Tuesday's Column

Less than a week after the slaying of 90-year-old Evelyn Mosley at her home on Lincoln Avenue in Altadena, the Board of Supervisors is ready to authorize a reward.

Mosley was found lying in a pool of blood inside her home by firefighters who had responded to reports of smoke. The initial investigation in the case labeled Mosley's death as suspicious.

Later it was determined that she had been slain, and for a few brief hours Friday, the Sheriff's Department thought Mosley's housekeeper might be responsible. They booked the unidentified woman, but cut her loose several hours later, saying she had been "exonerated."

So, from the reward offering we can assume detectives are back at square one with nothing to go on.

I'm interested, though, in the swiftness of the reward offering. It's not clear what is motivating the supervisors, since I couldn't get Michael Antonovich's flack Tony Bell on the phone Monday.

Perhaps this is a good sign for those hoping the supes will also offer a reward in the Sammantha Salas slaying.

You'll remember Salas, 16, was shot to death in a hail of automatic gunfire outside her father's apartment in unincorporated Monrovia in late January. No one has been caught in the case.

Last time I talked to Bell, he blamed the lack of a reward on the detectives investigating Salas' death.

"They know what they are doing," he scolded me. "Who are you to say what is the right investigative technique?"

Since then, I was able to ask Supervisor Gloria Molina about the possibility of offering a reward in the Salas case.

She said she would look into it and hoped Salas' family would contact her office. I haven't heard back.

What's the disparity between the Salas and Mosley cases?

As one of my colleagues asked Monday, "Wouldn't you think that detectives and the supes want to do something about the killing of a 16-year-old who had her whole life in front of her?"

Not yet, apparently.

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Watching television news and reading the paper over the weekend, I suddenly got the feeling that we are all living in Grand Theft Auto IV.

As the title implies, players go around stealing cars. Sticking to the story line can lead to shootouts with cops and drug dealers and police pursuits.

Taking a look at headlines of the past week, all of the violent stuff reads like it came straight from the video game.

Example: In Azusa, Jose Luis Medina, 33, was shot and killed in a street robbery that occurred about 2a.m. Saturday in the 600 block of West Gladstone Street.

Medina was walking with a friend east on Gladstone when a car approached and Medina was shot and killed.

The car and its occupant fled. Like many of the scenarios in GTA, there were no arrests.

Across the county in Inglewood Sunday morning, a couple of officers, believing they were under fire, opened up on a passing car, killing a 19-year-old and injuring the driver. Again there have been no arrests.

In South El Monte on Sunday night, four men apparently affiliated with a local gang were targeted by a gunman for unknown reasons. All four were wounded and taken to an undisclosed hospital. There were no arrests.

Taking such a clinical approach to reading and watching the news removes the fact that in each of these stories, real three-dimensional people were involved.

They had real families, real friends and real hopes and dreams. And no restarts.

Take a look at the jump for an update....