Baldwin Park: May 2008 Archives

I've heard so many different versions of this story today that my head is spinning. City News Service got bad information early from Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau and it spread like a virus through local news outlets.

As an example, KFI had to contend with a deputy at the SHB that was completely unfamiliar with the case. There's a whole story to be told about the decimation of SHB, but I'll save that for another day

In KFI's case the result was that Eric Leonard's story alluded to five men being named suspects in the case. In fact it's two men, one teen boy and two teen girls.

KNBC did a nice job with the wanted part of the story but left out the particulars about the other arrests. (They also used a lot of SGV Tribune copy to round out their tale -- thanks KNBC)

Here's AP's first story as it moved:

Date: 05/28/2008 11:45 PM

BC-CA--911 Killing/160
Eds: APNewsNow.
4 teens arrested, 5th sought for murder during 911 call

Text below is from the Sheriff's wanted poster:

On March 19, 2008 (Wednesday) at 1140 hours, Victim Michelle Hsu was shot and killed by intruders in her Covina Hills home.

The victim was on the telephone with a 911 operator when the suspects killed her to avoid capture and arrest.

After a lengthy investigation, detectives have identified Suspect Victor Manuel Maurtua as one of five suspects involved in the murder.

Suspect Maurtua is a known El Monte Flores gang member and was last known to frequent the Baldwin Park area.

*Update: City News Service has finally picked up on this (even though they had a copy of our story since Saturday). But what's being reported is wrong. The Sheriff's Information Bureau told CNS that there are no other suspects identified and no arrests have been made. CNS is working to correct their report.

Police arrested Baldwin Park School Board member Sergio Corona this morning on suspicion of driving under the influence and felony vandalism. He was apparently breaking windows at a home in the 13900 block of Standstone Street in Baldwin Park.

Police said when they pulled Corona over, he confronted them "shirtless and sweaty" and had to be Tased.

About 24 hours before Wednesday's expected swearing in of a new police chief in Baldwin Park, another resident got murdered.

In a drive-by shooting to be exact. It occurred just blocks from the police department. Remarkable because it's the city's fifth homicide in 2008.

By comparison, at this time last year, Baldwin Park recorded just one slaying.

Welcome to Baldwin Park, "Hub City of the San Gabriel Valley."

A stiff ocean breeze blew in from the Pacific Wednesday. Purple blossoms blew off the Jacarandas and bunched up in the gutter. Dust kicked up and made the intersection of Ramona Boulevard and Merced Avenue seem like an apparition from the Wild West.

It must have sounded like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday evening.

A car with two women and a man approached the intersection from the west and stopped at the light. Another car pulled alongside. Shots rang out. Gunfire struck the man in the stopped car at least once.

By 7 p.m. he was dead and laid out on a slab in a local hospital waiting for relatives to identify him. By all accounts there was no immediate provocation for the slaying.
"But who knows what happened before?" asked Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide Lt. Dan Rosenberg.

Even so, "There were indicators to suggest there were local gangs involved," Rosenberg said. "My guess is that when this all pans out that will be the case."

The upswing in homicides comes as Baldwin Park is in the midst of remaking itself.

Whole blighted neighborhoods that were once filled with seedy pay-by-the-hour motels and ramshackle motor home courts have been torn down.

The fences, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers and parolees have moved on to greener pastures. Families have started taking over affordable housing options that line Ramona and Baldwin Park boulevards.

Recent news stories suggest despite resistance from longtime shop owners, at least one developer holds high hopes for plans to revitalize the city's core via eminent domain and redevelopment.

And yet, as if they lived in a town straight out of a spaghetti western, residents still cower in fear of the gangs that seemingly run the real city.

What usually happens in those old films is that the town's lone sheriff or marshall leaves town and is replaced by a "shoot first, ask questions later" kind of lawman.

The hired new muscle drives out the bad guys and everybody lives happily ever after.

As for the new muscle in Baldwin Park?

Her name is Lili Hadsell, but you can probably call her chief.

Hadsell, who began the year as a lieutenant, likely takes over as the county's third female municipal police chief. After many years working for the Baldwin Park Police Department, Hadsell told reporter Amanda Baumfeld she's ready for the challenges -- even as the town's homicide rate continues to soar and residents remain fearful.

"I am not new to the community," Hadsell said. "Our gang unit has helped with violence and the city is not what it was like 10 years ago. It is relatively safer now. We have a stronger police presence on the street."

In "High Plains Drifter," a bad guy tells new sheriff Clint Eastwood: "Life here's a little too quick ... Maybe you think you're fast enough to keep up with us, huh?"

To which Eastwood responds, "A lot faster than you'll ever live to be."

If only things were that simple in Baldwin Park.

Police say a 22-year-old Baldwin Park resident was shot and killed in an unprovoked attack near the intersection of Ramona and Merced *Tuesday night.

The dead man was riding with two women in a car when the attack occurred. The shooter apparently sped off.

No arrests have been made, detectives said they have no leads in the case.

Baldwin Park Police interim Capt. Lili Hadsell* has been officially named Chief of Police, according to city officials.

As far as I know the appointment of Hartsell would make her just the second woman police chief in the San Gabriel Valley if not Los Angeles County, behind Marilyn Diaz of Sierra Madre.

More at Leftovers.

*Tania Chatila says Hadsell is the county's third female chief. Inglewood's Jacqueline Seabrooks is the second.

Chuck Hubbs, who was the night city editor at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner when I was a copy boy there, always had me running weekend casualty counts.

Every Friday and Saturday, just when I'd be getting ready to leave, he would exhort in his unmistakably deep voice. "Check those wires kid. See how many bodies have piled up."

I'd rip pieces of printer paper from machines that spit out copy from the Metro Wire and City News services and run them back to Chuck so that he could compile a daily body count for an inside page.

Some weekends were slow with one or two slayings. Others seemed quite busy; with eight, 10, even 15 killings.

I wonder how many of those even got solved?

This past weekend undoubtedly would have qualified as a slow one. And yet, it could have been quite deadly.

Young men were injured in shootings in Whittier and Pico Rivera.

A few other teens might have taken bullets in Baldwin Park. But somehow they were luckier than Jose Perez, 16. The Baldwin Park High student was shot to death talking to a friend outside a home in the 5000 block of Maine Avenue Saturday night.

By my count, Perez is the second student from that high school to succumb to gun violence this school year. That seems awfully high.

In November, Baldwin Park High student Luis Estrada, 14, and his father Pedro were gunned down by four attackers in front of their home in the 4000 block of Downing Avenue.

Three teens, all former Baldwin Park students, have been arrested in the case, officials said. A fourth remains at large. Gang rivalry apparently motivated the incident.

As they did in the Estrada case, school administrators promised Monday to provide grief counseling to anyone who needed it at Baldwin Park High School.

"The school will of course do something for the students who need the services," said Lynne Kennedy, associate superintendent for student achievement in the Baldwin Park district.
Although there is absolutely no indication that Perez had gang ties, it's pretty clear his attackers used gang tactics. Witnesses said the men drove slowly north on Maine Avenue. They flipped a U-turn, drove up to Perez and opened fire.

Because Perez had only just enrolled at Baldwin Park, and was killed on a Saturday night far away from campus, Kennedy claimed the slaying reflects more on the community at large than on the high school.

"You have to expect these things," she said. "There's crime in the city and there's going to be fall over to students who attend the school."

Kennedy also claimed that there is no gang problem at Baldwin Park High School, even as she pointed to the city's tenacious problem with three notorious groups.

This morning (as I do most mornings) I know I'll drive along Puente Avenue past Baldwin Park High on my way to work.

I'll watch the kids pass and wonder who is going to college? Who is going to Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Who is going to get married, settle down in town and raise another generation of students?

I'll have another question on my mind this morning though: Who will be the next name in my casualty count?

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From Brian Day's story:

BALDWIN PARK -- A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting Saturday, authorities said.

Jose Perez of Baldwin Park was pronounced dead at the scene of the attack, which was reported about 9:15 p.m. in the 5000 block of Maine Avenue, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Rick Pedroza.

Perez's body was found across the street from a house party in the residential neighborhood, but police don't believe the party and the shooting were related.

A description of the shooter or the shooter's vehicle was not available.

Carlos Sanchez, 28, a life-long area resident, said he was standing with Perez minutes before the shooting occurred.

Sanchez said he had just gone over to the party across the street to get some food when people started shouting about a shooting.