In case you're not up to date on the newish lingo for stupid pranks, "Swatting" is the act of reporting a fake crime or emergency at someone's home, which usually results in a SWAT team showing up and scaring the hell out of everyone at the nonexistent crime's location. Last week, Tom Cruise was swatted, perhaps resulting in an advertisement in The Atlantic; this week, it was gentleman R&B star Chris Brown's turn. According to TMZ:

Hijinks are afoot in Los Angeles, where a SWAT team was dispatched to Tom Cruise's Beverly Hills mansion after receiving a call that there was a gunman on the premises. There was no gunman at Tom Cruise's house. There was also no Tom Cruise at Tom Cruise's house — and if there's ever a gunman at Tom Cruise's house, it's probably Tom Cruise being a weirdo.

Two LAPD officers are suspected of forcing several women into sex. Courts: protect our right to give cops the finger.

Nick Stahl was arrested last night after LAPD vice officers working undercover allegedly caught him pleasuring himself inside a sex shop in Hollywood.

Here's a general idea of how many weapons are just floating around this country right now. The LAPD held a gun buyback in Los Angeles on Wednesday (the image above is from a buyback in Bridgeport, Conn. last week) and they received the following: 901 handguns, 698 rifles and 363 shotguns. Oh, they also were handed two rocket launchers. No big deal. And these were just the people willing to turn over their guns in exchange for $100 gift cards (for handguns and long guns) or $200 gift cards (for rifles). In one city. Here's a photo of one of the rocket launchers:

Poor Amanda Bynes. All the former child star wants to do is drive, but The Man keeps getting in her way.

In a story that lacks an easy song-based joke, "Doin It" rapper and professional hat wearer LL Cool J thwarted a home robbery this morning by detaining the potential burglar after a physical confrontation. According to the Los Angeles Times, the hip-hop legend was upstairs in his Studio City home when he heard a noise from his kitchen. Because he's clearly one of the strongest people in the world, J went down to investigate.

Rodney King, who was at the center of a police brutality trial after a vicious 1991 beating, has died at 47.

John Dancler, the L.A. "parking enforcement official" who made a pornographic movie while on duty and in uniform, had a civil service hearing this week to beg for his job back. A hearing examiner was forced to scrutinize "every frame" of Dancler's movie, then quizzed him about "slapping her behind." Awk-ward.

On Tuesday afternoon, on a hiking trail in Hollywood Hills, a pair of female dogwalkers stumbled across the severed head of a middle-aged man. Two of their dogs had been playing with a plastic bag, they told the LAPD. Inside was a human head.

Given what we write about police sometimes, you might conclude that all officers ever do is beat up homeless men, drive drunk, and carelessly toss internal documents into Dumpsters. But cops do more than that, sometimes!

The LAPD has seized on Los Angeles' most valuable natural resource, celebrities, for help in broadcasting a highway closure. They've reached out to Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Lady Gaga and others to tweet the news.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we now have access to a thick FBI file detailing the agency's investigation into the 1997 shooting death of Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace. The case, which now falls under the jurisdiction of the LAPD, has famously run cold. But these documents, though heavily redacted, bring some interesting details to light—including ballistics evidence that further links evil former LAPD officer David Mack to the murder.

According to TMZ, police are raiding Charlie Sheen's Beverly Hills' home in a "pre-planned raid" tonight:

Ted Williams, the homeless man who found voice-over work after a video of him speaking went viral, was picked up by police yesterday following a fight with his daughter in a L.A. hotel. The media giveth, and they taketh away.

Katherine Heigl was having a hot tub party with her husband, and they made so much noise, her neighbor called the cops. Is this lady annoying, or what? So! Very! Annoying! Sorry Kathy, there is no reversing this "image problem."

For the second night in a row, a crowd gathered in Los Angeles to protest the fatal police shooting of a Guatemalan day laborer—but things quickly devolved as police fired "at least two volleys of nonlethal projectiles."

Jon Gosselin just can't get enough ass, the Bush daughters were unholy terrors for the Secret Service, some Russian guy is sending death threats to Britney Spears, Michael Jackson's doctor is in hiding and Cameron Diaz parties with Jude Law.

In the period we live in, the most remarkable thing about the fact that police photos of a battered Rihanna have leaked is that it took a whole ten days for it to happen.

Though celebrities dropping trou for the glossies has proven both controversial in Miley Cyrus' case, and "artsy" in Lindsay Lohan's, both of these spreads were intelligently shot behind closed doors. But when GQ decided to photograph Entourage's Emmanuelle Chirqui fully exposing her curves in the bright light of day, controversy didn't come by way of conservative media pundits. It arrived in the form of the LAPD's official nudity-watch squad, who interrupted the shoot to get a closer look make sure all was okay on set. As Chirqui recalls, one pervy fed stepped in as art director and instructed the crew "Could you make sure that her areolas aren't showing?" See what all the fuss was about for yourself after the jump: