BRIEFLY : 3-YEAR-OLD PLUNGES FROM SECOND STORY.

PANORAMA CITY - A 3-year-old girl was critically injured Tuesday after falling from a second-story window onto concrete below, officials said.

As her mother was showering, the girl got up on a bed and opened a window that did not have a screen, police said. She slipped, momentarily teetering on the window sill before falling, said Lt. Gary Nanson of the Los Angeles Police Department's Van Nuys Division.

The girl was transported by air ambulance to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where she was on a respirator with a depressed skull fracture, said Steve Rutledge, a hospital spokesman.

- Daily News

Kroeker may return to work for sheriff

Could Mark Kroeker, the LAPD's popular former deputy chief, be considering a top job with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department?

Kroeker has been heading a United Nations police force in Bosnia since Bernard C. Parks was tapped to lead the LAPD, but UPN News 13 reported that Kroeker has been talking with Sheriff Sherman Block and others about a job.

Kroeker, interviewed at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday while en route back to Bosnia, told KCOP-TV (Channel 13) he has discussed joining the Sheriff's Department, perhaps when Undersheriff Jerry Harper retires.

Harper has said he is looking forward to retirement and has no plans to succeed Block, who is facing his toughest re-election battle in years.

Block, 73, who has fought off cancer more than once, told Channel 13 that, if he were forced to retire, he would not have ``any discomfort in seeing a person like Mark Kroeker in here.''

- City News Service

County settles suits over birth injuries

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pay $2.7 million to settle three lawsuits brought by the families of children who were left permanently disabled because of injuries they sustained when born at county hospitals.

The settlements came just two months after the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services instituted a policy regarding deliveries at county hospitals. The department, at the request of the Board of Supervisors, now requires a woman who has had a previous Caesarean section to sign a consent form before she goes through labor rather than a Caesarean delivery in a county hospital.

- Daily News

Chief plans to keep plugging on reforms

Police Commission members endorsed a plan Tuesday by LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks to implement, within three years, 115 recommendations still not enacted from nine studies. The studies range from the Christopher Commission's to one on computerizing the agency.

Parks said the Los Angeles Police Department still is acting on almost 20 Christopher Commission recommendations, including ones to install video cameras in all patrol cars and to develop a computerized system for tracking officer misconduct.

``It's certainly a gargantuan task, and they are critical issues that this department is taking on,'' said Commissioner Dean Hansell.

- Daily News