stabbing: April 2008 Archives

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." 

The stabbing of a man outside the Scenic Bar and Hotel on Garvey Avenue in El Monte Monday night was the city's seventh this year, according to authorities.

By comparison, at this time last year there were just three homicides in El Monte. What a difference a year makes.

Here's the Tribune's 2007 homicide database that I put together last year. You can search El Monte for the 2007 totals. 

There's a lot of action on the crime beat today. Here's some examples:

Teen to be arraigned in Columbine-style threats posted on Wikipedia.

An El Monte man was stabbed to death outside a Garvey Avenue bar.

A decomposed body was found late Monday off San Gabriel Canyon Road between Azusa and Glendora. (not many details on this yet)

And, there's this video of an ATM robbery in Norwalk:

This from Brian Day...notice Rosenberg's quote about how the Rosemead deputies contributed to the arrest:

ROSEMEAD — Investigators have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of fatally stabbing a local man following an argument Monday.

Jesus Murieta, 29, and Leticia Sanchez, 41, were arrested Wednesay on suspicion of murder, said Lt. Dan Rosenberg of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau. Both suspects are transients, he said.
Murieta and Sanchez are believed to have stabbed 20-year-old Leonel Cervantes in the “upper torso” about 7:30 p.m. in the 2700 block of Delta Avenue, Rosenberg said.

Cervantes died from his wounds about 1:25 a.m. the following day at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, said Los Angeles County Department of Coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter.

Rosenberg declined to say which suspect was believed to have wielded the knife.
The stabbing apparently stemmed from an argument between the suspects and Cervantes that occurred minutes earilier at a nearby park, Rosenberg said.

 

A hearing in the Man-Ling Williams case, scheduled for Wednesday, was postponed to a date in the future that has yet to be determined.

Eventually there will be a preliminary hearing in the case. When that will take place is anybody's guess.

Williams is accused of killing her husband by slashing him to death with a ninja sword last August. She is also accused of killing the couple's two children by smothering them to death in their beds.

The family lived in an apartment/condo in Rowland Heights.