FBI seeks public's help identifying Boston suspects

BOSTON — The FBI appealed for the public's help Thursday in identifying two men wearing baseball caps and backpacks, one of whom was seen placing a backpack at the site of the second Boston Marathon bombing.

As President Obama traveled to the shaken city with a promise that it would "learn to run again," the FBI released photos and a video of two men seen walking through a crowd outside a restaurant near one of the two deadly explosions.

"They appear to be associated," Boston FBI chief Richard DesLauriers said as he detailed the most significant break yet in the investigation into who was responsible for the bombs that exploded Monday near the marathon's finish line, killing three people and injuring more than 170.

PHOTOS: Explosions at Boston Marathon

FBI officials believe they may have captured the planting of one of the crude pressure-cooker bombs outside a crowded restaurant near the finish line. They said an image showed the man — wearing a white baseball cap — depositing his backpack at the scene "within minutes" of the time the second bomb went off, DesLauriers said. The man walked back the way he came, away from the finish line, he said.

The same man is seen in surveillance footage walking a few steps behind a second man, this one dressed in khakis, a black jacket and a black baseball cap. That footage was captured at 2:37 p.m., about 13 minutes before the explosions, a few blocks away.

"We consider them to be armed and extremely dangerous. No one should approach them," DesLauriers said, urging members of the public with information to instead call the FBI's tip line.

"Somebody out there knows these individuals as friends, neighbors, co-workers or family members of the suspects," DesLauriers said of the agency's decision to tip its hand and release the photos.

"Though it may be difficult, the nation is counting on those individuals to come forward and provide [information] to us," he said. "No detail is too small. Each piece moves us forward towards justice."

The decision to release the photos was likely a gamble, a former FBI agent said.

"It's a cost-benefit analysis," said Richard Hahn, the former FBI senior supervisory agent in Long Beach. "Your perpetrator is going to see the photo if it's out there, and they could flee or go underground."

But, he said, the FBI may not be able to identify the individuals on its own and could decide that learning their identities through public help is worth the chance that they could try to evade law enforcement.

"If we don't know who that person is, we're not even at first base," Hahn said.

Sources close to the investigation also revealed that they have found what they believe to be the detonation system for the bombs — a circuit board and parts from a toy remote control vehicle.

Investigators have sorted through more than 3,000 images along with a massive amount of surveillance video; a department store camera near the scene of the second explosion produced some of the key images, officials have said.

"It's a long, tedious process — they're doing it as fast as they can," said Jason Pack, supervisory special agent at the FBI's national press office.

The revelations came as Obama traveled to Boston for the latest stop on a two-year-long road trip in which he has been called upon to comfort cities shocked by the effects of mass violence and disastrous weather.

"If they sought to intimidate us, terrorize us, to shake us from … the values that make us who we are as Americans, well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it," Obama said to a standing ovation from more than 2,000 people at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. "Not here in Boston."

Under the soaring expanse of the Gothic Revival cathedral, the president was called on to try to find new words of comfort equally eloquent to those he delivered after tragedies in Newtown, Tucson and Joplin.

Boston was different, he said. The city's long history of nurturing immigrants and the millions from around the world who have studied at its universities — including the president and his wife, both graduates of Harvard Law School — gave everyone a stake in the city, he said.

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Intense manhunt near Boston

WATERTOWN, Mass. — With the Boston area jumpy from the deadly marathon bombings, a shooting that killed a police officer at MIT and a nearby carjacking triggered a massive police response.

By early Friday, one suspect was in custody and police had cordoned off an area of the Boston suburb of Watertown, where witnesses reported loud explosions. Police followed the carjacked vehicle to Watertown, according to scanner traffic.

It was unclear whether the incidents had anything to do with Monday's marathon bombings, but hours into the siege police issued an alert on the scanner for a white male wearing a gray hoodie, with black curly hair. "Should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Possibly armed with an assault rifle and explosives.

"Could have an IED explosive device on him so please use extreme caution. Use extreme caution."

The incidents began about 10:48 p.m. when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, east of Watertown, issued an emergency alert that a campus police officer had been shot while responding to a disturbance. The shooter was at large, MIT said, and authorities urged everyone to stay inside.

The officer was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He had been shot multiple times, the Middlesex County district attorney said in a statement.

Shortly after the shooting, a vehicle was carjacked near campus, according to Henry DiCicco of the Watertown Police Department. Officers chased it to Watertown, where they set up a perimeter and radioed that a suspect had hand grenades and explosives.

One officer worried that cellphones could set off one of the devices.

"Units in the area: Power down all cellphones for fear of explosion. Power down all cellphones," the scanner said.

Ambulances congregated at Arsenal Mall in Watertown as police cars sped by. Police with dogs searched the area. A chopper hovered overhead. Bomb squad vehicles packed the residential neighborhood about four miles from MIT.

A Watertown man who lives about a mile from the cordoned-off area, Aaron Janikian, 27, said he was smoking outside his house when he heard "distinct gunshots" and "a big boom separate from the gunshots."

That was followed, he said, by "more sirens than I've ever heard in my life."

He drove over to see what was happening. FBI, Boston police and SWAT teams had responded.

The alert for a second suspect was issued after a man was taken into custody.

One man was ordered to strip and was taken to a squad car naked.

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

alana.semuels@latimes.com

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Police: 1 Boston bombing suspect dead, the other at large

WATERTOWN, Mass. -- One suspect linked to the Boston Marathon bombings is dead, and the second is on the loose, armed and dangerous, police said early Friday.

Officers were going door to door in the Boston suburb of Watertown. They warned residents to stay inside and not open the door unless an identifiable police officer was on the other side.

The second suspect has brown, curly hair. In photographs provided by federal authorities, he is wearing a white hat. Officials said the suspect is directly linked to Monday's marathon bombings, which left three dead and more than 170 injured. 

"We believe this to be a terrorist," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told media Friday. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody."

Another police spokesman, Col. Timothy P. Alben, told the news briefing: "What we are looking for right now is a suspect consistent with the description of the white-capped individual that was involved in the bombing of Monday's Boston Marathon." 

The night that resulted in the death of one suspect and the search for the second began several hours before and several miles to the east, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A campus police officer was found fatally shot there in his car late Thursday night.

 Authorities said the officer had been shot multiple times.  He was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital and pronounced dead.

A short time later, police received reports of an armed carjacking by two males in a nearby area of Cambridge. As the police gave chase to the stolen Mercedes SUV, the suspects in the vehicle began throwing "explosive devices" from the car, according to the Middlesex District Attorney's Office.

Police and the suspects shot at each other in a Watertown neighborhood, an exchange that seriously wounded a transit officer, officials said. The officer's condition was described as critical.

"Shots fired!" one officer said over a police scanner. "Explosives, some kind of grenades, they're in between the houses down there." 

One officer worried that cellphones could set off "one of these devices."

"Units in the area: Power down all cellphones for fear of explosion. Power down all cellphones," the scanner said.

Ambulances congregated at Arsenal Mall in Watertown as police cars sped by. Police with dogs searched the area. A chopper hovered overhead and the air smelled smoky. Bomb squad vehicles packed the residential neighborhood about four miles from MIT. 

A Watertown man who lives about a mile from the cordoned-off area, Aaron Janikian, 27, said he was smoking outside his house when he heard "distinct gunshots" and "a big boom separate from the gunshots."

That was followed, he said, by "more sirens than I've ever heard in my life."

He drove over to see what was happening. FBI, Boston police and SWAT teams had responded. Janikian said he heard two agents wearing FBI jackets say, "IED" — an apparent reference to an improvised explosive device.

laura.nelson@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

alana.semuels@latimes.com

Times staff writers Andrew Tangel in Cambridge, Kim Murphy in Seattle, and Matt Pearce and Marisa Gerber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

ALSO:

MIT officer dies after campus shooting

MIT police officer reported shot near campus

Boston Marathon bombings: Investigators cite suspects' movements

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Fertilizer plant explodes near Waco, Texas, injuring dozens

Blast near Waco, Texas

By Matt Pearce

April 17, 2013, 8:21 p.m.

A large explosion rocked a small community near Waco, Texas, Wednesday night, triggering a raging fire and dozens of injuries. 

The Waco Tribune reported that several firefighters were hurt after a fertilizer plant exploded in the town of West, Texas.

Glenn Robinson, chief executive of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, told CNN that about 40 people had been brought to the hospital with injuries, some serious.

Officials were setting up a trauma center at the West Community Center. 

Gov. Rick Perry put out the following statement: "We are monitoring developments and gathering information as details continue to emerge about this incident. We have also mobilized state resources to help local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of West, and the first responders on the scene."

Local reporters and witnesses in the area were tweeting about the blast:

People from the nursing home are being evacuated in the back of people's trucks

— Robert Pryor (@RobertPryor) April 18, 2013

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West, Texas, explosion: At least 3 dead; several firefighters missing

At least three people were reported dead and about six firefighters were missing Wednesday night as rescuers continued to battle intense flames after a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, officials told reporters at the scene.

The huge blast and fireball left dozens of other people injured and a massive wake of destruction that was visible for blocks.

Officials said chemicals at the plant plus the fire created a "TNT-like explosion" at the West Fertilizer facility in West, about 20 miles north of Waco. 

The exact number of people injured was unknown late Wednesday. But West Mayor Tommy Muska said that about six firefighters were unaccounted for and that 131 people were safely evacuated from a local nursing home, according to a Waco Tribune reporter tweeting from the area.

Muska told reporters that 60 to 80 homes in a 5-mile radius were destroyed and that the nursing home was badly damaged. "There's going to be casualties," he said.

One official said the area "looked like Iraq."

D.L. Wilson, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, spoke briefly to reporters about 10 p.m. PDT. Wilson described a wide field of devastation, including skeletal remains of homes and an apartment building near the blast site. He said rescue personnel were conducting door-to-door searches for victims.

He said at least 100 people had been injured but he had no information to share about the number killed.

"I can't give you a number right now," he said.

Asked about the reports of 50 to 60 dead, Wilson said, "I cannot confirm or deny that; I do not have that number."

He said the forecast was for a change in the direction of the wind overnight, which would mean more evacuations would be needed.

Aerial footage showed fires still smoldering in the ruins of the plant and in several surrounding buildings, and people being treated for injuries on a local football field, which had been turned into a staging area for emergency responders.

Debby Marak told the Associated Press that when she finished teaching her religion class Wednesday night, she noticed a lot of smoke in the area across town near the plant, which is near a nursing home. She said she drove over to see what was happening, and that when she got there, two boys came running toward her screaming that the authorities ordered everyone out because the plant was going to explode.

She said she drove about a block when the blast happened.

"It was like being in a tornado," Marak, 58, said by phone. "Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield."

"It was like the whole earth shook."

ALSO:

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Video images yeild two suspects in Boston bombings

Mississippi man arrested in case of ricin-laced letter

Twitter: @LAJourno

robert.lopez@latimes.com

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West, Texas, explosion injures more than 100; many feared dead

A massive explosion ripped through a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas, injuring more than 100 and leaving many feared dead.

Authorities were bracing to find more victims in collapsed buildings, which rescuers could not approach because of the raging flames and dangerous chemicals.

The blast happened about 8 p.m. in West, a town of 2,800 about 20 miles north of Waco. It was unclear what had triggered it.

Mayor Tommy Muska, who is a volunteer firefighter, told CNN that he was responding to the blaze and was two blocks away from the plant when it exploded.

"I've just never seen an explosion like that before. It was just a ball of fire," he said. "It looked like a nuclear bomb went off; it was just a big old mushroom cloud."

D.L. Wilson, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at least 100 people had been injured and an unknown number of people had been killed. As many as 75 houses were damaged and a 50-unit apartment building looked like a "skeleton standing up," he said.

A 133-person nursing home was near the blast.

Its residents had been evacuated to the community center.

"I searched some houses earlier tonight. Massive," Wilson said of the damage. "Just like Iraq; just like the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City."

Wilson likened the chemicals used in the 1995 Oklahoma City blast to the chemicals at the plant when it exploded.

The blaze went unfought as firefighters focused on rescuing victims and survivors and as officials evacuated an eight- to 10-block area around the plant for fear of toxins in the air.

Wilson said that half the city had been evacuated and that the other half might need to be evacuated if the winds shifted.

The Federal Aviation Administration imposed a temporary no-fly zone over the site, with only law enforcement and medical aircraft allowed. Other aircraft were to keep at least five miles away.

Several firefighters were reported among those injured during the explosion, the Dallas Morning News reported. CNN said two were dead.

Debby Marak told the Associated Press that the blast "was like being in a tornado. Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield. It was like the whole Earth shook."

Jason Shelton, a clerk at the Czech Best Western hotel in West, told the Morning News, "It was a small fire and then water got sprayed on the ammonia nitrate, and it exploded."

What caused the conflagration could not be confirmed, however.

West Fertilizer Co. reported having as much as 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia on hand in an emergency planning report to the Environmental Protection Agency and local officials, according to the Morning News. In the report, the company said it had no fire or explosive risks.

The worst possible scenario, the report said, would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that would kill or injure no one.

The hellish scene drew swarms of emergency crews from surrounding communities as the wounded were taken by car, ambulance and helicopter to hospitals in Waco and Dallas.

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Costa Mesa man blew himself up, police believe

Local police and FBI agents looked for answers — and explosives — in a Costa Mesa home Monday after a man apparently blew himself up in a blast that shocked the quiet, suburban neighborhood where he lived alone.

Authorities who searched the scene said they found at least two explosive devices in the modest one-story home and detonated them, and they later discovered a rambling and worrisome 17,000-word essay online expressing a deep fear of government.

Police said it appears Kevin Harris, 52, intended to kill himself in the Sunday night explosion, which neighbors said sounded like a car crash or a garbage can tipping over.

Many of the homes in the neighborhood remained empty Monday as police patrolled the streets south of the 405 Freeway near Harbor Boulevard and investigators in white hazmat suits crept through the overgrown brush in the frontyard of the Bermuda Drive home.

Neighbors said Harris seemed odd yet harmless, though several said they tended to quicken their pace when they passed his home.

The essay, titled "The Pricker: A True Story of Assassination, Terrorism and High Treason," includes references to aliens, the O.J. Simpson trial, the U.S. government and "the pricker," which it describes as "an assassin's weapon that deposits biological agents into a victim's skin, on contact, without their knowledge."

Throughout the paper, the author — identifying himself as Harris — expresses belief that the U.S. government and its allies control the flow of information to the public and assassinate dissenters through freak accidents and diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

The essay claimed that the government was behind the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and John Lennon, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the death of Righteous Brothers singer Bobby Hatfield.

Family members described Harris as a brilliant and gentle person who had never expressed an interest in explosives or weaponry.

Carol Harris, his 82-year-old mother, said he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder, possibly schizophrenia.

She said that she hadn't seen her son in three years. She lives in Nevada and said that the last time they spoke, he told her was disconnecting his phone because he was getting unwanted calls. She said he didn't work and refused to let anyone enter his home.

"He was a very gentle person," she said.

Mark Harris, 57, said his brother was the youngest of five boys, and although the others were smart and high achieving — one is a professor, another a pharmacist — Kevin was the smartest.

"For us it's very troubling that he ended this way," Mark Harris said. "How he got off on his ideas on what you might call conspiracy theories … it's always been troubling to anybody who knows him because he's so smart."

Kevin Harris' home, practically hidden behind tall bushes and trees, was wrapped in foil, and when authorities entered, it was hard to see because all the windows had been covered, police said.

Harris posted messages on a tree on the edge of his yard, neighbors said. Sometimes the essay was there; other times there were cryptic notes.

David Rosendahl said he runs in the area regularly and started noticing odd notes posted to the tree about four or five months ago. He snapped a photo of the latest note Saturday morning.

"For your information: My introspection and my adversaries behavior have convinced me that electronic mind reading is now a reality," it read.

At other times, Rosendahl said, there was a clipboard and pen attached to the tree with papers allowing room for names, addresses and signatures — similar to voting logs, he said.

Doug and Jenny Nadasdy, who have lived in the neighborhood for years, said they saw Harris minutes before he died. Doug Nadasdy said he nodded at Harris and Harris nodded back, but that was the extent of their exchange.

On Sunday night, Harris was seen lying in his front yard. He refused medical attention when paramedics arrived.

A short time later, the explosion rocked the neighborhood, and police found Harris' body in the front doorway.

"It was a pretty powerful explosion," Costa Mesa Police Lt. Greg Scott said.

The online essay warned of dangers inside the home.

"I am at 3152 Bermuda Dr., Costa Mesa, CA, USA. You can tell it's me because I am the only one who can get into my house," the document read. "I think it may be dangerous for you to come to my house alone."

lauren.williams@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

Times staff writer Kate Mather contributed to this report.

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Immigration bill would be largest such effort ever attempted

WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of eight senators is poised to offer a sweeping bill to rewrite the nation's immigration laws this week, taking advantage of a changed political alignment that, for the first time in nearly a generation, appears to have opened the way for comprehensive legislation.

The bill would chart a 13-year path to citizenship for most of the 11 million people in this country without proper legal status, spend billions of dollars more on border security, create new legal guest worker programs for low-income jobs and farm labor, require new verification measures for most companies hiring new workers and significantly expand overall immigration to the U.S. for the next decade, according to an outline obtained by The Times' Washington bureau.

The legalization program would amount to the largest such effort any nation has attempted, affecting more than three times as many people as the Reagan-era immigration reform law. But it is only one part of the legislation, and perhaps not the portion with the greatest impact.

The agricultural workforce — where half the workers currently have no legal status — would be transformed by a new guest worker program that is designed to bring more than 300,000 immigrant farmworkers to the nation's fields over the next decade and provide field workers an expedited pathway to citizenship. A new visa program for housecleaners, landscapers and other low-skill occupations would be created, while high-tech industries would be allowed to double the number of foreign workers they use.

All told, the country's current inflow of about 1 million legal immigrants a year could grow by half over the next decade.

The bill also would probably spur a spending spree on the Southwest border as the government rolls out more surveillance technology, including unmanned drones and military-grade radar, to detect people crossing into the United States.

Although Congress has deadlocked repeatedly on immigration policy, leading figures in both parties expect that the legislation, expected to run hundreds of pages, stands an excellent chance of approval in the Senate, which plans to begin debate on it next month, and that some version of it could become law by year's end.

That would make the effort the first comprehensive immigration overhaul since the 1986 amnesty law signed by then-President Reagan.

"I think we are on the cusp of history here. This is a really big deal," said Marshall Fitz, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. "We are operating in a Washington environment that is so dysfunctional, so political, so partisan and yet on this issue.... eight members came together on this from a full ideological spectrum — that is historic."

Opponents warn that American workers will see their wages erode in the face of greater competition from migrants. Supporters counter that the bill would benefit the U.S. economy by bringing the current unauthorized population out of legal limbo and by providing a steady flow of legal workers for industries with labor shortages.

The legislative work in Washington reflects the changed dynamic in the country, as polls show a majority of Americans back some type of legal status for those living here without proper authorization.

Rather than viewing immigrants as a threat or burden to society, increasing numbers of Americans hold positive views of the contributions immigrants make, polls show.

That shift, along with the growing power of Latino voters, many of whom have made immigration reform a priority, appears to have broken a deadlock on the issue. After the overwhelming Latino vote for President Obama in 2012, many Republican strategists decided their party had little choice but to embrace reform. They tapped Sen. Marco Rubio, the rising tea party Republican from Florida, as their front man in talks with Democratic leaders and the handful of Republicans who had previously supported a legalization plan.

"What we have seen is, I think, a remarkable — in Washington — level of consensus between and support for bipartisan and comprehensive immigration reform," said White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday.

For months, the eight senators — four Democrats and four Republicans — have been meeting privately, often in the office of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) steps from the Senate floor, as the contours of the bill took shape.

Securing the nation's borders against illegal crossings has long been a cornerstone of reform efforts. The new plan requires a secure border with Mexico before the other provisions of the bill, including the citizenship proposals, could take hold. It provides $3 billion to increase surveillance, including the use of unmanned aerial drones. The Southwest border would be considered secure if, within five years, 90% of those attempting to cross illegally are turned back in areas that have had more than 30,000 apprehensions a year.

An additional $1.5 billion would go toward a double-layer fence constructed with help from the National Guard. Money would also go to local authorities to prevent border crossings, to triple prosecutions in some areas, and to dispatch 3,500 more customs agents.

After five years, if the border security goals remain unmet, a commission of border state governors and attorneys general will be given money and authority to implement further measures. "We're confident it's achievable," Rubio said over the weekend in a Fox News interview.

Gaining citizenship would be a decadelong and costly process that would be tied to the border security provisions.

Six months after the bill becomes law, most of the 11 million people in the country without authorization — those who have been in the country before Dec. 31, 2011, and have no serious criminal record — would be eligible to apply for a new probationary legal status. That would allow them to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation. They would be required to pay a $500 initial penalty as well as an application fee and back taxes. The probationary status would be good for six years and could then be renewed after payment of another $500 penalty.

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Gospel singer George Beverly Shea dead at 104

CHARLOTTE, N.C.  — George Beverly Shea, the booming baritone who sang to millions of Christians at evangelist Billy Graham's crusades, has died after a brief illness. He was 104.

Spokesman Brent Rinehart of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association says Shea died Tuesday night after a brief illness.

Shea was well-known as a gospel soloist before he and Graham met in the early 1940s. He joined Graham's crusade team in 1947 and stayed until Graham's declining health ended most of the evangelist's public appearances nearly 60 years later.

Besides his distinctive voice, Shea was known for his trademark rendition of "How Great Thou Art" and his inspirational "The Wonder of It All."

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Wendy Greuel seeks $175 million in savings in L.A. budget

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel said Monday that she would seek an extra $175 million in savings from the city's budget by using such strategies as cutting the City Council's discretionary funds and changing the investment practices of its employee retirement systems.

Appearing with several business leaders, Greuel said her budget plan would generate $60 million in savings per year by reducing the size of public employee health benefits and workers' compensation outlays by 10%. Another $40 million could be found, she said, by modifying the way the city's pension boards invest and cutting the amount they spend on consultants.

"We believe that $40 million is a conservative number," Greuel told the group. "It's been a long time since anyone has looked at those investment practices."

The proposal was unveiled after months of complaints from civic leaders that Greuel, the city controller, and her opponent, Councilman Eric Garcetti, have offered too few ideas for closing the budget shortfall. That gap has been described by the city's top budget official as being somewhere between $150 million and $165 million, although some say it is considerably lower.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who leaves office June 30, plans to unveil his final budget Monday. A 12-member commission on the city's economic woes, set up by Council President Herb Wesson and co-chaired by former U.S. Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor, held its first meeting Monday. That session was not open to the public, and Kantor would not say where or when it occurred.

Monday's proposal offered Greuel a chance to reposition herself on the budget after taking heat over the public employee unions that have put more than $2 million into the effort to elect her. As she sought that union support over the last few months, she went after Garcetti over his backing of layoffs, furloughs and an ordinance that hiked the retirement age for future city workers.

Greuel said the city did not properly negotiate that ordinance with its civilian employee unions.

Greuel's budget strategy was laid out at an event where she picked up the endorsement of the Central City Assn., a downtown organization focused heavily on real estate development. The group's top executive, Carol Schatz, said it was significant that Greuel has support from both labor leaders and business groups.

Appearing with Schatz, Greuel repeated her promise to sit with union leaders and discuss a hike in the retirement age for existing city workers. She said city leaders have not done enough to cut retirement costs, which have been consuming a greater share of the budget for basic services.

Garcetti spokesman Jeff Millman said Greuel's plan includes two key ideas that Garcetti has discussed for several weeks: securing greater healthcare contributions from city employees and collecting unpaid taxes from parking lot operators. And he argued that Greuel's idea of hiking the retirement age of current employees would save nothing.

State law prohibits city leaders from cutting the retirement benefits of existing workers unless they provide other benefits of equal financial value, Millman said. Greuel's own budget presentation has numbers showing that retirement cost projections for the current fiscal year are $263 million lower than had been expected in 2010, he said.

"It's pretty clear that she's acknowledging some of the pension reforms that Eric Garcetti negotiated," Millman said.

Greuel's remarks drew praise from Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., who said she had offered a comprehensive budget strategy. A more skeptical reception came from George Aliano, who serves on the board that administers retirement benefits for retired police officers and firefighters.

If the candidates want to secure pension savings, they should look at the raises they have awarded, said Aliano, a retired police officer. "The more they do that, the larger the bill becomes," he said.

Garcetti and Greuel voted in 2007 for a five-year package of raises totaling 25% for civilian employees. That deal now covers seven years.

In a separate interview, Greuel accused Garcetti of spinning out big ideas without saying how he would pay for them. She cited his statements about rejuvenating 20 "great streets" in Los Angeles, offering summer jobs to teens around the city and capping a portion of the 101 Freeway in Hollywood and covering it with a park.

"You have to be able to say how you are going to pay for it, so the public knows," she said.

Garcetti's team said the freeway park was mentioned in response to a question at last week's debate about big dreams for the city. The park, Millman said, is a "shoot-the-moon idea" that community groups have only begun to study, not a project that would burden the city treasury in the near term.

Millman also said federal tax credits could help pay for the street improvements envisioned by Garcetti.

Greuel said a summer job for every L.A. teen would cost $325 million. Garcetti's camp said the councilman was referring to the 10,000 underprivileged kids who were turned away after applying for summer jobs.

Millman pegged the cost of helping them at $20 million, saying half the money could come from federal block grants and the rest from private sources.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this report.

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