Pasadena: June 2008 Archives

Here's some of Watchara's photos from the Sheriff's mounted patrol Friday night in East Pasadena. As you can see a few people were arrested in the operation. For more photos and details checkout Watchara's photo gallery.

Photographer Watchara Phomicinda called to say the mounted posse prostitute roundup on Colorado Boulevard made for some great photographs.

A reporter and cameraman from KCBS/KCAL showed up after their assignment editor read about the event here earlier today. Very similar to what happened after we reported on the mythical Pasadena Panty Bandit.

Watchara said it didn't appear that any arrests were made, but some registered sex offenders living in a East Colorado hot sheet were rousted by deputies on horseback.

"It was great," Watchara said.

I'll have some of his photos up here Saturday.

There's a mounted Sheriff's posse patroling Colorado Boulevard in east Pasadena they're on the lookout (and perhaps out to) prevent prostitution along the corridor according to Crime Scene sources.

The posse's been at work since 3 p.m. and may stay out and visible until sundown officials said.

Turns out we may have been pursuing an urban myth.

Reporter Serene Branson, of KCBS/KCAL, told me that she was assigned to look into the case of the Pasadena "Panty Bandit" after a producer at the station read a blog entry here earlier today.

So Serene calls the Pasadena cops and they tell her the story is a rumor. A detective there said he polled all the detectives in the department and none are looking into reports of a "Panty Bandit" raiding dressers and closets in upper-class neighborhoods.

"An urban myth," she said. "They said a similar story circulated around town about a month ago."

Maybe it's a good thing we only considered the story a brief. Here's the "Gridiron Girls" blog, which has a page devoted to Serene and an interview. 

I don't know the full details of this story, but it's among several proposed to run in the Star-News Thursday morning. Here's what we will report:

A local burglar has been rummaging through some upper class Pasadena homes, but he is not after jewels or gold. This thief has been stealing women's underwear and fleeing the scene, police and residents say.

Here's a plan to keep at-risk kids off drugs, away from gangs and out of trouble.

Invite a tattooed, baggy pants "gangsta" rapper to meet a classroom full of impressionable high schoolers.

Make sure his biography includes jail time. Make sure he's been hit by gunfire. Make sure he brags about having pulled drive-bys.

Make it clear that his conviction for carrying a loaded firearm in a school zone is no big deal. Make sure he brings a posse known for packing their gats.

Guns belong in schools right?

Believe it or not, at Muir High School in Pasadena Tuesday, Amer-I-Can brought rapper Jayceon Terrell Taylor, a.k.a "The Game" , a.k.a. "Chuck Taylor" to speak to 50 kids who are part of Mustangs on the Move.

The program, which also consists of Mentoring Partnership for Youth Development, targets students at risk of dropping out, according to its organizers.

Organizers of the Muir event claim "The Game" was all about mentoring.

Take Game's advice, "I just want you to stay alive," for example.

Of course his music is full of instruction. Like the rap on "Real Gangstaz"

"The kid roll with a greasy nine/come through and blast/I return shots like Arthur Ashe/You do the math/ ten shots ten dead bodies/(expletive) bein' sorry/it ain't nuttin' but a gangsta party."

A few years back, I remember talking to Colin Powell before a speech at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

The former U.S. Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talked about the importance of volunteerism and mentoring. His examples didn't include role models like "The Game."

He talked about real adults helping real kids learn to tackle real problems.

In an interview, the retired 4-star Army general said his ultimate goal was "to surround our children with responsible caring adults and let our children grow up in safe places where they are protected from some of the dangers out there on the streets."

I hoped to ask Pasadena school Superintendent Edwin Diaz if "The Game" held similarly lofty goals for the children and teens of Pasadena.

I wanted to ask, "Why 'The Game?'

"Why not City Councilwoman Jacque Robinson? Why not potential First Lady Michelle Obama? Why not Powell? Why not U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? Why not former Deputy District Attorney Chris Darden? Why not former Pasadena police Lt. Rick Law?

"Why not one of the thousands of successful black men and women who live or work in Pasadena every day?"

Unfortunately I didn't get a call back. It was graduation day for about 60 percent of the kids who started there as freshmen four years ago.

The other 40 percent?

Probably off somewhere listening to "The Game."

Robert Hong took this really touching photo near the intersection of Lincoln and Washington in Pasadena following a car accident Monday night that killed two men and critically injured a third.

Here's an excerpt from Hong's story:

PASADENA - Vyleece Goudeau and her 11-month-old son walked slowly Tuesday morning through shattered glass strewn along the north side of West Washington Boulevard, near Lincoln Avenue.

At that spot hours earlier, a car crash claimed the life of Goudeau's boyfriend, James Valentine, 21, and another man.

With tears flowing down her cheeks, Goudeau took a piece of chalk and wrote out the words, "We love you dad" on the pavement.

"I will always love him," Goudeau said. "He was a good dad. I'm going to miss him, and I will never forget him."

Her boyfriend, known to his friends as "Kenny," and another man, whose name was not released on Tuesday by police, were killed in the 9:45 p.m. crash Monday night.

A third man, Delenor Griffin, 27, of Pasadena remained in critical condition.

"It was such a short life," said Valentine's aunt, Karen McPheeters, one of many relatives and friends who showed up to place memorials and pay their respects.

"A collision with a couple of deaths," according to Lt. John Dewar of the Pasadena Police Department.

Apparently the accident occurred at the intersection of Lincoln and Washington about 9:45 p.m.

No further details were immediately available.

The collision followed reports of a "vehicle over the side" on Glendora Mountain Road. That incident apparently also ended with at least one fatality, officials said.

A teenager was stabbed to death Sunday night in Pasadena, police said Monday.

The teen, identified as Osman Villalobos, 18,  was attacked about 9:40 p.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of Iowa Avenue and died at a hospital about an hour later, Lt. John Dewar of the
Pasadena PD told reporters.

A suspect in the case, Pasqual Diaz, 22, was arrested early Monday morning when he was foud hiding at a friends house, officials said.

The stabbing stemmed from an argument that turned into a fistfight before it turned deadly, Dewar said.

Villalobos was stabbed several times in the chest and in the side of the rib cage, authorities said.

Big Brown's shot for glory in the Belmont got me thinking about a horse named Charismatic, a horse that truly had an opportunity for greatness only to break down in the stretch of the Belmont in 1999 and finish third.

That after winning both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness....

Charsimatic got me thinking about jockey Patrick Valenzuela, one of the most troubled, yet charismatic, jocks ever to ride at Santa Anita or Hollywood Park.

Valenzuela's struggles with substance abuse, suspension, and a robbery accusation, only highlight the demons some riders face.

If anyone had his share of demons, it was Charismatic's rider Chris Antley, "the Ant Man."

It was Chris Antley's heroic move jumping from Charismatic's back in the Belmont stretch that saved the injured horse's life. Sadly Antley's own life was cut short when he died in Pasadena in 2000.

The case was initially treated as a homicide, but for some reason Pasadena police dropped their investigation after learning Antley had ingested a toxic cocktail of illegal substances that may have contributed to his death.

In the course of researching a column for Friday's paper, I ended up interviewing Munir Sirhan, brother of Sirhan Sirhan, the accused assassin of Robert F. Kennedy who died 40 years ago Friday.

Munir had some interesting things to say and introduced me to some people who believe there's more to his brother's story than the lone gunman narrative.

Among those taking up Munir's cause are Summer Reese, who is affiliated with KPFK radio, and Dr. William Pepper, who has a pretty interesting history of his own, and knew both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

Pepper and several other researchers interested in the Kennedy assassination are getting together tonight near LAX to discuss new theories and information that's become available in recent months.

Here's a YouTube video about the organization known as COPA.  

Thursday was Pasadena Star-News education reporter Caroline An's birthday.

She celebrated in style apparently with a cake and a Tiara.

Notice the absence of foil balloons

KFI's John and Ken are headed to Pasadena to protest a state Sen. Jack Scott bill that would eliminate balloons made of foil.

This little note is at the bottom of their announcement:

*Please be responsible balloon holders. The release of balloons is NOT encouraged.

Cops are looking for a woman who stole almost 800 lottery tickets from a La Crescenta gas station and tried to cash a few of 'em at a Pasadena store a few hours later.

The tickets were reported stolen on May 30 about 5 a.m., officials said.  Apparently the theft was the result of a smash and grab that netted about 4 Grand in food and the lottery tickets.

A security video making the rounds this morning, shows the same woman in both locations.

Detectives described the suspect as Hispanic, about 25- 30, 5 feet 3 inches tall and 160 pounds, with long dark hair.

Herbert McClain, Jr. Lorenzo Newborn and Karl Holmes were convicted for their roles in the shooting deaths of three innocent teens on Halloween night 1993. All were members of the P9 set of of PDL. They set out to avenge a shooting earlier Halloween night and throught the trick-or-treaters were members of the Altadena Block Crip gang.

I covered the original shooting and subsequently attended the entire criminal trial and both penalty phases. The History Channel treatment of the case is as good as any treatment. This is part one of five parts.

When former candidate for mayor, Aaron Proctor, (whose site is linked
to on this blog) posted this defamatory post about me - which included
ugly graphic sexual slander - the Pasadena blogging community was
completely silent.

http://www.proctorformayor.com/2008/05/22/step-by-step-heart-to-heart-left-right-left-we-all-fall-down/

I think we have lost the ability to see "hate". I mean, if this post
isn't hate, what is? Does the right to "Free Speech" cover...this?
No, I do not think it does.

The weird thing was, what made Proctor so angry was my writing about my
research on Rene Amy. I hadn't even mentioned Proctor, yet he reacted
to it like he himself had been "stung".

Why?