Late Day Links: Shepard Fairey Attacked, L.A. Zoo Searches for Budget Answers

Street artist Shepard Fairey, whose creative design firm Studio Number One is in Echo Park, was assaulted in Copenhagen last weekend, reported the L.A. Times. Two men allegedly punched and kicked Fairey and his colleague, Romeo Trinidad. Fairey told reporters that he believed the attack was in response to a controversial mural he painted over the last few weeks.

The N.Y. Times called the LAPD “a police force transformed” and says that the agency is currently experiencing a “revolution” in an article published Friday. “Twenty years after the police beating of Rodney King was caught on videotape, and 10 years after the Justice Department imposed a consent decree to battle pervasive corruption in the Rampart Division, this has become a department transformed, offering itself up — in a way that not so many years ago would have been unthinkable — as a model police agency for the United States,” wrote the NYT.

L.A. Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa and two city councilmembers appointed five new members of the Citizens Committee for the Appointment of the Executive Director of the Office of Public Accountability, reports The City Maven. One new member, Rusty Millar, is on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council. Now that the committee is formed, they can get down to business: they’re responsible for finding a head for the Office of Public Accountability, which will analyze rate increases introduced by the LA Department of Water and Power.

The Los Angeles Zoo could soon be a public-private operation, according to the Los Feliz Ledger. The L.A. City Council has asked for proposals from privately owned companies and nonprofit organizations that would enable such a partnership. The zoo is currently having budget problems. However, the council has also asked city officials to explore other options that would keep the zoo fully under city operation.