ATLmalcontent

Pointless prediction

O.J. will escape accountability yet again. I'd prefer he rot in jail, but the case against him looks weak:

Thomas Riccio, whose tip to O.J. Simpson led to what authorities allege was armed robbery that could put O.J. behind bars, has a checkered past.

Riccio, an ex-con and well-known memorabilia dealer, has been in the headlines for selling Anna Nicole Smith's diaries for $500,000 and attempting to sell a video of Smith's breast enhancement surgery.

Stop! Or the APD will shoot your grandma

This is becoming an epidemic in Atlanta:

Two months and a day before Kathryn Johnston, there was Frances Thompson.

The 80-year-old Thompson was in her bedroom the afternoon of Sept. 20, when she heard a terrible crash and shouting. Startled and confused, she grabbed a pistol and was immediately confronted by three Atlanta narcotics officers.

"They had masks covering their face. I thought I was being robbed," she recalled. "They pointed those big guns at me."

Lead officer Gary Smith said repeatedly "Police! Drop the Gun!" from behind his raid shield, according to a police report. Thompson, who had pointed the gun at the intruders, put down the black revolver as officers searched her apartment for a drug dealer named "Hollywood."

No one else was home. No drugs were found. And her pistol was a toy cap gun.

The raid at Thompson's home stunned the members of Atlanta Police Department's narcotics Team 1.The near-disaster led five members of the team to seek a meeting with their boss, Sgt. Wilbert T. Stallings, according to John Garland, attorney for Jason R. Smith, one of the officers involved. Smith was one of two officers who pleaded guilty last week to killing 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston and lying to get a warrant for the fatal raid on Nov. 21.

LA Police at it again

Watch them overreact at an immigration march in Macarthur Park.

We've seen this before, as I posted yesterday.

Besides the DNC meltdown, I've had my share of run-ins with intemperate LA cops. Once, while driving along one of the seedier strips of Sunset Blvd., I tossed a cigarette butt out the window. Not proud of it, but I also didn't know it was against the law. A cop pulled me over, ticketed me and made me pick up the butt from the gutter.

"How do I know which one is mine?" I asked, since there were about 1,000 butts to choose from. The cop insisted I pick one up, even if it wasn't mine.

Minor incident, but revealing of the departmental mindset of the LA Police -- protect and bully, not serve. (Of course, there are many exceptions within the LAPD.)

Perhaps Chief William Bratton has changed that (Daryl) Gates-ian attitude some; he called the officers' actions in yesterday's scrum "inappropriate."