Recently in Harbor City Category

It's Harbor Area Monday apparently. I've been typing non-stop all afternoon trying to keep up.

I just finished a story about all kinds of stuff that went down in the Harbor Area today.

Here's what happened. Look for the upcoming story on dailybreeze.com and in the Tuesday print edition.

Police arrested a burglar who jumped through a double-paned window in San Pedro, searched for car thieves in Harbor Gateway, investigated the death of a 19-year-old woman found floating in the ocean off Royal Palms Beach and examined a hand grenade that forced an evacuation of a fire station and bank in San Pedro.

That's all on top of a separeate story updating the two weekend Harbor Area homicides. One suspect surrendered today in one of them. The other remains a mystery.

Harbor Division homicide detectives are handling a couple of weekend killings.
Just talked to Jim Perkins, who heads the unit:

We possibly will get an update later today on the shooting near the Village Pub at 25th Street and Western Avenue.

Francisco Esparza, 25, of San Pedro died in that one, which occurred at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Two men in a vehicle shot him. Esparza is a gang member.

Police tell me the problem began with some women fighting. Somehow it ended with Esparza dead.

The people involved had been at the bar, but the problems began outside.

In the other killing, a woman found shot in the head in an alley near the 1600 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Harbor City has been identified.

She's Shanta Lucero, 22, of Long Beach.

Police don't know much more than that, but figured out she wasn't killed there. Whoever shot her, did it somewhere else, and dumped her body in the alley. She was discovered about 12:05 a.m. Sunday.

Detectives are trying to determine where the crime occurred.

We've gotten several inquiries about a car crash we missed over the holiday weekend at Western and Lomita in Harbor City. Sometimes things happen and we don't hear about them right away, especially on a holiday period.

Here's what happened, according to LAPD Detective Rodney Jones:

A guy named Rigoberto Santillan, 20, of Harbor City was north on Western when he allegedly ran a red light and struck Juan Ramos, 47, of Long Beach at 4:45 a.m. Saturday.

Ramos, who had the green, was headed west on Lomita. He was on his way to work.

Santillan's Chevy Suburban hit Ramos' Jeep Cherokee on the driver's side. Ramos was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Santillan suffered minor injuries. He was not arrested, but is expected to face manslaughter charges.

Alcohol was not a factor in the crash.

Ramos was a family man, police said.

Adolph Laudenberg's conviction for the 1972 rape and murder of Lois "Bonnie" Petrie, 43, was upheld today by an appellate court. Laudenberg, 80, was arrested in September 2003 after confessions he made to two of his daughters-in-law surfaced. A coffee cup with his DNA closed the book on his case and he was convicted by a Long Beach jury in November 2006.

The Harbor City man was also suspected in the murders of several other women in the Harbor Area and the San Francisco Bay Area, but has not been charged for those crimes. Laudenberg, a former taxi driver, was frail and sick in his latter court appearances, including his May 2007 sentencing hearing where he was sent to prison for the rest of his life.

Laudenberg's story was featured a month ago on Dateline, which has a transcript and photographs up at their Web site. The show dubbed him the "The Santa Claus Strangler," although no one ever called him that before.

There wasn't room to get this into the story today about Torrance's crackdown on the methamphetamine business in the South Bay.

These agencies assisted them in the busts:

Gardena Police Department
Redondo Beach Police Department
LAPD Harbor Division
LAPD Gun Detail
LAPD Organized Crime Unit
LASD Carson station
LA IMPACT
Long Beach Police Department narcotics unit
LA County District Attorney's Office major narcotics unit
LA County Probation department
LA County Department of Children and Family Services
California Department of Corrections -- state parole
Southern California Edison Loss Prevention Unit (for indoor marijuana grows)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Federal Drug Enforcement Administration
FBI Gang Task Force and Joint Terrorism Task Force
U.S. Postal Inspection Service

Joe, the brother of the 16-year-old arrested for shooting his cousin in Harbor City on Wednesday, continues to dispute what police said about what happened.

"Your story is still messed up. First of all there wasn't an argument between my cousin and my brother. The f----- police don't know s---. They are just assuming of what happened. That's why the whole justice system here in Los Angeles is all messed up. Once again there was never any heated argument between them. They were close. It was just a stupid accident basicially kids being stupid."

Ray Gen, an El Camino College trustee, sent this recently about our coverage of the forum held after a student was sexually assaulted on campus. (I went on vacation and forgot to post this.)

"Thank you Mr. Altman for your coverage of the forum we had (June 3) I thought your article covered well our campus' response and the programs we have in place in regards to safety at El Camino College.

I wish to also thank Brad Graverson for his photos. I thought the photo of
the bike officer was especially compelling.

Again - many thanks."

Reader Bob Henning sent this about the Harbor City shooting:

"Very sad and tragic. Another gang banging piece of garbage may not make it. Chalk one up for the people. I have become so desensitized to the whole gang epidemic that I am actually GLAD when I read about them being killed. Good riddance."

Capt. Dave Lindsey of the LAPD's Harbor Division told me at 4:30 p.m. today that he double-checked with detectives and found that the 16-year-old Harbor City shooting suspect and his 21-year-old wounded cousin are "documented gang members." That means police officers have encountered them before and listed their names in their files as known Harbor Area gang members.

The family says otherwise. What can I tell ya.

The wounded man, meanwhile, was declared brain dead at noon today. He remains on life support.