L.A. Now Live: LAPD’s Chief Beck; Marine who criticized Obama

Times reporters Tony Perry and Joel Rubin will join city editor Shelby Grad for a chat about two stories in the news.

The chat will begin at 9 a.m at www.latimes.com/lanow. Questions can be asked live during the chat or by submitting a comment above.

Perry, who reports on the military out of San Diego, has been following the case of Sgt. Gary Stein, the Marine who criticized President Obama on a Facebook page. An Administrative Separation Board at Camp Pendleton has voted 3-0 to recommend that Stein should be dismissed and given an other-than-honorable discharge for making comments “prejudicial to good order and discipline.”

He’ll have the latest on that case.

Rubin will be discussing a story that appears on the front page in today’s paper about LAPD Chief Charlie Beck facing rare criticism from his civilian bosses. Some of those commission members say they are troubled by Beck’s reluctance to punish officers they found had killed or wounded people unjustifiably.

Since Beck took over as chief in late 2009, the commission has ruled on about 90 incidents involving officers who fired weapons or used other deadly force. In almost all of them, Beck concluded the officers used force appropriately and urged the commission to clear them of wrongdoing. The board followed his guidance most of the time.

But in four shootings — in which three people were killed and three others wounded by police gunfire — the commission went against the chief’s recommendations and ruled the officers’ use of lethal force inappropriate, Rubin reported.

– Kimi Yoshino

Direct Link:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/la-now-live-newsroom-chat.html