Police dedicate new headquarters
After a trying year of more than 200 murders, at least police once again have a permanent place to call home.
The New Orleans Police Department, which has operated out of trailers in the 2 1/2 years since Hurricane Katrina, dedicated a renovated headquarters Thursday that brings its major components back under one roof.
Crime has become a leading concern for local government and business leaders trying to attract investment, boost tourism and reassure residents that the city is on the mend.
The move to a permanent headquarters coincides with what Mayor Ray Nagin believes is a crucial time in the city’s recovery. It “sends the signal that the criminal justice system is back,” he said.
Berkeley, Calif.
Craigslist donates to media center
Craigslist has donated $1.6 million to the University of California at Berkeley to help create the first endowed professorship at the school’s five-year-old new media center.
Jim Buckmaster, CEO of the San Francisco-based community networking Web site, will be a founding member of the executive advisory board for the Berkeley Center for New Media, university officials said Thursday.
The center’s mission is to advance new media in the public interest and to explore its effect on culture, said engineering professor Ken Goldberg, who was appointed director of the center in July.
San Francisco
Victim admits he taunted tiger
One of the three victims of San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure, police said in court documents filed Thursday.
Paul Dhaliwal, 19, told the father of Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, who was killed, that the three yelled and waved at the tiger but insisted they never threw anything into its pen to provoke the cat, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Sousa’s father, Carlos Sousa Sr., said Dhaliwal told him the three stood on a 3-foot-tall metal railing a few feet from the edge of the tiger moat. “When they got down they heard a noise in the bushes, and the tiger was jumping out of the bushes on him (Paul Dhaliwal),” the documents said.
Honolulu
Toddler thrown onto highway
A man wearing hospital scrubs threw a toddler 30 feet from a pedestrian overpass onto a major highway Thursday, and the boy was later pronounced dead, authorities said.
A 23-year-old man was arrested after witnesses saw him throwing something, followed him and called police.
One or two vehicles may have struck the 2 1/2 -year-old boy, but it was unclear exactly what killed him, the Honolulu Advertiser reported.
The man was taken to the Honolulu police station and then to a hospital, said police spokeswoman Michelle Yu. She didn’t know whether the man had a history of mental illness or a criminal record.