SGV: April 2008 Archives
This comes from our sister paper in Northern California, the San Jose Mercury. I'm posting a link here because there is a Duarte connection as you will see in the snippet below:
They were the gang that shot straight but could not do much else. The killers of Mark Achilli pumped seven slugs into his body, truly finishing the popular Los Gatos man's life. But in the police affidavit that was released on Friday, the accused killers emerged as the ultimate bumblers: Guys who badly mixed technology with an old-fashioned crime conspiracy.
Two blocks from the scene of the March 14 shooting, police found two items that were key to solving the case: an AOL-generated map showing directions from an unlisted address in Duarte, Calif., to Achilli's town house on Overlook Road, and also a crumpled photo of Achilli downloaded from Metroactive.com.
The find was almost as good as fingerprints. It allowed detectives to put pressure on the man believed to be the pivot of the conspiracy, bar bouncer Daniel Chaidez. When Chaidez lied to the cops, it got sweeter.
Did anyone in this gang ever watch "The Sopranos"? Did any of them see Tony Soprano hunched over a computer, printing out directions to the home of his next victim? Fuggedaboudit. It just wouldn't happen.
El Monte police found themselves in the middle of a bona-fide crime wave earlier this week. Bethania Palma pieced it all together for an article that ran in today's Tribune. Crime Scene gotta give a shout out to Detective Ralph Batres, who rolled to all the incidents described below and found time to answer his telephone in the process.
Here's an excerpt from Bethania's report:
EL MONTE - A stabbing, a shooting, three search warrants leading to a major pot bust and a bomb scare involving 30 pounds of TNT.
It's a roll call of major crime that sounds like it could fit neatly into a busy month for any police department.
But in El Monte, those calls made up part of a frantic 48 hours that saw police handle two homicides - making arrests in both cases; bust up a $2 million pot operation 15 miles away in Rowland Heights; and swiftly clear a neighborhood endangered by 30 pounds of TNT.
"We have a very active city," said police Chief Ken Weldon. "It's a challenge to stay on top of it."
Well, most of the SGV area anyway. For some reason Valinda has not been mapped. Don't know why just yet.
In the meantime, here's a scene from a drive on the 605. Enjoy.
View Larger Map
FRANK GIRARDOT
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