now Gavin Newsom wants the prison to emphasize rehabilitation and helping inmates re-enter society.

Community and police leaders came together to discuss public safety at a panel hosted by San José Spotlight to address questions over policing and accountability, as law enforcement agencies try to de-escalate their response levels and work toward outcomes that don't end in tragedy.

After falling just short in the final days of last year's legislative session, State Sen. Josh Becker is renewing his push for a law that would require law enforcement to make radio communications accessible to the media.

What began as a case of stolen identity for one official has snowballed into a scam targeting immigrant residents. Deputy Counsel David Campos has been dealing with identity theft for several months, and the alleged culprit is a familiar face.

A running backlog of criminal cases is a much bigger problem in the South Bay than it is in neighboring jurisdictions, with Santa Clara County recovering more slowly from a raft of pandemic-fueled closures and restrictions.

John Torrez was just 19 years old when he first started working for the Milpitas Police Department. This was back in 1991, when he was hired as an intern.

When longtime Sheriff Laurie Smith faced a corruption scandal in 2021, she kept her job for months with little consequences. County officials want to prevent that from happening again.

Responding to a recent Supreme Court ruling that loosened restrictions on concealed firearms, Palo Alto is preparing to join a growing movement of cities and states looking to designate certain types of spaces as gun-free zones.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit System is embarking on a new plan to make riders feel safer, more than doubling the number of police officers on dedicated foot patrols.

California spends more than $15 billion a year on its prison system. Now, with the number of people behind bars plummeting, the Newsom administration is moving to shut down more institutions.

San Jose police officers will soon routinely patrol an area that once was the city’s largest homeless camp in an effort to help revitalize the region.

In January, California became the first state permitted to provide some benefits under Medicaid to incarcerated individuals—an effort to create a smooth transition from behind bars.

Mark Ashford has been in and out of the criminal justice system for 26 years, never staying out for more than five months at a time. A few years ago, everything changed with the help of a support program.

After graduating in the early 1990s from San Jose State University, Nick Birchard got to work at Santa Clara County’s probation department. Nearly three decades later, his career come full circle.

Local activist and community leader Bea Robinson Mendez, 88, died from pneumonia on Jan. 13, but her legacy lives on.  She founded Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, the first bilingual shelter in the country and second domestic violence agency in the state.

Laurie Smith is appealing a conviction that she traded gun permits for campaign donations, lied on campaign finance forms and covered up jail mismanagement.

An Alviso man known for challenging developments has settled a lawsuit with a hotel developer, while ramping up rhetoric against a nonprofit food bank he's suing.

A candidate in the 2018 race for Palo Alto Unified school board has lost his appeal in a case in which he accused a local paper of defamation.

A man convicted of a string of sexually motivated murders of young women pleaded guilty to the 1973 murder of Leslie Marie Perlov, a 21-year-old law librarian, on Stanford University land.

San Jose faces a grim new record of both pedestrian fatalities and automobile accidents. Factors include a homeless population pushed into freeway margins, lack of crosswalks, and reckless driving.

From beavers to brazen crimes to long-awaited resolutions, 2022 was a year when we could finally think about something other than COVID-19.

A decades-old debate has resurfaced: how Santa Clara should choose its police chief. The city is unique in electing its chief by popular vote, but some Santa Clara councilmembers say the system forces the public to choose from a shallow, underqualified candidate pool.

The city previously purchased seven ALPRs; citizens are now allowed to use property tax assessment funds to purchase cameras. Burglaries and auto thefts are up more than a third from last year.

The class action lawsuit totals half a billion dollars nationwide.

The House Jan. 6 committee is wrapping up its investigation into the 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection. Lawmakers are declaring that they have assembled a "roadmap to justice" to bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and allies.

A federal judge says he will block part of a new California law that critics say was designed to make it nearly impossible to challenge the state's gun laws in court.