The captain of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Malibu/Lost Hills station will resign amid allegations by a deputy who says she was a victim of sexual misconduct, an official said Saturday.

Capt. Joseph Stephen of the Malibu station confirmed Friday that he was one of the targets of the probe and had been questioned by investigators Friday. He denied any wrongdoing.

Also being investigated are retired Chief Ronnie Williams and Capt. Anthony Ward, who was heading up the auto-theft unit until he recently retired, according to four sources. Williams denied any wrongdoing, and Ward could not be reached for comment.

Stephen and Ward "know our stance on inappropriate relations and they made the decision to resign immediately," Assistant Sheriff James Hellmold told The Times Saturday.

The Sheriff's Department is investigating the deputy's allegations.

"I take this very seriously, and I will find out what did or did not happen," Sheriff Lee Baca said in a statement.

The deputy is the daughter of a top aide to the sheriff.

All of the sources asked for anonymity because the investigation is ongoing and they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The deputy who leveled the allegations referred a reporter's inquiry to her attorney. Her attorney initially said, "I think she wants it to come to light," but later canceled an interview. The Times generally does not name potential victims of sex crimes.

Sheriff's officials said the probe was in the preliminary phase.

The deputy's allegations involved sexual coercion by officials who outranked her, sources said.

She made the accusations after facing her own allegations of misconduct, sources said. Court records show she has a pending felony charge of vandalism and misdemeanor counts of battery. She pleaded not guilty. She has been placed on leave without pay, according to a spokesman.

Reached by phone Friday afternoon, Stephen said he was waiting to find out if he was going to be removed from his command. He called the deputy's allegations "absolutely, unequivocally" untrue but declined to say if they had had a sexual relationship.

"I don't want to get into that," he said.

Stephen said he never directly supervised the deputy. He accused her of trying to deflect attention from her own legal troubles. "She's trying to save her own skin," he said. "She's trying to lash out and see what sticks."

Williams, the retired chief, told The Times that he has not been interviewed by investigators. He said he never supervised the alleged victim, and that although he is her "partial friend," the relationship is platonic.

"She never was assigned to my division. How could I coerce her to do anything?" said Williams, who left the department four years ago.

-- Robert Faturechi and Richard Winton

Photo: Los Angeles County Sheriff's patrol car. Credit: L.A. Times

Los Angeles police continued to search for armed suspects who took 14 hostages at a Nordstrom Rack store in Westchester this week, brutally assaulting some of them.

Law enforcement sources said detectives were following several promising leads in tracking the suspects.

Several of the hostages -- all store employees -- were hurt in the incident. But their injuries were not life-threatening, and by Friday afternoon the victims had all been treated and released.

The gunmen apparently stormed the store about 10 p.m. Thursday, as it was closing.

Two employees hid in a restroom, authorities said. The gunmen herded the rest into another restroom on the third level, according to dispatch audio posted on the Venice 311 server. There, at least two employees were told to strip.

One woman was dragged to a separate room, where she was sexually assaulted, police said. A second woman was stabbed in the neck, police said, and a third hostage was pistol-whipped.

After officers arrived, a vehicle with tinted windows and its headlights off sped out of the parking garage. The driver wore a black hoodie and the passenger a white T-shirt, according to dispatch recordings.

"White SUV! White SUV! White Ford Explorer!" an officer barked. "High rate of speed leaving the parking lot!"

"Go pursue that vehicle!" another officer said.

They did, to no avail.

At a time when many Angelenos are grappling with foreclosures and rising rental costs have far outpaced growth in their incomes, the three top Los Angeles mayoral candidates promised Friday to make housing policy a central focus for their administrations.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti renewed his ambitious pledge to end homelessness in Los Angeles, rather than “manage it.” Councilwoman Jan Perry said she would try to replicate her achievements getting  affordable housing units built in the disparate communities of downtown and South L.A. throughout the city.

And City Controller Wendy Greuel argued that her experience as a former federal housing administrator, as well as an aide to former Mayor Tom Bradley on housing and homelessness issues, would help her to expand L.A.’s share of housing funding to reach a broader spectrum of city residents.

Little was left to chance at Friday night’s forum, which was limited to candidates who had gathered $1 million in campaign contributions by a September deadline. The event was organized by the Housing for a Stronger Los Angeles coalition and held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The candidates were briefed on the questions in advance. There were few, if any, disagreements as they answered questions from Raphael Bostic, a housing economist at the University of Southern California. All of the candidates, for example, said they were committed to restoring the city’s Housing Trust Fund to $100 million and that they would have a deputy mayor devoted to housing issues.

Though there was little policy daylight between them, all three candidates said city officials needed to lobby more forcefully for outside resources — each arguing that aspects of their biography made them best-equipped to do so.

L.A. County Sheriff's Department investigators are probing a deputy's allegations that she was the victim of sexual misconduct involving three top sheriff's officials.

"I take this very seriously, and I will find out what did or did not happen," Sheriff Lee Baca said in a statement.

The deputy is the daughter of a top aide to the sheriff.

Capt. Joseph Stephen of the Malibu station confirmed that he was one of the targets of the probe and had been questioned by investigators Friday. He denied any wrongdoing. Also being investigated are retired Chief Ronnie Williams and Capt. Anthony Ward, who was heading up the auto-theft unit until he recently retired, according to four sources. Williams denied any wrongdoing, and Ward could not be reached for comment.

All of the sources asked for anonymity because the investigation is ongoing and they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The deputy who leveled the allegations referred a reporter's inquiry to her attorney. Her attorney initially said, "I think she wants it to come to light," but later canceled an interview. The Times generally does not name potential victims of sex crimes.

Sheriff's officials said the probe was in the preliminary phase.

The deputy's allegations involved sexual coercion by officials who outranked her, sources said.

She made the accusations after facing her own allegations of misconduct, sources said. Court records show she has a pending felony charge of vandalism and misdemeanor counts of battery. She pleaded not guilty. She has been placed on leave without pay, according to a spokesman.

California's deep freeze continued overnight as the California Highway Patrol closed Interstate 5 through the Grapevine due to snow and ice.

The freeway reopened around 7 a.m. Friday, but the CHP warned that closures were likely continue as the cold weather persists.

The National Weather Service said temperatures dropped into the 30s in valley area as well as Long Beach, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Whittier and other parts of the L.A. basin. Some inland valleys recorded below-freezing temperatures overnight with even colder readings expected Sunday.

Highs Saturday will be in the 50s, significantly lower than average.

The NWS issued frost advisories for the L.A. area Saturday morning as well as overnight into Sunday morning.

Temperatures are forecast to fall in the 20s in some inland valleys overnight.

-- Shelby Grad

After more than a year of legal maneuvers, it appeared Kobe Bryant and his wife Vanessa were nearing the close of their high-profile divorce proceeding in an Orange County court.

But on Friday, Vanessa Bryant had some surprising news.

"We are pleased to announce that we have reconciled. Our divorce action will be dismissed. We are looking forward to our future together. Kobe & Vanessa," she wrote on her Instagram page.

No further details were released. The couple had been in the process of dividing their assets.

A Newport Coast home owned by Kobe Bryant's wife has sold for $3.2 million, real estate records show.

Vanessa Bryant's home at 4 Windemere Court includes 6,026 square feet of space on 0.29 acres in the tony Pelican Ridge neighborhood, according to the Multiple Listing Service.

Police said the boy accused of opening fire inside a Taft, Calif., high school Thursday, critically injuring a classmate, felt he was being bullied and that appears to be a motive for the incident.

Law enforcement officials said the suspect would be charged with attempted murder. They did not give his name because he is a minor.

They said they were investigating what role bullying may have had in motivating him to allegedly fire a 12-gauge shotgun at students in his science class at Taft Union High School. In addition to the hospitalized victim, the suspect tried to shoot a second student and missed before a teacher was able to persuade him to stop, authorities said.

"He certainly believed the two he targeted had bullied him," Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told reporters at a news briefing. "Whether or not that occurred, we don't know that."

Youngblood said the suspect planned the attack the night before and used a shotgun owned by his brother. A school surveillance camera captured the boy as he entered a side entrance to the campus "trying to conceal the shotgun," the sheriff said. The video "showed he was nervous," Youngblood said.

In the scramble to escape after the shooting starting, some students barricaded themselves in a storage closet while others fled through a back door, authorities said. Two additional students suffered minor injuries. One girl was close to the assailant as he fired off rounds and was treated at a local hospital for possible hearing damage; another hurt her ankle, Youngblood said.

Classes were canceled Friday, but the school remained open for a few hours so staff and students could collect belongings left behind during the mayhem. Grief counselors were available on campus, said Ray Pruitt, public information officer for the sheriff's department.

Sixteen-year-old junior Oscar Martinez said in a telephone interview that some students who stopped by the campus Friday were crying. Others were hugging and holding hands.

"It's a small town. We really can't believe it happened in Taft," said Oscar, who ran from the school building when word spread that a shooter was at large.

The wounded student was on life support and in intensive care Friday but is expected to recover, hospital officials said. The 16-year-old victim suffered injuries to the lungs and liver after shotgun pellets hit his chest and abdomen, officials at Kern County Medical Center said.

"He's in … an induced coma to protect him," said Paul Hensler, chief executive officer of the Bakersfield-based facility, which is a trauma center.

Hensler said the boy had undergone about three hours of surgery on Thursday and would probably need "additional surgeries after he's stronger."

Classes were scheduled to resume Monday.

-- Ann M. Simmons in Taft

Photo: A day after the shooting at Taft Union High School in Kern County, many students, family members and friends gathered at the school Friday to attend counseling sessions or offer each other comfort. Credit: Henry A. Barrios / Bakersfield Californian

With less than two months to go before the March 5 Los Angeles mayoral election, the candidates have already participated in about a dozen debates -- although the terms “candidates” and “debates” come with  caveats.

Not every candidate has been invited to every event. And not every event qualifies as a “debate.”

The Southern California Assn. of Non-Profit Housing (SCANPH) hosted an event Friday night that it more accurately defined as a “forum.” The candidates were not allowed to directly address one another. They also responded to questions they received in advance.

The organization, which advocates for more housing for the poor, set an unusually high threshold for participation in the forum. Only candidates who had gathered $1 million in campaign contributions by a September deadline got a place on the stage at the Catholic cathedral in downtown Los Angeles.

That meant City Controller Wendy Greuel and Council members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry got to have their say on their work to build affordable housing and to prevent homelessness. But entertainment attorney and former prosecutor Kevin James and businessman Emanuel Pleitez did not.

James and Pleitez protested and the executive director of the housing trade organization conceded in an interview that there was no particular magic to the $1-million threshold. But the event organizers declined to back down, so James ($316,766 raised by the end of 2012) and Pleitez ($212,954 raised) remained on the outs.

Pleitez, 30, found his exclusion particularly ironic, because he grew up poor in El Sereno on the city’s Eastside.  He said his family, headed by a single mother, had to move 10 times by the time he was 10 years old. They applied for subsidized housing but never received it because of a shortage of units, he said.

James, 49, said he had been invited to every other debate and forum in the campaign. The only Republican running for mayor, he called his exclusion “unfortunate.”

"You’ve got three elected officials who are generally going to say the same thing in three different ways,” James said.  “How about having an alternative point of view?”

The housing group's executive director, Alan Greenlee, said the debate participation criteria were set months ago and the $1-million threshold had no special significance.

“As to where the number should be exactly, I am not sure,” Greenlee said. “I am sympathetic to the discussion that we might have missed the number, but the number is what it is and we have chosen to stick with it.”

When Pleitez was excluded from other candidate events, his supporters protested. Student activists interrupted the first televised debate last month by rising and chanting “Let Pleitez debate!”

There were no interruptions of Friday night’s housing forum.

One of the co-chairs of the event, Tony Salazar, stressed that the forum was designed for an audience of people -- developers, nonprofits, bankers and others -- who work on the low-cost housing issue. As to giving the candidates the questions in advance, Salazar said: "This is about how we provide more affordable housing. It's not about a gotcha here and a gotcha there."

--James Rainey

A man who was killed by police in Santa Ana after he reportedly drove his car toward officers was identified as Binh Van Nguyen.

It was not clear why the 39-year-old responded the way he did, but drug paraphernalia was found inside his car, said Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.

The shooting happened at 12:45 a.m. when two officers patrolling the 200 block of North Maxine Street noticed a man alone in the back seat of a white car, Bertagna said.

Officers were approaching the vehicle when the man moved from the back seat to the front, started the car and began to drive toward the officers, police said.

Nguyen did not respond to police orders, leading to the shooting, authorities said. He was shot in the upper torso.

Paramedics responded to the scene, and Nguyen was pronounced dead.

- Esmeralda Bermudez