February 2008 Archives

This from Brian Day:

I guess this is what the Pasadena PD was trying to prevent by separating the media from the parents:

Christina Anderson, who is the mother of a student, told KCAL9 her sense of security was

shattered.<QA>

"I’m upset, I’m terrified, rather," she said. "You think you’re sending your kids to school. I

sent him to this school instead of another school in my area thinking this school was a much

better school and then this happens."

Police are continuing to hold several Blair students and teachers as they search the school for a suspected gunman. This standoff began at 9:30 a.m. and is still going at 5:30 p.m.

Is this necessary?

There seems to be some confusion as to what buildings on the Blair campus have been cleared.

  Suspected killer Aaron Raigoza holed up at the Desert Sky Motel and RV park in Yucca Valley. He was captured Thursday and appeared in court Friday to face murder charges. No bail in the case. Apparently Raigoza had written letters to his in-laws after the killing of Ana Acosta, his former wife. Family members described the letters to Tania Chatila. In the letters Aaron apparently said he was sorry he had hurt the family.

Here's what Tania wrote after learning about the letters:

I had a conversation Laura Avina today, the sister of Ana Maria Acosta, who was murdered in front of her parents’ Monterey Park on Feb. 4.

Avina told me that two days after Acosta’s death, her family received two letters in the mail allegedly from Aaron Raigoza — Acosta’s estranged husband and a suspect in her death.

The letters were postmarked on Feb. 5, the day after Acosta was shot, according to Avina.

Avina claims one letter was specifically addressed to Acosta’s mother and the other letter was penned for the rest of the family. She said Raigoza confessed to the murder in both letters, allegedly saying he was sorry for killing Acosta but that "she deserved it."

 

View Larger Map

Two are apparently being detained. A police officer running the command post gave specific instructions to keep "the media" away from parents at the school.

Another officer referred to media as "any of those"  as though we are something to scrape off their shoes.

We still don't know the full extent of the situation.

Students have been evacuated to the football field. Classrooms are still being cleared.

 

 

 

Pasadena police are searching the campus of Blair High School to investigate a report of a person with a gun. A dispatcher says there is a command post set up near the school.

This from Dan Abendschein, working the cop shift this morning:

MONTEREY PARK - A man suspected of killing his estranged wife was arrested in Yucca Valley on Thursday evening, authorities said.

Aaron Raigoza, 34, allegedly shot his wife, Ana Maria Acosta, 32, to death outside her parents' home in the 500 block of South Russell Avenue in Monterey Park earlier this month.

Court documents show that Acosta had three restraining orders against Raigoza dating back to last spring, because of threats on her life.

"I'm going to kill you," Raigoza told Acosta on May 28, 2007 according to court documents. "I'm going to die and you will come with me. You will shed a lot of blood."

Acosta and Raigoza - both employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District - were embroiled in a divorce, which was set for trial on March 8.

Records show that Raigoza was contesting the $1,880 in child support payments he had to pay Acosta each month for their 6- and 7-year-old children.

Raigoza was arrested around 9 p.m., according to Lt. Carrie Mazelin of the Monterey Park police department.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in Alhambra Superior Court on Friday morning, she added.

Dan is headed to court for the arraignment this a.m.

 

As you can see Crime Scene is getting remade ... per the LADN guidlines recently discussed on LA Observed.

There will be ads (not content specific -- yet), a better search capability and faster loading pages ...but bear with us because the complete task may take a few days.

Thanks for all your support!

Frank

Here's what we'll be reporting tomorrow:

Six violent sex offenders living in an Altadena group home will be moved out over the next several days, officials said. The move comes after strong public protests from residents of the Meadows.

I don't know much mor ethan this...but we'll stay on top of this story.

On Wednesday, KFI' s John and Ken devoted their 6 p.m. hour to the sex offender clown house in Altadena. The began by taking issue with us for a "wimpy" headline -- "Residents decry halfway house." But also praised reporter Elise Kleeman's story.

A few members of the Altadena Town Council appeared on the show and discussed their opposition to the Sober Living residence for sex offenders in their neighborhood. They also said there's not much they can do without the help of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, since Altadena is unincorporated.

Antonovich's spokesman Tony Bell called in to discuss the issue as well.

Nobody's heard from state officials nor the management of the house "New Horizions Sober Living", which appears to be branching out into the sex offender housing market.

There are a couple of Altadena blogs discussing the clown house too. They are The Meadows Blog, which originates from the neighborhood where the clown house is located. There's also the Altadena Blog, a more general blog about the unincorporated Los Angeles County community, which has this post on the subject.

An Altadena reader took offense with Thursday's column on the subject. Here what he had to say:

Re "High time to fix the system," in the Feb. 27th Pasadena Star-News:

I assume your piece is just an opinion piece, rather than what most would consider straightforward news. I haven't read your column before, so maybe I'm wrong. The situation of the convicts in Altadena is definitely alarming (I almost bought a house up there in '05) and deserves balanced coverage.

I think your article, & future reporting on this situation, would be more useful without the terrified editorializing. It's fine for you to quote residents, but you ought to trim your outrage. Give your readers facts and let them decide what to think.

E.g., have you done any legwork (phone calls, interviews, research, etc) to discover whether there's any correlation between the "groups of these men living together" and an increase in those areas in similar crimes? Or did you just sit down and bang this column out?

That seems a basic question. Without examining it, your article is half reporting (the residents' reactions) and half fear-mongering (your reaction). So far, fifty percent of your job remains undone. I'm probably not the only reader who wants more from the Star-News.

Regards,

John Sandel

We’ve just confirmed the verdict is being read right now in the trial of Armando Abundis Sr., an Alhambra man accused of murdering a 2-year-old girl in 2005.

 

He is charged with murder and child abuse resulting in death in connection with the slaying of Sarah Angelina Chavez, the grandniece of Abundis’ wife, Frances.

I just got off the phone with the court clerk and she said he’s been found guilty on some of the counts. The hearing is not complete.
We’ll update you when we have more information.

This morning I was reading the Californian, an edition of the North County Times, when a front page (above the fold) correction jumped out at me.

Here's what Romenesko had to say about the bad "joke."

 

Well not really. This one is a motel...Close to Disneyland and Knott's. Nice going California. This information comes from a letter I received today here's the letter:

Frank:
I read your column regarding RSO's in Altadena with interest.  I sent this email to DOJ in November of 2007.  To date I have had no response.
Jim Burton
 
-----Original Message-----
From: jim burton []
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 7:21 PM
To: 'MegansLaw@doj.ca.gov'
Subject: budget motel

To Whom it May Concern;
 
36 of the 62 RSO's living in Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670 and according to the CA Attorney General's Meagan's Law Site,  are registered to a budget motel  13420 Firestone Blvd.  One appears to be registered to 13530 Firestone Blvd.
 
I have comments and questions:
 
Questions: 
1.  Is the travelling public made aware by law, law enforcement, or public or private policy that a budget motel near disneyland and knott's berry farm is occupied by 37 Registered Sex Offenders?
2.  Would a California citizen i.e. a man, wife, and 3 small children stay at this motel if this information were presented to them prior to their check-in?
3.  What liability would accrue to state or local governments should a crime occur against one of these kids, or their parents for that matter?
4.  Do you think that an effort should be made to pass legislation that would require these facilities occupied by RSO's  be required to advise the public?
 
Comments:
1.  This motel seems to be in a good location to provide residences to RSO's.  It is a very industrial area and near some restaurants and possible places of employment. 
2.  It seems that it is a matter of time that a serious crime will occurr unless there is some notification of the public that may happen by for a break in their travels and check in to this place.
 
I would appreciate a response
 

Respectfully,
 
 
Jim  Burton
Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670

I wrote a story in today’s paper about a Valinda home that was boarded up by county officials Wednesday. During my walk through with two dozen other sheriff’s deputies and firefighters, I heard a lot of interesting comments about the home - which, to say the least, was severely run-down.
But one seemed to sum it all up. As promised, I’m not going to name the person behind the quote, but I will say that he was a sheriff’s deputy.
Anyway, here’s what he said:

“Man, I’m going to get my camcorder. It’d be like filming a horror movie in here.”

See (or read) for yourself.

Another shameless plug for that other blog.....

More chatter on the BP chief issue

Just in case you drove by and were wondering,  there was a command post set up in Irwindale near the 210 freeway Wednesday afternoon. Officers received a report of human body parts over the freeway.

It turned out to be tree bark.

Nothing to see here.

Making those round ‘o calls this morning, the Whittier watch commander had this to say about whether anything was going on.

“We have crime on the run. If you give us a day, crime will be completely eradicated in our area and you can take us off your phone list.”

My response:
“Is your refrigerator running too?”

It should come as little surprise that folks in Altadena don’t think a group home for sex offenders makes their neighborhood of $500,000 homes desirable.

Who would?

Just look at the cast of characters living in the halfway house in the 4400 block of Risinghill:

[BULLET]Ernesto Corona Ayala, 51, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

[BULLET]Gerald Christoph Baca, 56, also convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

[BULLET]Ernest Brian Bradley, 37, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14 and convicted of using force.

[BULLET]John Fitzgerald Carter, 43, convicted of forcible rape.

[BULLET]Cedric Parker, 47, convicted of forcible rape and sexual battery.

[BULLET]Anthony Raymond Rayas, 44, convicted of sodomy and lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

As many as 150 people who don’t want this group of unsavory criminals in their neighborhood demanded the removal of the halfway home from their quiet neighborhood Tuesday night.

“Please don’t underestimate us,” Latrell Cottele-Moore, a longtime Meadows resident told the crowd. “We will do whatever is necessary to get them out.”

Their pleas received little more than lip service.

A spokesman for state Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, essentially told the residents there were no easy solutions to the problem.

According to reporter Elise Kleeman, New Beginnings Sober Living, which operates the home, told residents “the matter is being looked into by the company.”

Who knows what that means?

The Sheriff’s Department assured everyone the offenders were all wearing GPS-equipped anklet bracelets.

Translated, that means detectives will know where an offender has been after a crime has been committed.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the bureaucracies and corporations promoting halfway homes for sex offenders can offer little in the way of solutions for a residential neighborhood in an unincorporated portion of Los Angeles County.

What might be surprising though is that clusters of sex offenders are everywhere in the San Gabriel Valley.

Using a simple search of the state’s Megan’s Law Web site, I found groups of these men living together in Azusa, Bassett, Pasadena, Montebello and El Monte. They are everywhere — even Beverly Hills.

In some cases, they are close to schools and churches. In others they live in residential neighborhoods. Plenty live in trailer parks and motels along Garvey Avenue, and Colorado and Whittier boulevards.

Last August, when the state budget crisis was in full swing, there was a possibility that California would stop paying rent for these guys. Then, instead of being housed and sort of monitored, a lot of sex offenders would have been homeless.

Something in our government is broken. You don’t have to look any further than Risinghill Road in Altadena or the Megan’s Law Web site to see it.

CORRECTED: 11:42 A.M. 2/28/07

 

 

Man found shot on the freeway. We're still trying to sort this one out. It happened early a.m. on the 210 in Azusa. We really know nothing right now. Sometimes these turn out to be attempted suicides, sometimes they turn out to be incidents of road rage. Other times they are targeted attacks. We'll find out which one this is....check back

These are the guys who are living in a group home in Altadena. All are charged with sex offenses and all are being monitored electronically. This information comes from the California state Megan's Law web-site

Here they are:

Ernesto Corona Ayala, 51
Lewd or lacivious acts with a child under 14

 

 

Gerald Christoph Baca, 56

Lewd or lacivious acts with a child under 14

 

 

 

Ernest Brian Bradley

288(a) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS
288(b)(1) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS W/FORCE

 

 

John Fitzgerald Carter

261(a)(2) RAPE BY FORCE/FEAR/ETC

 

 

Cedric Parker

261(a)(2) RAPE BY FORCE/FEAR/ETC
f243.4 SEXUAL BATTERY

 

 

Anthony Rayas Raymond

286(c)(2) SODOMY WITH FORCE, VIOLENCE, ETC.
288(a) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS

 

Somehow sheriff's deputies were able to determine that a man who said he was shot in Duarte was actually shot in Altadena.

Last night we reported another Duarte shooting. The victim had taken himself to an area hospital and we were going to fill in the gaps.

TUrns out it didn't happen in Duarte at all or Arcadia or Monrovia. The shooting took place several miles away in Altadena.

Injured was a Latino man. Sheriff's detectives said the shooting was gang related.

 

Busy week for Baldwin Park police and the sheriff's detectives who are handling two cases out of the 80,000-population city this week.

Aside from the triple homicide Monday, authorities this morning are investigating an officer-involved shooting involving BP officers and a man. It happened about 5 a.m. in the 5000 block of Maine Street. The man's condition is unknown at this point, though preliminary wire reports say he is "critically" wounded.

Sheriff's deputies are still out at the scene, and one deputy told me the officers were conducting a search warrant when it happened.

Here's what I just put up on our Web site:

BALDWIN PARK - Police officers conducting a search warrant shot and wounded a man this morning in Baldwin Park, authorities said.
The incident occurred about 5:10 a.m. in the 5000 block of Maine Avenue, said Ed Hernandez, a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
No officers were injured.
Hernandez did not know the condition of the man and had no details as to what prompted the shooting, except that officers had been serving a search warrant.
The sheriff’s department was at the scene this morning investigating.
“When something like this happens,” Hernandez said, “it’s probably because the officers fear they are in safety of their life.”

 

A bunch of angry residents gathered in Altadena to complain about a group home for sex offenders that appeared in their neighborhood, almost overnight.

The gathering Tuesday night was attended by several hundred who want something done. They were told by state and local officials that not much can be done... it's too late.

Here' s an excerpt from a story by Elise Kleeman that will appear in tomorrow's Star-News:

The six men living in a single-family home on Risinghill Road range in age from 28 to 56. Four of them were convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child younger than 14, including one man who used force and another who sodomized his victim. The others were found guilty of rape by force or fear, with one also convicted of sexual battery.

All are parolees, released early from their terms in state prison and placed in the home by the Pasadena parole office, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Detective Ruby Munshi. They are wearing GPS tracking ankle bracelets, she said.

“There’s so many children in that area, it’s just terrifying,” said Dennis Bridwell, who lives four houses away. “I’ve spoken to so many people that have taken their kids’ drawings out of the windows. Anything that shows there are children there, they’ve hidden them.”

One neighbor who lives about a block and a half down the road said Monday that she longer walks to her friend’s house two blocks away.

“To us, this is just a disaster,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared for her safety. “We just feel really put upon, just that they haven't given us any warning. This is horribly negligent.”

At the meeting, one husband talked of being afraid to his their wife home alone, a tearful mother said she was no longer able to sleep at night because of her concern for her child and another resident decried the facility as a “revolving door” for parolees, making them difficult to keep track of.

The community learned of their new neighbors when one Meadows resident happened to check the state-run Megan’s Law Web-site. Neither nearby Loma Alta Park nor Odyssey Charter School officials were notified of the new group home, the neighbors said.

Police report a man was shot in the Monrovia Arcadia Duarte area Tuesday night. Very little is currently known. The man was described as a male hispanic. He apparently drove himself to the hospital after being shot.

The wounds were described as "non-life" threatening. This story is developing it's unclear where the shooting occurred. Police are at an undisclosed location searching for evidence.

We will update this as soon as we have more information from the Temple City sheriff's station.

These come from reporter Brian Day:

 

"All I know is two families are devastated. Two good families."

- Anonymous 20-year resident of the street

 

Several neighbors did not recall ever seeing police at the house, or even on the block. (including above "20-year resident."

 

"There's never been trouble. No gangs, no activity like that."

-Anonymous resident

 

Roy Perez was "pretty quiet," and "kept to himself." "He never had any friends."

-Anonymous resident

"He's a little off."(Roy Perez) But the resident added that they had not seen anything that would lead him to believe Roy was capable of this kind of violence.

-Anonymous resident

END BRIAN"S CONTRIBUTION

Comment: I find it interesting that some of these people asked to be anonymous even though they were on television for most of the day.

 

The two guys who held a street race in El Monte that ended in a fiery crash and killed a woman and her two children will be tried on murder charges, officials said.

Pomona Superior Court Judge Charles Horan found sufficient evidence to require Martin Morones, 21, and Robert Canizalez, 19, to proceed to trial on three counts of murder.

Canizalez also is charged with a felony count of witness intimidation.

Both men, who remain jailed, are due back in court for arraignment March 11.

The charges stem from a crash last Oct. 8 that killed 41-year-old Dora Groce and her children, Robert, 8, and Catherine, 4.

I returned Tuesday morning to the Baldwin Park neighborhood where three people were killed, including an infant were killed Monday.

A man accused in the shooting, Roy Perez, 28, of Baldwin Park, is in custody.

The neighborhood was swarming with media, including Univision, Telemundo, Azteca America, KCBS, KCAL, KNBC, and KABC. The FOX 11 van carting Nichelle Turner was already packing their gear to head for the next story.

There are widely varying accounts of what happened. And no one can quite explain the sequence of events that ked to the killings and Perez's arrest.

Brian Day and I listened to the incident as it unfolded on the newsroom scanner. Brian's first words were, "I think this is going to get big. He bolted for the scene and arrived before backup units or the fire department. He reported that upon arrival he saw a man sitting on a porch wailing about his house his neighbors and begging the fire department for help.

Neighbors told a Univision reporter and our Bethania Palma that the man was in fact Perez. We are still trackign that down.

I also heard the story of a man named "Mario." Mario was appraently moving from a house next door to where the shootings occurred. A relative said "Mario" witnessed much of the incident and saw Perez run from home to home in the neighborhood.

"Mario" apparently stayed outside the whole time the incident unfolded. "Mario's" relatives said he wasn't interviewed by the police and was allowed to leave before the investigation had been completed.

As you can see from the picture by Leo Jarzomb, the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner arrived roughly 12 hours after the killings. They are removing one of the three victims.

Perez was booked for murder and held without bail. Fatally wounded were Perez’s mother, Alicia Rivera Perez, 47; along with Dalmy Perez De Mata, 31, and her daughter Briana Mata, said Craig Harvey of the coroner’s office.

 

 

  

 

Trib Photographer Leo Jarzomb was out at the Baldwin Park crime scene this morning. He got photos of the coroner taking the victims away.

Our question here in the newsroom: We understand the nature of crime scenes, but doesn't 15 hours for the coroner to arrive on scene at a triple homicide seem like a long delay? I can't even imagine what that must have been like for family, friends and neighbors overnight.

THIS ENTRY HAS BEEN CORRECTED 2-25-08 11:18 P.M. and again at 11:32 p.m.

 

[BYNAME]By Brian Day and<QA0>
Frank C. Girardot
<MC>Staff Writers
[BODY]BALDWIN PARK — Police arrested a man after a shooting incident Monday night that left two women and a 4-year-old child dead and two other children wounded in two homes in the 14500 block of Rockenbach Street.
The <NO1>man who was arrested <NO>suspect was not identified. The surviving victims were taken to a local hospital, but their conditions were not known, authorities said.
They were described as a 9-year-old and a 14-year-old.
Police responded to a report of shots fired about 7:30 p.m., said Baldwin Park police Capt. Michael Taylor<NO1><NO>. The officers discovered a total of three people fatally wounded and two others who had been shot, Taylor said.
<NO1>Both of the dead children “were very young,” Taylor said.
<NO>The shooter, who was armed with a handgun, apparently went from one house to the other during the rampage, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Dan Rosenberg.
<NO1>“This was a tragic event in a quiet neighborhood,” Taylor said.
<NO>A dispatcher at the Baldwin Park Police Department said all available units had been dispatched to the scene.
The shootings may have stemmed from a family dispute, officials said.
<NO1>“The son shot the mom,” said a man who identified himself as the son-in-law of one shooting victim.
<NO>A call to the Baldwin Park Police Department at 7:28 p.m. indicated that a man had shot his mother.
“The suspect got into an argument with his mom,” Rosenberg said. “He then went next door and shot the neighbors.”
<NO1>Other family members were apparently talking to police detectives following the shooting, authorities said.
<NO>Several officers from the Irwindale Police Department were dispatched to the scene. Additional units from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were called in to handle crowd and media control.
Immediately after the shootings, a man, who appeared to be in his 20s, sat outside the home where the incident took place and cried out:
“In my house. In my house. My neighbor,” the man said, pointing arriving firefighters in the direction of the victims. “Please hurry up. Hurry,” he said. “There might be time to save them.”
Police with automatic rifles patrolled the working class neighborhood in the moments after the shooting as multiple reports of shots fired flooded in from other homes in the neighborhood.
Family members tried to force their way in at the crime scene, but detectives held them back. More than one broke through crime scene tape.
In the aftermath, family members consoled one another.
<NO1>Several had questions that police were unable to immediately answer.
<NO>“Where’s my dad?” one man asked.
[TAG1]brian.day@sgvn.com
frank.girardot@sgvn.com
<MC>(626) 962-8811 Ext. 2718, 2717
http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime

By Brian Day and
Frank C. Girardot
Staff Writers
BALDWIN PARK — Police arrested a man after a shooting incident Monday night that left three people dead and two others wounded in the 14500 block of Rockenbach.
The man who was arrested was not identified. The conditions of the surviving victims was not known. At least one victim was taken to a local hospital, authorities said.
Los Angeles County Fire Department supervising dispatcher Andrea Hawkins told the Associated Press that someone called 911 shortly to report the five gunshot victims.
When authorities arrived at the house, they found three dead at the scene. Hawkins told the AP that a fourth person was taken to a hospital in critical condition, and the fifth had minor injuries.
A dispatcher at the Baldwin Park police department said all available units had been dispatched to the scene.
The shootings may have stemmed from a family dispute, officials said.
“The son shot the mom,” said a man who identified himself as the son-in-law of one shooting victim.
A call to the Baldwin Park Police Department at 7:28 p.m. indicated a man had shot his mother.
Other family members were apparently talking to police detectives following the shooting, authorities said.
Several police officers from the Irwindale police department were dispatched to the scene. Additional units from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department were called in to handle crowd and media control at the crime scene.
Immediately after the shootings, a man, who appeared to be in his 20s, sat outside the home where the incident took place and cried out:
“In my house. In my house. My neighbor,” he pointed arriving firefighters in the direction of the victims. ‘Hurry, hurry. They are in here. There might be time to save them.”
Police with automatic rifles patroled the working class neighborhood in the moments after the shooting as multiple reports of shots fired flooded in from other homes in the neighborhood.
One of those who received gunshot wounds was reportedly a 9-year-old. No information about the victim’s condition was known late Monday.
Family members tried to force their way in to the crime scene as detectives held them back, more than one broke through crime scene tape.
In the aftermath, family members consoled one another with hugs. Several had questions that police were unable to immediately answer.
“Where’s my dad? “ Asked one man.
Others wanted to know which hospital the surviving victims were taken.

 
View Larger Map

Police reported two persons down and a third possibly wounded Monday night Feb. 24 in the 14500 block of Rockenbach Street in Baldwin Park. Quite possibly the shootings stemmed from a family dispute. There is a suspect in custody.

 

Reports of shots fired and several persons (including a 9-year-old) are down. A suspect is in custody and Baldwin Park and Irwindale units are on scene. The BPPD has requested assistance from the Sheriff's Department.

The shootings were reported in the 14500 block of Rockinbach near Maine Street.

There are so many icons that define Los Angeles.

The freeways, the palm trees, the snow-capped mountains, the beach, the Hollywood sign, AM radio.

AM radio?

Think about it. Radio makes a steady and comfortable companion for all those hours spent driving on the freeway looking at palm trees on the way to snow-capped mountains, the beach or Hollywood.

I got my first real inside look at L.A. radio this past week when KFWB set up a studio of sorts in our Pasadena newsroom. Their plan is to give drive-time exposure to stories appearing in the daily paper. It’s a kind of quid pro quo; they get a near exclusive and we get to hear our voices on the radio.

I’ve been a fan of AM radio for more years than I care to count. In the ’70s, my dad bought me a crystal radio Heathkit. I have no idea how it worked, but it received just one station, KGO 810-AM in San Francisco.
I would lie in bed at night listening to what probably was the earliest talk radio in the country. There were some interesting hosts: Al “Jazzbo” Collins, Ira Blue, Ronn Owens.

But it wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles in 1984 that I grew a deep and everlasting appreciation for the AM medium. KABC was the big station at the time, and Michael Jackson (not the singer) was their star. He did something like two hours of local talk followed by a syndicated hour.

Jackson could be infuriating, but at the same time his show made me feel like I was part of something larger as a resident of metropolitan Los Angeles. It was kind of like he was saying, “Welcome to Los Angeles.”

There were other unusual radio shows then, too. Jim Healy comes to mind. His half-hour local sports shows on KMPC and KLAC were punctuated with recordings of sports celebrities that were profane and hilarious.

“Is it true?” was Healy’s great catchphrase. I remember Healy following the question one time with a description of Milton Berle waiting in line at Santa Anita to place a bet. The star was taking advice from a “guy with a hole in his shoe.” I still smile at the picture in my head.

Healy’s half-hour was the ultimate insider’s sports program. It punctuated the whole “Welcome to Los Angeles” theme of local radio back then.

Local radio changed in the ’90s. Rush Limbaugh supplanted Michael Jackson in the mornings. Healy died.
KFI became prominent and John and Ken are the voice of local talk. They made a name covering O.J. Simpson and unsuccessfully trying to get Congressman David Dreier tossed out by the voters.

Beyond that, if their show said anything it’s “Welcome to Los Angeles. Now go home.”

Times change.

Through it all, KFWB has stayed true to its mission — “You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world.”

And (for now anyway) the San Gabriel Valley.

This comes from crack crime reporter Brian Day in the SGV newsroom:

Cuauhtemoc Ortiz, 58, of Temple City, plead not guilty Monday to the slaying of an El Monte man in his home early this year, officials said.

Lester Lear, 47, was shot multiple times with a shotgun inside his house, said Detective Richard Ramirez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau.

Investigators believe the motive in the shooting was that Ortiz viewed Lear as a rival for the affections of a woman, described as a local woman in her 40s.

Ortiz allegedly also tried to shoot Lear but missed on Jan. 1, officials said, at the same house where Lear was ultimately killed.

Lear is also being investigated by the El Monte Police Department in several other violent incidents that occurred prior to Lear's slaying, said Ramirez. Details on those incidents were not available.

A letter sent to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune newsroom claiming to be from Ortiz expressed concern that an "informant" in his case is not being adequately protected by the police and is in danger of "eminent murder."

"I've never heard of anything of this nature," Ramirez said after being told of the letter.

Ortiz was arrested Jan. 16 several blocks from his Temple City home as he was walking to his car, Ramirez said.

Lear was fatally shot Jan. 4 at his house in the 10000 block of Rose Avenue, said Deputy Rick Pedroza of the Sheriff's Headquarter's Bureau. He was pronounced dead at the scene, he added.

Two very different sides of the story about an incident that happened Saturday evening at a church in Walnut, where the East San Gabriel Valley Coalition for the Homeless was hosting a shelter.

Officials with the advocacy group claim two of their staff members were attacked by a man who came in demanding services, but refusing to give his name.
Colleen Castellano, director of the East San Gabriel Valley Coalition for the Homeless, said the man attacked the staff members with an unknown substance that caused them burns and "mutilation."

Two deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded to the incident. Their log tells a very different story.

They claim the man was intoxicated, was arguing with staff members, and was combative, according to Sgt. Randy Lascurain. But deputies Jimmy Osorio and Jesus Hernandez said the guy eventually became cooperative and left the shelter on his own. No police report was filed because staff members at the shelter did not want to make an arrest, Lascurain said.

Castellano said her staff members DID want the man arrested, but the deputies didn't want to help.

"When they arrived, the officer told us we asked for it because we bring these people in, we're enablers," she said. "They escorted the man off the premises and that's it. They didn't do anything."

Guess we'll never know what really happened. The coalition said they won't be filing any sort of complaint because that's not part of "what they do."

 

So this 18-year-old Rio Hondo student goes missing. We write about it ... twice. Her parents are frantic.

Well, there's a happy ending of sorts. The full story, by reporter Tracy Garcia, will appear in tomorrow's paper. But, here's a small advance taste of a real Valentine's tale:

It was major drama earlier this month for 18-year-old Rio Hondo College student Crystal Domingues — her family reported her missing, then apparently hired a private detective who tracked her down. 

The detective found her... at the Irvine home of Rio Hondo professor Muata Kamdibe. Domingues was a former student of his, Kamdibe says, and Domingues and Kamdibe say they are in love. To prove it, they’re getting hitched this weekend in Vegas.

Good luck with the in-laws.

A man suspected of cultivating Marijuana was targeted by a couple of 211 specialists, police told reporter Dan Abendschein. Here's an excerpt:

PASADENA - An armed robbery took place Thursday night at the apartment of a man authorities described as a pot dealer and grower.

Police confiscated about 200 plants of marijuana and several guns from the apartment of the victim, who was confronted around 6:10 p.m. by three armed suspects who entered his home, according to Lt. Alex Uribe of the Pasadena Police Department.

The victim was held captive while two of the men searched the apartment for cash, said Uribe.

He added that the detectives suspected the suspects knew the apartment was a place they would find cash.

"We don't know for sure yet, but I'd venture to guess they knew that there was dealing going on there," said Uribe.

The apartment is located at 365 Hastings Ranch Road, said Uribe.

While the suspects were in the home, a second victim knocked on the door, said suspects. While the suspects were taking him inside, the first victim broke through a window and fled, injuring himself in the process, Uribe said.

He went to a neighboring apartment and called the police, Uribe added.

The victim has not yet been arrested for marijuana cultivation or sales, said Uribe, but he said he expected the arrest to come soon.

Pasadena's interim police Chief Chris Vicino takes exception to Tuesday's column  in a Letter to the Editor.  Here's an excerpt:

This letter is in response to the recent editorial "Gang Injunctions Can Work Wonders," published in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Pasadena Star-News.

Your reference to Pasadena's interim City Manager Bernard K. Melekian was unjustified, as it failed to provide the reader with historical data that shows a spectacular crime reduction under Melekian's leadership. By doing this, you minimized the good work of the men and women of the Pasadena Police Department and courageous citizens of the Pasadena community who have always collaborated with its police department to fight criminal activity.

Spotted this on Newsmax:

Attorney Jon Eardley, who purports to represent Britney Spears, has filed documents in an L.A. U.S. District Court to move Britney’s conservatorship case from the Los Angeles County Superior Court to federal court. Eardley maintains offices in Washington, D.C., Jericho, New York, and Whittier, Calif.

Eardley claims in court papers that, without due process, Spears “is being confined by the conservator to the private prison of her own home,” and he contends that this is a violation of her civil rights.

After Britney twice spent time in a psychiatric ward, Superior Court Commissioner Reva Goetz placed her in a temporary conservatorship under her father Jamie and his attorney, Andrew Wallet. The order will continue until a scheduled hearing on March 10.

“I see the case as a civil rights case,” Eardley told People magazine. “These are issues of confinement. Very serious confinement. Not allowed to contact her friends. Not allowed to use the phone. Not allowed to come and go as you please. Bodyguards controlling you and so forth.”

As many as 60 residents of an unincorporated neighborhood bordering Duarte and Monrovia took to the streets.

They marched down thoroughfares known for gang-controlled crack houses.

They promised to take back their neighborhood. They promised to help deputies from the sheriff’s Temple Station catch criminals.

Folks lined the street and applauded the message. Some cheered the marchers from behind barred windows. A few even joined in.

Sound familiar?

According to an article published Oct. 2, 1994, the march was organized by residents of unincorporated Los Angeles County who were sick and tired of gang violence.

Somebody must have been smoking deja vu this past week. On Monday, a very similar march took place along Huntington Drive. Melissa Pamer reported that as many as 400 took part in the event sponsored by a group calling themselves Enough is Enough.

“We’ve decided to take our streets back,” declared David Jones, a minister who helped organize Monday’s event.
Interestingly enough, the headline of the 1994 article expressed a very similar sentiment: “They’re taking back the streets from gangs.”

In today’s paper, Pamer reports that since Jan. 30, Monrovia police and sheriff’s deputies have made 112 arrests. Of those, 34 were felony busts. Less than half of the 34 are thought to be gang members.

People who live in the area tell Pamer they like the increased police presence.

“Residents say they think the crackdown is making a difference,” Pamer told me Wednesday.
And to some degree it is.

On Friday Jimmy Santana, a 19-year-old Latino resident of Duarte, will be in court for a preliminary hearing on charges he shot a 16-year-old black teen.

The teen, shot on Jan. 12, remains in the hospital, officials said. The shooting was part of a string of racially motivated gang attacks that left four people dead and several others injured in Monrovia, Duarte and surrounding unincorporated communities.

Following Tuesday’s column, which suggested area officials might consider a gang injunction in Monrovia, the Crime Scene Blog became the center of a debate on the merits of the suggestion.
I wrote that few would complain about an injunction.

To which a blog commenter, “I think it’s unfair to suggest ‘there won’t be too many law-abiding taxpayers who will complain.

Especially considering the fact the constitutionality of such measures has reached as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. That is to say, people have complained and those complaints have been taken seriously."

On the other hand, a commenter named FX wrote, “So far the extra police have been welcome by the great majority of residents. I see many people giving the patrols a ‘thumbs-up’ as they drive by. I hear NO complaints about the extra police. Even some drunks I know don’t complain, the drunks now take a taxi instead of drinking and driving ... most residents at the moment, want to return to the quiet and boring Monrovia of before.”

My only reply is, which before? 1994 or something more recent?

Surfing my alma mater's Web site today, I stumbled upon this bit of news about two brothers - one from Pasadena, the other from Glendale - accused of trying to bribe a San Bernardino County Supervisor in a development project.

 

Here's a quick write-up of what I've been able to gather from police and Azusa Pacific University officials about Tuesday's trolley crash.

 

AZUSA — The driver of an Azusa Pacific University campus trolley will not faces charges in a collision Tuesday that has left a student in critical condition, according to police.
Azusa traffic investigators said they found no fault on part of the driver, the trolley or the university in the accident, which occurred about 11:15 a.m. in the 800 block of Foothill Boulevard — between the university’s two campuses.

A 19-year-old Costa Mesa student — who police say either lives on campus or nearby — was riding her bicycle along the north curb line, weaving in and out of parked cars when she collided with the trolley, said Azusa Cpl. Dean Brewer, the lead investigator on the case.
The student, who police have not identified, was not wearing a helmet or any other safety gear at the time of the crash, Brewer said. She suffered head injuries and is in critical condition after having undergone surgery, he said.
“It’s looks better than it did (Tuesday),” Brewer said of her condition.

This is the first time a campus trolley has been in a collision of this kind in its nearly 10 years of existence, university spokeswoman Allison Oster said.
The trolleys were in operation Wednesday.
“It was such an upsetting incident,” Oster said, “Obviously for all of our campus yesterday. Our prayers go out to student’s family.”

Check out this blog post from Leftovers about BP's police chief.

An interesting article from City News Service ran in our paper this morning about a former Covina cop and alleged drug user who won't be getting his job back.

Victor Lupu petitioned in 2006 to have a judge overturn an earlier decision by Covina City Manager Paul Phillips to have him fired amid allegations Lupu was using methamphetamine and having an affair with a drug user. But a judge Tuesday said he found the initial firing was justified, despite Lupu's claims that the termination was ungrounded and illegal.

Hey, you gotta give it to Lupu for trying.

It’s a familiar tale with cops: Anytime there’s bad weather, “the rain has stopped everything,” they say, or “nothing’s going on but the rain.”

Regardless, I was able to get a few interesting things out of police this morning, namely an alleged drunken driver who led sheriff’s deputies on a freeway chase in Norwalk about 12:40 a.m. today. The vehicle of choice? A U-Haul truck. In the end, the suspect — who has only been identified as a 42-year-old man from Pico Rivera — stopped the truck but then refused to get out. Sheriff’s deputies had to break a window to detain him.

No updates on the condition of a Bassett man who was shot in the behind Tuesday night in the 300 block of Siesta Avenue. Authorities don’t seem to think the injuries are life-threatening.

 

Here is some more information about the "person of interest" in Eileen's murder.

 From the story:

   

POMONA - A parolee gang member relative of the husband of a Covina woman who was found murdered in her van on Saturday has been named a "person of interest" in the case by Pomona Police.

Police said Joseph Orta, 34 has not been officially named as a suspect in the murder of 22-year-old Eileen Ponce-Orta, who was found fatally stabbed in the neck on Saturday.

Orta, a former gang member out of Azusa, was convicted for the 2001 attempted murder of his step-father, according to family members of the victim.

Other notes from reporters Brian Day and Dan Abendschein:

HOWEVER - it seems Mr. Orta just got out of prison for an attempted murder in 2001 which we covered(below):

Also, per Dan, it appears the motive MAY have been some sort of psycho fatal attraction thing Joseph Orta had for Eileen Orta.

Man sought in stabbing of stepdad

San Gabriel Valley Tribune (West Covina, CA) - December 8, 2001

Author: Rodney Tanaka Staff Writer

WEST COVINA -- Police were searching Friday for Joseph Gary Orta , 28, who allegedly stabbed his stepfather during an argument. Police responded to a stabbing in the 200 block of South Pima Avenue at 8:50 p.m. Thursday. Orta argued with his stepfather, Raul Sanchez, 26, over Orta 's alleged alcohol abuse, West Covina Police Lt. Mark Dettor said.

Sanchez suffered cuts to his neck and scalp and a puncture wound to his left side during the fight, although no knife has been found, Dettor said.

Sanchez was airlifted to County USC Medical Center and was listed Friday in stable condition.

Orta , a transient living in the area, is wanted for attempted murder. He has black hair, brown eyes, weighs 180 pounds and is 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

He has an "Azusa" tattoo on his neck and an "A" tattoo on his right arm, Dettor said. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and brown baggy pants.

Anyone with information on Orta 's whereabouts should call West Covina police at (626) 814-8557.

 

Police have named a “person of interest” in the death of 22-year-old Eileen Nicole Ponce-Orta, who was discovered by family members last week stabbed to death in a van parked at Pomona Superior Court.
Authorities are looking into Joseph Orta, who reporter Dan Abendschein said is a 34-year-old relative of Eileen’s husband.

Here’s some insight Abendschein he got from the family:

An uncle of Ponce-Orta said earlier today before the announcement that an older relative of Ponce-Orta's husband was in police custody, but made it sound as if he was the suspect, saying that as soon as the family realized that Ponce-Orta was missing, they all immediately feared that Joseph Orta was responsible.

A good story about the beef recall ran on our front page today. Check out this link and take a look at the online extras. There's a great video from the Humane Society documenting some of the alleged abuse.

 

 

A cornucopia of crime:

County probation officer picked up in parole sweep with a dozen felons.

Here's a snippet:

Among those named in the indictment is a reputed leader of the Crips street gang, 27-year-old Jerron Johns of San Bernardino, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. His girlfriend, Crystal Dillard, a Los Angeles County Probation Officer, is also named. Both were arrested late last month after Johns sold more than 2 pounds of crack cocaine to a police informant, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Meanwhile, police say they are hunting another high-profile gang leader with ties to the operation. They say Raymond King, 37, is the main source of crack cocaine in Pomona.

"We will continue to work with local authorities to go after the worst street gangs that traffic in narcotics and terrorize neighborhoods with their violence," U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said in a written statement.

Encino man (wasn't that a movie?) arrested at the border.

NY man upset with daughter for text messages; suspected of killing her.

Once a month, the Hispanic Outreach Taskforce gets together with the police chief in Whittier to discuss topics of interest to the community at large.

The meeting is a brown bag deal. There are sandwiches, sodas and a lot of conversation.
Topic A last week was a gang injunction the police are beginning to enforce against Whittier Varrio Locos, near Uptown.

Police Chief David Singer said officers are still in the process of notifying 40 gang members that they can’t do certain things in their neighborhood anymore. Among those things: carrying weapons, loitering, throwing gang signs and tagging.

Montebello has a similar ordinance on the books and officials claim that since it was enacted in 2004, there has been a marked decrease in gang crime.

In the wake of recent violence in Monrovia and Duarte, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. David Shaw of the sheriff’s Temple Station, which patrols unincorporated areas of the community, suggested a gang injunction was being explored as a possible way to get gang members off the streets. No action has yet been taken.

While the injunctions in Montebello and Whittier are relatively new, the tool has been in law enforcement’s toolbox since the mid-1990s.

For example, Norwalk used one with great success against a particularly violent Latino gang. Pasadena hoped to duplicate the effort and enjoined the Pasadena Denver Lanes Blood gang.

The move essentially flowed from a community reaction to the Halloween Homicides. On Oct. 31, 1993, Edgar “Eddie” Evans, Reginald Crawford and Stephen Coates were gunned down as they walked home from a friend’s Halloween party.

Herbert “Monster” McClain, Lorenzo Newborn and Karl Holmes, all members of the Denver Lanes gang, were convicted of murder and ultimately sentenced to death.

Enforcement of the order against PDL was fairly effective, and the neighborhood around Summit Avenue became safer for a while.

Nearly a year later, city officials and the District Attorney’s Office came close to taking similar action against the Villa Boys and Krazy Boys Latino gangs.

But when Bernard Melekian took over as chief in 1996, he derided the injunctions and chose to fight gangs with a mantra of “community policing” that was popular at the time. The injunctions faded away from lack of enforcement and Pasadena’s gangs went back to being Pasadena’s gangs.

A few years later, Melekian defended the decision to Daniel Sharfstein, a one-time reporter here, who was writing a piece for a publication called The American Prospect.

The chief, now interim city manager, called injunctions “an intellectual substitute for responsible public policy.”
My guess is that officials in Montebello, Whittier and Monrovia know best what they are up against. They also know what makes “responsible public policy” in their communities.

If a gang injunction works in Monrovia, my guess is there won’t be too many law-abiding taxpayers who will complain.

Reporter Rod Leveque with the Daily Bulletin has written up some details on more than a dozen arrests made today in connection with a Pomona drug ring.

Read on here.

Back from a few days off, and the beef saga seems to be taking center stage in much of today's news.

Obviously, the Daily Bulletin has been all over the story here's a link to their latest, describing the arrest of a Pomona man in connection with the abuse of cows at the facility.

Here's a couple of links to websites directly associated with the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. saga.

First is the company's most recent statement, here. Second is a Q&A put out by the USDA, here.

Westland/Hallmark is the target of the largest beef meat recall action in U.S. history. In all, 143 million pounds of beef have been recalled by USDA.

The videos depicting how these poor animals were mistreated are sickening to say the least. One could make a good argument for Kosher, Halal or straight vegetarianism after seeing this.

Apparently a lof of this beef went into the federal school lunch program, which provides hot lunches to poor kids.

Nice.

 

Reporter Brian Day posted this up on our Web site yesterday about Eileen Nicole Orta, 22, the missing Covina woman who was found dead inside a minivan Friday.
What’s interesting is this excerpt taken from Day’s story:

 

Family members of Orta found her body after police summoned them to pick up the van, said Pomona police Sgt. Rick Baker.

Officers responded to a report of a minivan illegally parked in a parking spot reserved for police vehicles, Baker said.

Officials discovered the license plates on the van were connected with a woman reporting missing to the Covina Police Department Tuesday, Baker said.

Police then summoned the minivan’s registered owner, a family member of Orta, to pick up the abandoned van, police said.

Family members arrived to claim the van and discovered Orta’s body buried under blankets, clothing and other objects, Baker said.

“Certainly it was unfortunate that it was the family who were the one’s to find it,” said Pomona police Sgt. Horace Blehr.

Officers often don’t force their way into vehicles reported abandoned, Blehr said. However, “In hindsight,” he added, “we’re pretty ready to admit we could have gone over (the van) better.”

 
I wonder if any policy change will be implemented as a result of this incident?

A march for peace in Monrovia should be underway right now. It was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. at Huntington Drive and Buena Vista Street in Duarte. It will end at the corner of Huntington Drive and Shamrock Avenue in Monrovia. The anti-violence group Enough is Enough is behind the whole thing. As you may imagine, this march/rally is in response to recent gang shootings in the area.

The march route is a little over a mile.

 

View Larger Map

An interesting article today from Star-News reporter Molly Okeon about the Monrovia/Duarte Gang Task Force. She points out that no gang-related killings have occurred since Jan. 29, and at least 86 people have been arrested as a result of the recent police crackdown.

Brian Day posted this Friday night about a missing Covina woman who turned up dead in a van:

POMONA - Family members of a missing Covina woman found her dead inside a van parked at a courthouse, officials said.

Eileen Nicole, 22, was discovered shortly after 11 a.m. Friday in the parking lot of Pomona Superior Court, said Pomona police Detective Rick Baker.

She was reported missing to the Covina Police Department Wednesday, he added.

Officers initially responded to a call reporting a van illegally parked in a parking space reserved for police only, Baker said.

Officials realized the license plates on the van were connected to a reported missing person, Baker said, but the van appeared to have simply been abandoned so officers called the registered owner, a family member of Nicole, to pick up the van.

The van's owner and several other family members arrived to get the van and discovered Nicole's body underneath a blanket, clothes, and other items, Baker said.

The cause of death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner, Baker said, however evidence indicates the death was a homicide.

Check out this post on Leftovers from City Hall. It's another interesting tidbit about the Baldwin Park police chief issue. I apologize now for the quality of the document. But hey, it's still readable.

 

 

Looks like Muir's star running back Willie Youngblood is home free....

 

 

Reports are coming in that a man convicted of killing his Temple City landlord in 2001 has been sentenced to 90 years to life in prison.

Leon Ban-Jye Ko, 49, was found guilty in September of shooting his 50-year-old landlord Ai-Chin Liu and her husband Jong Hsin-Hong in the faces during an argument more than six years ago.
Liu died and Hsin-Hong was injured.

Ko apparently fled after the incident but was arrested within a week in Nevada.

A viewing was held this morning for Los Angeles SWAT officer Randal Simmons, who was killed in a standoff in Winnetka last week.

Our sister paper, the Los Angeles Daily News, reports that hundreds turned out for the ceremony, held in Carson.
In making some calls to local departments this morning, it looks like a few officers from the Valley also attended to show their support of the “law enforcement family.”

Wait, I guess it's not quite official yet: Mayor Manuel Lozano said the police department is misinformed. Capt. Mike Taylor has not been named the official interim police chief though the Baldwin Park Police Association claims he has.

Looks like the city and police just can't agree on anything lately.

Crime Scene widget. Put it on your blog. Share it with friends. Never miss a post!

If you haven’t already heard it on the radio or seen it on TV, a gunman injured more than a dozen people at Northern Illinois University today before killing himself.

Apparently, he opened fire in a lecture hall, then turned the gun on himself.

 

Just in case you were wondering, here's a list of of the parolees who were arrested:

 

Smith, Jerry 53/ Baldwin Park / Felony Warrant
Reyes, David 34/ Baldwin Park / Poss of Meth
Blankenship, Christopher/ 24 La Puente/ Poss of Weapon
Balesteros, Francisco 23/ Covina /Parole Violation
Cordoba-Torres, Juan 34/ Baldwin Park / INS Warrant
Guzman, Audelia 35/ La Puente / Child Endangerment
Sarinana, Juan 50/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Coleman, Emmit 48/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Artega, Rosalio 44/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Diaz, Miguel 24/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Garcia, Humberto 36/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Potter, Yuvon 24/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Pauline, Douglass 43/ La Puente / Baldwin Park
Guzxman, Brian 18/ Baldwin Park / Probation Violation
Jiminez, Eric 24/ El Monte / Baldwin Park
Villa, Eric 24/ Baldwin Park / Parole Violation
Hernandez, Michael/ 35 Baldwin Park / Parole Violation

The parole sweep in Baldwin Park has ended a little earlier than originally expected. In the end, the five-hour operating netted 16 arrests. Eight of the suspects were gang members, according to police.

Officials wouldn't say which gangs, but they did say all the suspects had ties to Baldwin Park.

Look for the story in Friday's paper.

 

We’re hearing that Baldwin Park police are conducting a parole sweep right now. At least a dozen people have been arrested so far.
More to come when we know it.

 

 

Despite evading police for more than a week, Aaron Leonel Raigoza has been charged with capital murder in connection with the shooting death of his estranged wife, Ana Maria Acosta.
Services were held for Acosta Wednesday night and her funeral is today. Her sister Laura Avina tells me Acosta will be cremated.

A felony complaint for Raigoza, 34, filed by the DA alleges special circumstances of murder while lying in wait. Prosecutors are still deciding whether to seek the death penalty.

 

This article by Whittier Daily News reporter Ruby Gonzalez ran Wednesday, and I forgot to put it up on the blog.
It’s worth a read, especially if you like those “puppies stolen” stories. There’s video too.

I talked to Sgt. Tera White with Norwalk sheriff's this morning and she had this to say: "I guess this might be some sort of trend."

 

The list is long:

Alhambra Airport, Crawfords Corner, Montgomery Ward, Fedco, Street Cars, Wardy surfboard shop, The "old" Icehouse, Helm's Bakery trucks, The Royal Coachmen Restaurant, The Crushed Grape on Garvey, Victoria Station on Restaurant Row.

Local blogs recently put together a list of places in the area that used to be here, but aren't now.

Don't forget Bullock's on South Lake in Pasadena and Buffums in Pomona. At least Rick's on Greenleaf in Whittier is still going strong.

I won't claim to have known all of these landmarks that have disappeared from local neighborhoods, but as of this month we can add one I did know (and love) to the list - Bungalow News in Pasadena.

As reporter Janette Williams wrote this week, Bungalow on East Colorado is closing its doors for good in just 10 days, Feb. 24 to be exact. It will be a sad day for Pasadenans, especially those seeking esoteric mags that are virtually unavailable anywhere else - except in cyberspace.

That's part of the reason behind the closure, according to owner Larry Frisina, whose parents started the business in 1962.

I used to go to Bungalow to pick up Sunday copies of the Detroit News/Free Press and day-old copies of the San Francisco Chronicle. I also bought more packs of Marlboro Lights and MAD magazines than I care to count.

While there were plenty of customers in Bungalow buying the latest copy of "Contemporary Stone & Tile" or "Diplomatie, Affaires Strategiques et Relations Internationales," they were usually outnumbered by the raincoat crowd in the side section perusing copies of more "adult" fare.

These days I get the Free Press and Chronicle online. No doubt the raincoat crowd has turned to the Internet as well.

Besides cyberspace, older businesses in Pasadena's Playhouse District have to contend with the gentrification of the neighborhood. What used to be sort of seedy, run-down and filled with some of the greatest used-book stores anywhere is now cleaned up and trendy.

That means higher rents, less parking and more visibility for the raincoat crowd. Which translates to less customers for Bungalow.

Of course my theory about Bungalow's demise doesn't fully explain the changing face of our local streets.

Big-box stores have replaced local hardware stores and five and dimes. Chain restaurants with consistent menus have taken the place of the Stan's and A&Ws of the world.

For that matter, try finding a 25-cent cup of coffee.

I guess that's the point. Who's got beaucoup bucks for day-old newspapers and esoteric magazines when you need the cash for Starbucks?

I just back from a vigil hosted by the Covina Woman's Club for Monica Thomas Harris. Nearly 200 people were there, including dozens of family members, friends, co-workers and members of several women's advocacy groups.

Reporter Paul Clinton of the Daily Breeze forwarded this press release from LAUSD regarding a fund for Ana Raigoza.

LAUSD ESTABLISHES CHARITABLE ACCOUNT IN THE NAME OF
SLAIN DISTRICT EMPLOYEE, ANA MARIA RAIGOZA

"Ana Family Fund" to support the victim's two surviving children, ages
7, and 5

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) today
announced the establishment of a charitable account in memory of slain
District employee, Ana Maria Raigoza, 32, who was tragically killed at
her Monterey Park home, Feb. 4. She leaves behind two young children.

"Ana's children will forever be scarred by the senseless death of their
mother," said LAUSD Superintendent David L. Brewer.  "The District
created the fund to allow her friends, co-workers and the general public
to financially support her children during this difficult time."

Members of the public can make their checks out to "Ana's Family Fund"
and send their donations to:

"Ana's Family Fund"
c/o The Office of the Superintendent
Los Angeles Unified School District
333 S. Beaudry Ave, 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA  90017

All contributions, which are not tax deductible, will be deposited in an
account in Ana's name at the California Credit Union, which is located
on the second floor of the LAUSD Administrative Headquarters Building in
Downtown Los Angeles.

Raigoza, who worked eight years at the LAUSD, served as a payroll
technician at the time of her death. She is survived by a son, 7, and a
daughter, 5.

The victim's husband, Aaron Raigoza, is being sought for questioning by
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

LAUSD sort of downplays the Aaron Raigoza reference. He's a suspect in Ana's killing. He was seen leaving the area after she was shot to death.

 

The woman who went missing with the grandchildren of U.S. Rep Gary Miller sent a one-paged typed letter to the District Attorney's office, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The letter was postmarked Feb. 2 in Manchester, New Hampshire and received about seven days later, D.A. Spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Wednesday.

"It was a one-page typed letter," Gibbons said. "It was given to an investigator in the criminal division." Gibbons did not say what information the letter contains.

Jennifer Lopez Dejongh, 30, of Diamond Bar, has been missing with Miller's three grandchildren since November. In a 16-page handwritten letter sent to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Dejongh defended her actions. She said the three boys were safe and that she took them from what she called an abusive father.

That letter was postmarked February 2 from New Hampshire without a return address.

Investigators have searched for the family throughout the United States, initially believing they were in Las Vegas or Ogden, Utah, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Detective Mark Martinovich. They have also explored possibilities in Mexico and Canada, authorities said.

Also investigating the disappearance are the FBI and the U.S. Marshal's office.

The letter to the Tribune outlines Dejongh's side of a bitter custody dispute with Miller's son, Brian, who is the father of her children.

U.S. Rep. Miller said his son "is in misery over his kids."

Brian Miller has not commented on the case.

http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime

We’ve just confirmed that funeral services will be held today for Ana Maria Acosta, who was shot to death in Monterey Park last week.
The services are scheduled for 7 p.m. at St. Stephen Catholic Church on Garvey Avenue in Monterey Park.
A private cremation ceremony will be held Thursday for family only, Acosta’s sister tells me.

 

 

 

I put in a call to the coroner's office this morning and the identity has been released of a 21-year-old man killed Tuesday night in unincorporated Covina.
Hector Barajas Jr., of Covina, was killed in a walk-up shooting just before 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 16000 block of East Ballentine Place in an unincorporated county area near Covina, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.
Barajas was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau is assisting detectives at the San Dimas sheriff’s station in the case.
Authorities believe the shooting may have been gang-related.

 

View Larger Map

I'm taking the rest of the week off. In the meantime, Tania Chatila will be posting here.

That said, I'll still be reading the papers, checking my email and keeping track of the Crime Scene.

See you Monday.

-- Frank 

Surfing the net this afternoon, I found this tidbit about Los Angeles Police Department SWAT Officer James Veenstra, who was wounded last week in what became a nine-hour standoff with a shooter in Winnetka.

One of Veenstra’s fellow officers, Randal Simmons, was killed in the same standoff.

A TV report earlier this week showed an interview with Simmons’ mother, who lives locally in Diamond Bar. 

KFI's John and Ken discussed the whole Jennifer Lopez Dejongh saga on their show yesterday. Whittier Daily News reporter Airan Scruby heard some of the show.

I haven't listened yet, but here's a link in case you are interested.

The letter has garnered interest from both the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the West Covina FIeld Office of the FBI. Officials say the case against Lopez is still a state matter, but the Feds are involved because of their belief that Lopez Dejongh and her husband George Dejongh have crossed state lines with U.S. Rep Gary Miller's three grandchildren.

Anyway onto the column. Here it is:

It’s always exciting to get mail at work.

For one thing, you can almost always be sure that something with your name on it isn’t going to contain a bill.

On the other hand, there’s lots of junk that ultimately finds its way into the round file.

Last Thursday, I received a small, somewhat crumpled, white envelope addressed to me. The handwriting on the outside was block-printed. The smeared postmark over a pink 58-cent stamp appeared to say Manchester, New Hampshire.

“Oh great,” I thought, “Another nut who reads the Crime Scene Blog on the Internet with a tip about the murder of James Ellroy’s mother.”

Back in early 1990s, I wrote a story about unsolved mysteries in the San Gabriel Valley. One of the mysteries involved Jean Ellroy, the mother of a young boy who would grow up to be author James Ellroy.

Jean Ellroy was last seen at the Desert Inn at Five Points in El Monte. Her partially nude body turned up the next morning dumped in an alleyway behind Arroyo High School. She had been strangled with her bra. The killing remains unsolved.

The article turned out to be inspiration for James, already respected for his L.A. Quartet, which included the “Black Dahlia” and “L.A. Confidential.”

Ellroy convinced the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to reopen its investigation into the case. He turned the investigation into one of the most powerful pieces of nonfiction ever written, “My Dark Places.”

Anyway, that was on my mind as I turned to my boss, Ed Barrera, and showed him the envelope.
“What do you think it is?” I asked rhetorically, as I ripped the envelope open.

I pulled out a mass of folded papers, unfurled them and read the first lines:

“Dear Frank, My name is Jennifer Lopez Dejongh. Mother of Brian Christopher, Christian and Evan Miller.”
Then and there I realized I was holding a piece of news.

Dejongh’s three children happen to be the grandchildren of U.S. Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea. They’ve been missing since November. In the letter, Dejongh admits taking the kids after losing a round in a bitter custody dispute between her and Brian Miller, the congressman’s son.

The letter indicates the kids are “safe and happy.” It also lists some of the unseemly details at the heart of the dispute.

“I didn’t leave to be selfish. I left to protect the boys,” Dejongh writes. “I’m not trying to get even with anyone.”

After I got Jennifer’s letter, I spoke with her father, Jude Lopez. He seemed to be shaking as he read the letter, and confirmed it was written by his daughter.

Lopez said he warned his daughter that if she ran, he wouldn’t shield her from authorities.

I also spoke to the congressman. He said his son has been in agony over the disappearance of the children.

The children’s pictures are all over the Internet thanks to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Major Crimes Bureau, the U.S. Marshal’s Office and the FBI are all involved in the investigation.

Also following the case is the National Organization for Women’s California chapter. Their spokeswoman sent an e-mail Sunday evening after reading about Jennifer’s letter.

“There is so much to this story that has not been reported,” wrote NOW spokeswoman Rachel Allen. “I’m sure there is more in the 16 pages Jennifer wrote that is deserving of verifying and reporting.”

For now, Detective Mark Martinovich, with the Major Crimes Bureau, said he believes the children are safe with their mother.

“We’ve never felt the children were in physical danger,” he said last week.

He also said he wanted to read the letter.

Which is exactly how I felt when I opened my mail Thursday.

Star reporter Jennifer McLain, who has her own blog "Leftovers From City Hall", turned in an interesting piece about the rising number of female deputies in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Turns out that Temple Station has the highest percentage of female deputies (17 percent); while San Dimas has the lowest (6.3 percent) .

From the story:

"It's acceptable now for women to be in patrol," Harshman said. "When I came in, women in patrol was a new program."

While male and female officers agree that it is more "acceptable" for women to be deputies and commanding officers, the number of female sworn officers within the department is still only 16 percent and females account for only 22 percent of the enrollment in the academy classes.

But that number is constantly increasing, Fennell said. Recently, they increased their goal from 22 percent to 25 percent enrollment in the academy classes.

Some female officers said the consent decree brought unwelcome attitudes as well.

"I would hear comments like, `Oh, you got promoted just because you were a female.' I didn't appreciate that," said Sgt. Debra Hermon, 50. "I got my promotion based on merit."

Hermon, who has been with the department for 27 years, said she has mixed feelings about the consent decree.

"The sheriff's department has been very good to me," Hermon said. "But I'm not sure how I feel about the consent decree. It's like people want you as a female so that you could be a number of a list."

We will be reporting this tidbit in tomorrow's newspaper:

MONTEREY PARK — Authorities are now saying that Aaron Leonel Raigoza is a suspect in the death of his wife.

The 34-year-old teacher at City of Angels independent study school in Huntington Park was being sought by detectives as a person of interest in the shooting death of Ana Maria Acosta until Saturday, when he was named as a suspect.

Acosta, 32, was shot to death Feb. 4 as she sat in a car in the 500 block of South Russel Avenue, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Diane Hecht.

Raigoza and Acosta were going through a divorce, family members said.

Raigoza was last seen driving a silver 4-door 2006 Chevy Cobalt with California license plate No. 5TOG925, said Deputy Luis Castro.

He is considered armed and dangerous, officials said.

Anyone with information should contact the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500.

Van shot at in Pasadena.

Suspected thief caught hiding in back yard.

Astronomy "teacher" accused of touching.

Man dead after torching home following domestic dispute.

 

 

Fred Ortega's piece on the history and influence of La Eme is now online. Here's an excerpt from the bottom of the story:  The SGVN's online look at gangs is here.

The (Lola) Llantada case is only the latest example of the influence that the Eme wields in the San Gabriel Valley.

In April 2006, four men were arrested in Pomona in connection with an attempted Mexican Mafia contract killing. Their trial is scheduled for this year.

Last November, reputed Emero Frank "Frankie B" Buelna, 61, was shot to death in a Pomona sports bar. Buelna was reputed to have broad power within the Mexican Mafia, and officials are still investigating the motive behind his killing. The perpetrators are still at large.

And in December, reputed Eme member Eulalio "Lalo" Martinez, 46, was charged with ordering the killing of former gang member Donald "Pato" Schubert in Rosemead in 1998. In that case, prosecutors allege that Martinez runs the Lomas Rosemead street gang from Pelican Bay State Prison, where he has been incarcerated for the past 15 years.

La Eme's deep roots in the San Gabriel Valley became clearly evident to Steinwand, the sheriff's homicide investigator, when he moved to the Industry Station from the South Central Los Angeles area early in his career.

"Over there in South Central when there were orders from the Eme to stop drive-bys, guys would go out and do five of them in one night just to spite them," said Steinwand, who has been a detective for 18 years. "But they have a lot more control on this side of the 710 (Freeway).

"When I came to work at the Industry Station, it was amazing," he added. "When the Eme said something, (the gangs) listened."

 

Some of this information surfaced during the investigation of Robert Whitehead's killing. Whitehead was killed after confronting taggers near his parents home. Among those suspected in the case was Paul "Malo" Salazar, a graduate of Bishop Amat High School in La Puente, who was also a suspected member of Puente Trece.

Salazar was killed at his home during a get-together in July.

Interesting side note, Whitehead's brother is a Monrovia police officer. 

Beginning Monday, SGVN rolls out an online package detailing local gang violence. Besides the recent troubles in Monrovia, the online offering will look at the Mexican Mafia, and the troubles of Northwest Pasadena.

Kicking off, Fred Ortega's look at La Eme's backyard in the SGV.

 

This comes from Melissa Pamer's Sunday story on "No Man's Land"

At Alta Dena Dairy, a drive-thru convenience store that is one of a handful of businesses in the area, fewer customers are coming by after dark.

"Everybody's scared," said store owner Doo Kim. "At nighttime, nobody wants to walk."

Kim, 57, has worked at the dairy 22 years. He never felt the neighborhood was unsafe, but now he and his wife are frightened some evenings.

Kim heard the shots that killed Salas, and a memorial with stuffed animals and candles still stands for her on Peck Road across from the store.

Business was brisk at the dairy on Saturday, with cold drinks a top choice for the warm, sunny day. At night, the neighborhood tells a different story, residents say.

"The whole unincorporated area is like a ghost town," said Jose Bennett, 63, who has lived since 1966 in a neighborhood that was once all white, then mostly black and is now largely Latino.

This occurred Friday night in Duarte. I've heard that residents of the area have seen a significant amount of police activity last night and today.

Brian Day wrote the story:

DUARTE - A man was wounded in a possibly gang-related shooting Friday in a residential neighborhood, officials said.

The incident occurred about 9:30 p.m. in the 2500 block of Bloomdale Street, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Mark Flores.

The victim was described as a black man about 25 years old, said Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Jeff Myers.

The wounded man was sitting on the curb when rescuers arrived, Myers said, and the injury did not appear to be life-threatening.

Two Latino men with shaved heads were spotted running from the location, Flores said.

One of them was detained late Friday, Flores said, although it was not immediately clear whether he was involved in the shooting.

Officials responded to a call reporting five to six shots fired when they discovered the wounded man.

The sheriff's Homicide Bureau is helping the sheriff's Temple Station with the case, Flores added.

"We are investigating this thing with everything we have," he said.

This is video of the taping of Behind the Headlines with Ralph Walker. The show, which airs on cable television, was a wide-ranging discussion of the ongoing violence in Monrovia. If you plan to watch, set aside an hour. It's long but interesting.

Going through my mail Thursday morning I came across a small envelope, with a smeared postmark that appeared to have been stuffed with a large letter. I opened it, read the first line and knew that we a story on our hands.

The 16-page hand-written letter was signed Jennifer Lopez Dejongh. It detailed her side of a bitter custody feud with Brian Miller, the son of U.S. Rep. Gary Miller. When the court decided in November to hand Dejongh's three boys over to the Miller family for 90 days, Dejongh fled.

Her letter said there was no choice.

The story appears in today's newspaper. Here's an excerpt:

In a letter postmarked from New Hampshire, the mother of three missing grandsons of a local congressman says the boys are safe and justifies her actions as necessary to save the boys from an abusive father.

"I am a mother trying to protect her children," Jennifer Lopez Dejongh wrote toward the end of the 16-page letter, written in longhand and postmarked Feb. 2 in Manchester, N.H., without a return address. "If you speak to my father, tell him we're safe and happy."

Dejongh, 30, and her children, Brian, 8, and twins Christian and Evan, 6, disappeared Nov. 19 in defiance of a court order to turn over the children to Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, and his wife Cathy. Her husband George Dejongh is also missing. The couple wed in July.

On Friday, Jude Lopez, Jennifer's father, reviewed the letter and confirmed the writing as that of his daughter. Lopez said he has had no contact with her since the disappearance.

"I told her, `If you go away, you can't call me,"' Lopez said. "I'm not going to get involved. I'm going to call the police."

The letter outlines Jennifer Dejongh's side of a bitter custody dispute with Brian Miller, the congressman's son, and ...

The rest is here.

Azusa may have captured the Bluetooth Bandit within the last 30 minutes. A man matching the description just robbed a Washington Mutual at 1188 East Alosta in Azusa.

More details as we learn them.

UPDATE: 6:20 P.M.

The Bluetooth was not caught. He somehow escaped, police now say.

FBI calls this guy the Bluetooth Bandit. He's hit banks in Diamond Bar and Chino Hills, officials said.

He's described as a "White Male,6 feet 4 to 6 feet 7, 180, Early 30s"

Apparently the guy earned his moniker from wearing one of those bluetooth headphones that annoy the rest of us red blooded Americans. BOTL

My friend Dean Norris, plays a DEA agent in the AMC television series "Breaking Bad." I 'm pretty sure it runs Sunday nights.

The show's about a high school chem teacher who learns he has terminal cancer and decides to leave a legacy behind for his family by manufacturing and selling methamphetamine.

Brian Cranston, the dad from "Malcom in the Middle" stars in the show, you've probably seen ads with him standing in the middle of the desert wearing only briefs (not boxers.)

Anyway, Dean sent me this video, that's sort of an outtake from the show. I promised to share it here.

A few months ago I posted YouTube version of the same video, but AMC pulled it before it got too widely viewed. So we've finally got it back.

 

 

Morning cops reporter Dan Abendschein reported a Metrolink train wreck in Industry this morning that luckily resulted in NO injuries. According to Abendschein, the car was left on the tracks by a worker at a nearby industrial business who told police he rolled the car too close to the tracks and it got stuck. As he ran off to get help, the train came and rammed it.

As a former reporter for a newspaper in Glendale, I'm all too familiar with the horrific implications that can result from a Metrolink crash. Many of you may remember what's widely considered the deadliest wreck in Metrolink's history - when Juan Manuel Alvarez allegedly left his SUV on the train tracks bordering Glendale and Los Angeles, causing a chain reaction crash involving two passenger trains and one freight train. At the end of it all, 11 people were dead and more than 180 others injured.

That being said, it feels like the San Gabriel Valley has had its fair share of close-calls with Metrolink crashes. I can recall a few off the top of my head now. So I'll leave you with some insight given to me by Metrolink officials long ago: don't leave your cars or other large objects on the tracks.

 

Forget about the war on terror. Forget too about helping out on the streets where gang violence is out of control.

The FBI has bigger fish to fry, according to the NY Post:

February 8, 2008 -- THE FBI is poking around the celebrity magazine world on the West Coast, investigating allegations of kickbacks and pay-for-play schemes, according to a source who was contacted by investigators.

The source was told that the probe, which appears to be at a preliminary stage, involved "paparazzi and In Touch" magazine.

The source was contacted by an agent named Dennis Webster in the FBI's Los Angeles office. Webster had not returned calls to Media Ink by presstime.

Specifics about what the feds are looking into remain murky, but people at the celebrity magazines have been burning up the lines in recent days since a story about the FBI probe was posted Wednesday on the complex.com Web site and picked up by gawker.com and jossip.com.

However, the source said that West Coast legal circles have been buzzing that Hollywood stars who have long felt they were being harassed by the paparazzi were perhaps pushing the feds to act.

Stars have long been frustrated that local law enforcement has been unable to thwart the paparazzi unless they either pose a real threat to someone or are trespassing on private property.

View Larger Map

4:55p.m. UPDATE Missing man identified as Frank Wykofka, 60, a Vietnam veteran.

A car has been pulled from the reservior and a body recovered.

 

SAN DIMAS -- A sheriff's underwater search and rescue team continued to search the murky waters of San Dimas Reservior Thursday for a man reported missing earlier in the day, officials said.

Family members reported the man missing at 11 a.m. when he failed to return from a trip to the Angeles National Forest. Officials believe the man had gone to the forest to release a feral skunk.

Divers apparently have located a car in murky waters of the San Dimas reservoir. They have also found other evidence consistent with a car accident at a paticularly dangerous curve on San Dimas Canyon Road, officials said.

The search is underway at the dam

The man's name has not been released.

http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime

View Larger Map

This also makes a nice mash-up with the map showing Pasadena homicides in 2007. Thanks to Pasadena police Cmdr. Mike Korpal for the heads up on today's arrests. 

Just received this note from Robert Parry, a frequent commenter on this blog and others:

Friends:
 
LAPD Officer Randy Simmons, who was killed in the line of duty this morning, was an acquaintance I had recently met.  I have penned a tribute to him at the LA Daily News' Friendly Fire Blog.
 
www.insidesocal.com/friendlyfire
 

PASADENA - Police arrested four men as suspects in a year-old murder case, conducting SWAT-supported raids at five locations early this morning.

Authorities said the arrests were part of an investigation into the shooting death of 18-year-old Sean Baptiste exactly one year ago today. Officials said Baptiste was shot at Lincoln Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard.

Sixty-five Pasadena Police Department officers took part in the operations that involved serving warrants at residences on the 1700 and 1800 blocks of Lincoln Avenue, the 900 block of Mountain Street, the 1800 block of Summit Avenue, and the 1400 block of El Sereno Avenue, said police Cmdr. Mike Korpal.

While detectives had been working on the Baptiste shooting case for a year, Korpal said the raids sent a message that police never give up.

"It sends a message to criminals that if you commit a crime here we are going to exhaust every effort to find out who is responsible and prosecute that person," he said.

Here's the latest from LADN:

WINNETKA - An LAPD SWAT team member was shot to death and another was wounded overnight by a gang member with mental health issues who earlier killed three people inside a home and eventually was shot to death by police, authorities said this morning.

Officer Randy Simmons, 51, died about 1 a.m., a few minutes after entering the home in the 19800 block of Welby Way. He was shot in the neck, according to City Councilman Dennis Zine.

Officer James Veenstra, 51, was shot in the face and jaw, Zine said. He is in critical condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, but is expected to survive.

Both worked on the Special Weapons and Tactics team for 20 years, and had spent more than 25 years in the Los Angeles Police Department, said LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell.

It was the first fatality in the history of the elite LAPD SWAT team, which was created in 1967.

"I want to say how deeply saddened we are this morning that we lost a member of our LAPD family," McDonnell said. "Our hearts and prayers go out to these families at this tough time."

Veenstra was apparently a resident of Pasadena and Altadena in the late 80s and early 1990s, according to public records. He is married to an LAPD.

The LAPD family has several members who live in the San Gabriel Valley and we know they will be monitoring this event closely throughout the day. We'll keep it updated here.

 

Los Angeles Daily News reporter Jason Kandel is reporting that the gunman in the Winnetka standoff is dead.

Read more here.

A man who barricaded himself inside a Winnetka home, then killed an LAPD SWAT team officer and injured another, is in custody, according to TV reports.

The standoff began at 9 p.m. Wednesday when the unidentified man called police and told them he had killed three of his relatives.
Several SWAT team members entered the home just after midnight and a shootout between the man and police ensued.
LAPD Officer Randy Simmons, 51, was killed. Officer James Veenstra, 51, was critically wounded, police said.
The man barricaded himself inside the home through this morning.

He is now in custody, but it's still unclear whether the gunman killed three relatives. Two covered bodies, however could be seen from news helicopter footage.

We'll keep you updated as we learn more.

 

The Baldwin Park POA told reporter Bethania Palma last night that the City Council had fired.

Here's an excerpt from her story:

BALDWIN PARK - The police officers association said the city fired its police chief during a closed session meeting Wednesday.

After coming out of a closed session meeting Wednesday night, the city attorney said "no reportable action" had been taken on agenda items, which included evaluation of public employee department heads. The city attorney didn't say which department heads were being evaluated.

But Baldwin Park Police Association members said Chief Edward Lopez told them he had been fired as he left City Hall.

"It was brought to my attention that this council fired Chief Lopez," said Detective Chris Kuberry, police association vice president, during public comment. "I am disgusted with your actions to say the least."

The shooting death of Ana Maria Acosta, 32, outside her parents' Monterey Park home Monday night stands as another reminder of the nature of temporary restraining orders - sometimes they aren't enough.

Police say Acosta's estranged husband, Aaron Raigoza, 34, is a "person of interest" in the shooting, and witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime.

Turns out Raigoza was named in a TRO filed by Acosta.

...

Attorney Denise Wright, who briefly represented Raigoza, a high school teacher in Huntington Park, wouldn't discuss her former client. Wright did recall Acosta as a "lovely, lovely, reasonable, level-headed woman."

...

Wright said she makes a living representing Los Angeles Unified School District employees and teachers like Raigoza.

"I represent a lot of teachers," Wright said. "They are the nicest people."

...

A man who lives in an apartment complex near King Taco in Baldwin Park called in early Wednesday to talk about a shooting in his neighborhood.

He had a ton of reasons for not wanting his name published, but we'll boil it down to this: He fears for his safety.

The shooting, which police characterized as a drive-by, resulted in the death of a 29-year-old man, according to Baldwin Park police Lt. David Reynoso.

The now-deceased man was reportedly walking on the sidewalk when he was shot twice in the abdomen, once in the thigh and once in the left arm.

Nearby, the caller and several others hit the floor.

"There was like eight to 20 shots," the man recalled. "I thought the first one was an M-80. Boom, boom, boom, boom. They were loud. We didn't know if the shooter was going to come over the wall to the apartment building where I live. Everybody was really scared."

The City Council apparently took the shooting into consideration late Wednesday in a discussion about the future of police Chief Edward Lopez.

Tania Chatila, who covers Baldwin Park for this newspaper, reported a conversation she had Wednesday afternoon with Councilwoman Marlen Garcia.

"She could not comment on Lopez's job security Wednesday afternoon, but did say they were going to be taking everything `into account in evaluating the chief,"' Chatila said.

Including Tuesday's killing, Garcia told Chatila.

"It's really a matter of looking at the community at large and ensuring we are providing the best programs and processes to provide a safe community."

...

A woman was injured and shots were fired in a credit union takeover in Santa Fe Springs.

The robbers apparently bluffed their way into the location by pretending to make a delivery - in a Buick Le Sabre!

Veteran police reporter Ruby Gonzales said the heist "smacks of an inside job."

"Why hit a credit union in a fairly secure location when you can just hit one in a shopping center?"

Police said they've made one arrest in the case and more are pending.

 

Sources tell us the Wrong Slip Bandit is in custody.  

His name: Noel Arellano (dob:7/8/1974). Not much more is known at this time. We're fleshing out a story on the case.

Arrellano was arrested Tuesday morning in Norwalk. he is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail a hearing is scheduled for Friday morning.

 

 

Reporter Jennifer McLain just got back in the office with the documents from the Acosta-Raigoza case.
Here’s what she found:
According to a request for a domestic violence prevention order that Acosta filed last June, Raigoza told Acosta that he hated her guts. He also told her the following:

“I’m going to kill you. I’m so depressed and I don’t give a bit about anything. So you better be scared because I hate you with all my guts. You will pay. I’ll make sure of it. I’m going to die and you will come with me. You will shed a lot of blood.”

Here's a comment from Localboy:

On the first search warrant Chief Santoro went on after becoming chief he told the subject of the warrant, who was selling rock cocaine, that she and everyone like her needed to move their "asses" out of town. The chief was very serious, he does not like bad guys. What Chief Santoro did was bring into play the different city agencies that hadn't been working as a group to blend together to make positive changes in the community. He was ahead of his time in that respect. Redevelopment, Parks and Recreation, the MUSD, Probation, Parole, Fire and police were all part of the local forces that made up C.A.P., Community Activist Policing. They met monthly to attack community problems and concerns. Crime went down for years but like everything it's cycled back around to where it's going up again. Blame gangs, blame meth meth meth meth and more meth and blame the parents of kids who are either too wrapped up in their own lives to pay attention to what their kids are doing or parents that raised their kids in a gang type environment. Anyone who thinks that hasn't happened in the case of at least one murder victim is crazy. My only question now is how long will all the outside agencies be willing to foot the bill by sending resources to Monrovia? I give it to the end of the month but I'm sure Monrovia will retain beefed up patrols for a period of time after that using their own people. Than you have to ask how long can a department six down now do that without stressing out their own people. Six down and losing a few more soon. In the long run the need for a different strategy on how we handle our prison population is needed and a commitment from a pathetic D.A.'s office to start charging gangsters with every minor violation you can would be a good start. Put these reprobates away for as long as you can whenever you get the chance. If youngsters see just how often bad guys in their families end up in jail that might make a bigger impression than big brother telling them how great being a gangster is. People need to man up or shut up.

We’re hearing from reporter Jennifer McLain that court records show 32-year-old Ana Maria Acosta had a restraining order filed against her estranged husband, 34-year-old Aaron Leonel Raigoza.

Acosta was shot near her parent’s home Monday night, after she left the police station to file a complaint against Raigoza.
Police are calling Raigoza a “person of interest” in the case.

According to McLain — who sifted through court records downtown — one of the terms of the restraining order was that Raigoza surrender his $17,000 collection of 27 pistols.
It is unclear whether those firearms were given up.
Look for more details in tomorrow’s paper.
 

It’s easy to blame music for the troubles many communities like Monrovia are facing.
“After all,” some might say, “look what they’re singing about nowadays. It’s all about violence and prison.”
Truth be told though, pointing at music isn’t that simple.
Can you guess which of the following are lyrics from a rap song?

A.) Well I feel like snappin’
Pistol in your face
I'm gonna let some graveyard
Lord be your resting place.”

B.) The warden led the prisoner
Down the hallway to his doom
I stood up to say goodbye like all the rest.”
 

C.) “I’m on my way to Chino, rollin on the grey goose
Shackled from head to toe."

If you guessed C, you probably don’t listen to love songs on KOST. It’s from Snoop Dogg’s “Murder was the Case.”
In case you are wondering, choice A is a set of Muddy Waters lyrics from “I Can’t be Satisfied,” which was published in 1946.
County star Merle Haggard is responsible for the second set of lyrics. They’re from “Sing me Back Home,” recorded in 1969.

So much for that theory.

There's a story in today's paper about Baldwin Park Police Chief Edward Lopez. The word is he may be fired tonight if he doesn't comply with budget cuts. A crowd of officers are expected at tonight's City Council meeting to contest the issue.

The full story did not run in today's paper because of space constraints, so I've pasted it here. It gives a little more perspective in its entirety:

 

The police officers assocation said city officials are courting an El Monte lieutenant to replace the current police chief amid a budget dispute.
According to Baldwin Park Police Association President Joshua Hendricks, council members have given police Chief Edward Lopez until his evaluation tonight to decide whether he will comply with further budget cuts to the department.
If not, the council plans to terminate him, Hendricks said.
Mayor Manuel Lozano would not comment on the matter.
“We, right now, haven’t made anything public of that nature,” Lozano said. “I’m not going to speculate with anything or get into the rumors or innuendos when it comes to us assessing or evaluating an employee.”
Lopez did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
According to Hendricks, the city has been in talks with El Monte police Lt. Ken Alva for the department’s top spot.
Alva — who has been with the El Monte Police Department since he started out as a cadet in 1979 — would not comment on whether he had been contacted by Baldwin Park officials about the position.
“You’re going to have to ask Baldwin Park about that,” he said.
According to the council’s agenda, a closed session item for a “public employee performance evaluation” is scheduled for tonight for the police chief, as well as the city’s chief executive officer, recreation and community services director, public works director and human resources manager.
“All I can say is we are doing the evaluations,” said Chief Executive Officer Vijay Singhal. He added that the city is not currently undergoing the process to hire for the police chief’s position.
“This is no hidden secret,” Hendricks said. “People in El Monte know about this. I’ve called (Alva) himself and he’s not denying this.
According to Hendricks, in recent months, Lopez and the city have been in a attle over budget cuts to the department — cuts that Lopez is unwilling to make.
“The city has already eliminated or frozen eight positions and they still need to cut more money from the budget,” Hendricks said. “They have asked the chief to make more cuts, but he has resisted. It’s one of those things where they’re like, “If you can’t make more cuts, we’ll find someone who will.’”
Hendricks said he had no problem with Alva personally, but was upset that the city was looking outside the department.
“I think they want somebody who is not going to be as close to the officers and that way they can control us better,” BPPA Vice President Chris Kuberry said.
Because Lopez is unwilling to make the cuts to the department, an outside candidate with no loyalties to Baldwin Park’s officers will make it easier for the council to demand more cuts, Kuberry said.
“It’s just ridiculous because (the city is) trying to balance the budget by cutting the police department,” Kuberry said. “They are trying to cover their tracks on their mismanagement of city funds.”
 

 

Sheriff's Press Release in the Ana Maria Acosta (Raigoza) Aaron Raigoza case (Both were employees of LAUSD):

On February 4, 2008 (Monday) at 1837 hours, Victim Ana

Maria Acosta was shot as she sat in her vehicle in front of

511 Russell Avenue, Monterey Park.

Investigators are seeking the public’s assistance in locating

Aaron Raigoza, the victim’s husband, as a person of

interest.

If anyone has information, please contact Sheriff’s Homicide

Bureau.

This is basically what our story will say tomorrow:

A woman who was shot and killed near her parent’s home Monday night had just left the police station where she had filed a complaint about her estranged husband, officials said.

Police were searching Tuesday for the man identified as Aaron Leonel Raigoza, 34, a teacher at Henry T. Gage Middle School in Huntington Park. He was identified as a person of interest in the shooting death of Ana Maria Raigoza, 32, police said.

The couple were embroiled in a divorce case in Los Angeles, according to court records. There was at least one hearing on a temporary restraining order in the case. The couple most recently appeared in court on Jan. 22 and were due to return on March 8, court records indicate.

The dead woman is identified as Ana Maria Raigoza. She was shot to death last night. Police are looking for her husband Aaron Raigoza, a person of interest in the case.

Ana Maria worked at LAUSD downtown, according to reporter Amanda Baumfeld.

Raigoza had apparently left the Monterey Park police station just before she was shot to death. MPPD are not releasing domestic violence call logs for the Raigoza residence....they apparently want to give most of their information to FOX News this afternoon at 4 p.m.

Two men arrested in relation to gang violence in the area were released last week. Cousins Nickelis and Rayshawn Blackwell were released last Thursday after their arrest on Tuesday on suspicion of attempted murder stemming from a Jan. shooting in which a group of latinos were shot at but not hit. And of the seven people arrested in raids Friday, two were set to be released today.

I'll be interviewed on by Ralph Walker on KGEM this afternoon at 2 p.m. I don't know when it will air, but as soon as I know, you will know.

We haven't heard about the success of the wear white campaign ...

There appears to have been an accident in Pasadena involving a motorcycle cop ...

Final add ... Last night's shooting in Monterey Park may have been a domestic violencve situation. Reporter Amanda Baumfeld is pulling the details together at the scene ....

 

 

Unfortunately this picture didn't make the deadline last night so we decided to reproduce it here:

Monrovia Unified School District board members, members of law enforcement and city officials were on hand to address last weeks gang violence in Monrovia Monday February 4th 2008 in Monrovia. (SGVN/staff
photo by Greg Andersen/SXCity)

 

Herald Examiner sports writer Alan Malamud used to write a column he called "Notes on a Scorecard." It was a random collection of observations, opinions and humor strung together (or separated) by three little dots.

A lot of times it was the stuff that didn't make its way into a story but was important nonetheless. Here's my collection of Notes on Untitled Notepad from a week covering a series of violent incidents in Monrovia ...

Like the bumper stickers you used to see around sometimes, I wanted to know WWJD?

What would Joe do?

Joe, of course, being former Monrovia police Chief Joe Santoro, who now heads the Rio Hondo College Police Academy in Whittier.

When Santoro came to Monrovia in 1989, the city was experiencing much of the same turmoil that exists today. Gang violence was on the rise and residents were upset with the level of service they received from the police department.

Santoro unveiled a program that was fairly progressive for the times. His plan, according to a news account published when he was hired, was to forge a partnership between police and the community.

"The police can't do it alone," Santoro said at the time. "But if the police, city and community work together as a team to get things done, we can do anything. The sky's the limit."

As soon as he took office, Santoro went after convenience stores that sold booze to minors; supported Three Strikes legislation to keep convicted

felons behind bars; and appeared on the "Today" show to defend a daylight curfew plan - essentially a truancy law designed to detain kids who weren't in class during school hours.

As you might guess, the daylight curfew had its detractors. Santoro defended the program and pointed to a 29 percent drop in crime during school hours over three years.

So, WWJD today?

His answer was clear as mud.

"These are different times and different circumstances," Santoro said Monday. "I don't want to second guess the city. It seems like they are doing everything they can." ...

Even when police do everything, sometimes crimes go unsolved.

The 500 block of Almond Street, where Brandon Lee was killed last week, has seen its share of violence over the years.

In fact, one of the county's oldest unsolved homicides has

its roots in the same block, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department records.

On Sept. 7, 1929, Secundino Rodriguez and Tranquilino

Contreras were drinking together outside a home at 510 Almond St.

There was an argument. Someone produced a tire iron and attacked Rodriguez. The attacker fractured Rodriguez's skull and fled.

A sheriff's homicide investigator filed a report in the case. The "blue book," a bible of sorts for homicide investigators, remained virtually untouched until 1993, when Detective Bill McComas and Sgt. Bill Stoner of the sheriff's Homicide Bureau took a peek at the case.

"The investigator went out, interviewed witnesses and advised suspects of their rights," McComas said at the time. But because they didn't have electronic technology back then, we just have to guess what happened.

No arrest was made and

Contreras, the suspect, was presumed to have fled to Mexico. He was never heard from again, McComas said in 1993 ...

Almost 80 years have passed since Secundino Rodriguez was killed, but hope springs eternal. As evidence, a local high school student is organizing a "Youth Fight for Peace in the 626" in response to the recent violence in Monrovia, Arcadia and Duarte.

Using MySpace bulletins and posting fliers, the plan is to get folks around town to wear white today "to honor fallen angels and help bring a stop to this gang violence."

MONTEREY PARK - A woman was shot and killed Monday, officials said.

The incident was reported about 6:40 p.m. on Newmark at Russell Avenue. The Sheriff' sdepartment originally placed the crime scene at Garvey. It's actually on Russell just south of Newmark.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene,  said Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Ed Hummel.

Detectives from the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau are assisting the Monterey Park Police Department in the investigation, Hummel said.

No further details were available.

At 10: p.m. a television helicopter was hovering above the investigation. Police were out in force on the scene.

 

One Monrovia teen is suggesting her friends wear white Tuesday as a way to promote peace. The quote on a MySpace page devoted to the cause says this: "save our YOUth support the fight for peace in the 626 "

Here's another excerpt from the MySpace page, which can be found here:

As you all know we have been through quite alot these past few weeks.The Monrovia/Duarte gang shootings have left four dead and many injured. We have all been affected by this issue believe it or not, wether you live in Monrovia, Daurte, Arcadia, Pasadena or any other neighboring cities throught the 626 / SGV area ,youve probably head about the shooting. And now, finally farther cities have been informed about our issues.Many of us have lost friends and family memebers.Today I went to visit my probation officer & she asked me what I do with my spare time,(since I only attend two days of school) and I simply replied "nothing really, just wasting time away with friends".She told me "Wasting time,I bet your friends who were killed by the shootings would be very upset to hear you are "wasting time" ".And then issued me 40 hours of community service.So I came here and thought about how I could do a service to my community.Then this idea came to mind.My community is suffering,my peers are dying & our youth is doing alot of "wasting".I got as many of my friends together & told them to spread the word. WE the youth are going to stand strong for each other.

Both of these come from reporter Brian Day, SGVN's crack night cop reporter:

BASSETT — Officials have released the identity of a man found shot and killed inside a trailer Sunday.
Richard Casillas, Jr., a 43-year-old La Puente resident, was pronounced dead shortly before 9 a.m. in the 13800 block of Proctor Avenue, said Los Angeles County coroner’s Lt. Fred Corral.
The shooting is being investigated as a homicide, Corral said.
No further details were available.

ROWLAND HEIGHTS — A man found shot to death last week remained unidentified Monday, officials said.
The body was discovered about 5:30 a.m. in the 18100 block of Los Palacios Drive, sheriff’s officials said.
The dead man, only described as Latino, is believed to have been shot elsewhere and dropped off on Los Palacios Drive, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Maribel Rizo.
Investigators are still investigating the man’s identity through methods such as finger prints and dental records, however he is currently designated John Doe No. 24, said Los Angeles County coroner’s Lt. Fred Corral.
No further details were released.

 

Over at Metroblogging LA, Monrovia resident Frazgo is doing a heck of a job blogging his experiences during the past week. His posts on the subject (and a few more on other topics) can be found here.

My personal favorite of his posts is this one.

Here's a letter I received from Jan Williams.

Her grandson was remembered last week at a library dedication in Hacienda Heights.

Willams son Neal and grandsons Devon and Ian were killed last summer at their condo in Rowland Heights. Neal's wife Man-ling was arrested in connection with the incident. A preliminary hearing in the trial is scheduled for later this month.

Here's an excerpt of Jan's letter, which is the text of her speech at the dedication:

Good Afternoon.  I’m Jan Williams and I am Devon’s Oma.  That’s German for Grandma.  I don’t usually give speeches, so you will have to forgive me if I’m a little bit nervous.  Whenever Devon was nervous, or the center of attention or just didn’t know what to say, he would always say, “Monkey.”  I don’t know why that works, but it seems to defuse tension somehow.  Monkeys are interesting and funny and an image that can bring a smile to your face.  Just like Devon. 

 When Devon was quite small I was studying anthropology at Whittier College.  I would take him with me to the zoo to do field research and he would happily watch lemurs or gibbons or squirrel monkeys for hours while I took notes.  Primates became his first passion, and fed his thirst to know.  You see Devon wanted to know everything.  At first that was everything about monkeys, but that expanded and grew until it became a need to know everything about absolutely every subject that crossed his path.  He was the master of questions, and every answer would spawn 3 or 4 more questions until at last I was forced to say, “Well, I don’t know the answer to that one.  I’ll have to look it up.”  Baseball, early humans, dinosaurs, the stars and planets, insects, ancient Egypt, crab fishing in Alaska – there wasn’t anything that Devon didn’t want to know about.  That’s why there are so many books in Devon’s collection that deal with science, or the habits of animals, or Roman history.  He wanted all the answers and he wanted them to make sense.  Sometimes when he was given a piece of what he felt was an odd or dubious fact he would turn around with a skeptical look and ask another adult, “Is that true?”  When assured that it was he would digest the information for a while.  Then he would say, “Weird!” and move on to the next question.

Since Devon loved to learn, he also loved school.  In fact, he is the only child I ever met who used to count the days until summer vacation was over.  He was in a hurry to get back to his friends, and his teachers and his quest to learn.  And he blossomed here.  You can be proud of the learning environment that you have provided and the wonderful dedicated staff that has put their heart and soul into making sure each child is educated and is able to fulfill his or her potential.  I work at a college, so I see students who are nearing the end of their educational path, who making decisions about their life in the big world beyond.  But none of that is possible for a child who has not had that spark of curiosity nurtured at the very beginning of his or her schooling experience.  Thank you for giving Devon the room to grow.  He was a bundle of raw energy.  I used to tease him that I would duct tape him to his chair at the dinner table so he would stop popping up out of it.  I know it wasn’t easy to harness that little firecracker in a classroom – but oh, what a reward.  If he could have gone to school on the weekends and holidays, he would have done so gladly.  Thank you for that.

When speaking of Devon, I have to also say that he cared about things.  He cared about the other people who crossed his path.  He didn’t want anyone to be sad or left out.  He wanted things to be fair.  Someone once told me that when another child scraped a knee on the playground, it was inevitably Devon who escorted them to the office to get a band aid.  That was him in a nutshell.  I fell on the stairs once, when I was trying to help his younger brother Ian get his head unstuck from between the railings...again.  Whenever I climbed the stairs after that, I would inevitably feel a little hand on the small of my back and hear him say, “Its okay, Oma.  I will help you.”  I’m not sure how skinny little Devon thought he could stop great big Oma from falling down the stairs if I once started to topple over.  Perhaps with his great big heart.  That great big heart would be swelling even greater with pride to see what you have done here to honor him.  He would be pleased to be able to share his precious books with his friends.  He would be excited by the dinosaurs.  And he would say, “Monkey” because everyone was looking at him.  Devon was important to us.  He was important, not because he died, but because he lived.  He lived, and loved, and bounced and acted goofy and that is what he would want us to do.  Monkey.

 

This from reporter Brian Day, who worked on Super Bowl Sunday:

BASSETT - A man was shot and killed in a residential neighborhood Sunday, officials said.

The incident was reported about 8:40 a.m. in the 13800 block of Proctor Avenue, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Luis Castro.

The man was described as a Latino in his mid-30s, and was pronounced dead at the scene, said Los Angeles County Fire Department officials.

The man was found inside a trailer behind a home, officials added.

Detectives from the sheriff's homicide bureau are handling the investigation.

No further details were available.

Not much else was known. We'll keep an eye on it.

Most of us think Super Bowl Sunday means an increase in incidents of domestic violence and a rise on DUIs. Here's one website that has another opinion.

Enjoy the game.

LA Opinion, the Spanish language newspaper has been covering the recent events in Monrovia. I found and translated two articles that may be of interest.

They are here and here.

Additionally, I uncovered a report from Monrovia City Manager Scott Ochoa outlining some history and again giving the city's take on the ongoing situation.

A funeral Mass for Sammantha Salas is underway in Alhambra this morning. Salas mother and father are in attendence as are several hundred mourners who've come to pay their respects. The church is surrounded by Alhambra police and Sheriff's deputies as well as detectives.

One week ago today Salas was gunned down outside an apartment on Peck Road in a section of Monrovia that has seen an uptick in gang violence targeting innocent teens.

Following the service Sammantha will be buried in East Los Angeles.

The offensive posts that crop up here from time to time are a form of what is known as net banging. Please know that they will be removed as soon as they are spotted. If you see something I've missed, send me an email, and I'll deal with it.

Thanks for all your participation this past week.

- Frank

This is something we're trying on the web. The plan is to stream live video from the Town Hall meeting tomorrow. We'll be using this more and more as another way to deliver news and sports.

UPDATE 5:55 p.m. 02/01/08

We will not be broadcasting live from the event, apparently it is not conducive to that sort of coverage. We will be on hand with video and plan to post it as soon as it is processed.

 

Here's what the Arcadia Police are saying:

Crimes: PC  245(a)(2) -- Assault With a Deadly Weapon

Case # 08-0595

For Immediate Release:

On Friday February 1, 2008 at approximately 6:38 A.M. Arcadia Police officers responded to a report of two gunshots int he 100 block La Porte Ave., Arcadia. Further information received indicated that a suspect was seen holding a handgun.

Responding officers discovered shell casings in the alley. An area check was conducted for victims but none were located at this time.

Preliminary investigation revealed that four or five male subjects were involved in a fist fight. One suspect produced a handgun and discharged two rounds. All suspects fled the scene prior to the arrival of Arcadia police officers.

 

 

Yes we make mistakes:

This was in a story of ours posted on the web earlier today:

"The driver, a 61-year-old-man, failed to see the victim and ran his 2003 Saturn into the victim, according to the CHP.

The officers at the scene showed signs of being drunk, and was booked on charges of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, after failing several sobriety tests."

Here's some comments on Topix.

There are two of these that were posted earlier this week. Here's the first one:

 

This is the other:

 

UPDATE 11:11 a.m.

Some early numbers from this story which will be reported more deeply by Jennifer McLain in Saturday's paper. Detectives target the owner of several massage parlors, who apparently lives in Rowland Heights. They busted girls working there then had decoys pose as prostitutes and busted johns as well.

So far detectives are reporting the arrests of 14 johns, six prostitutes and one madame (for keeping a "house of ill fame", which is apparently defined in the California Penal Code)

At our sister paper, the Daily Bulletin, David Allen put together a nice column and several blog entries on things that once were, but aren't now, in the Pomona Valley.

It got me thinking about things that dont' exist any longer in the SGV, and I couldn't come up with a huge list, but there has to be several right?

I'll start my list with the Boat....

Reports of shots fired crackled across the scanner this morning in the news room. Word has it Arcadia and Monrovia are investigating an incident on Colorado...Details to come