The mother of a mentally ill homeless man who died after he was beaten by Fullerton police has reached a settlement with the city that will pay her $1 million, officials announced Tuesday evening.

The agreement unanimously approved by the Fullerton City Council resolves Cathy Thomas’ legal claims against the city involving the death of Kelly Thomas, 37. He died July 10, five days after his violent confrontation with Fullerton Police Department officers.

Thomas reached the settlement after voluntary mediation with her attorney, city officials said.

“Resolution of Ms. Thomas’ claim at this time allows her to begin the healing process and avoid what would likely be protracted, expensive and difficult civil litigation,” Thomas and the city said in a joint statement.

The brutal confrontation, which was captured on surveillance video paired with audio from devices worn by the officers, has rocked the north Orange County city. Thomas’ death became a rallying point that sparked a mass protest movement and led to the departure of a police chief and a planned recall election next month against three council members.

The settlement does not resolve a claim filed by Thomas’ father, Ron Thomas, for damages. Ron and Cathy Thomas are divorced.

Ron Thomas has pushed strongly to have the six officers involved in the incident fired and tried on criminal charges.

An Orange County Superior Court judge found last week that there was enough evidence for two of those officers to stand trial. Officer Manuel Ramos, 38, will be tried on charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter; Cpl. Jay Cicinelli, 40, will face trial on involuntary manslaughter and excessive force charges.

The ruling, which followed an emotionally charged hearing, means that Ramos could be the first police officer in modern Orange County history to be tried for murder for on-duty actions.

The video of the confrontation between Kelly Thomas and the officers was shown for the first time during the three-day preliminary hearing. The footage shows Thomas on the ground, screaming, as officers pile on top of him and hit him with fists, a baton and finally the butt of a stun gun.

Before the beating, the video showed Ramos growing visibly frustrated as a shirtless Thomas, sitting on a curb while detained by the officers investigating reports of someone trying to break into cars at the downtown transit center, failed to follow commands to put his legs out in front of him and his hands on his knees.

At one point, Ramos put on a pair of gloves and told Thomas, “See these fists? They’re getting ready to f— you up, if you don’t f— start listening.”

Brian Gurwitz, the attorney for Cathy Thomas, said late Tuesday that his client hopes the settlement will help “continue the healing process that she and the citizens of this county are going through, including the many honorable members of Orange County’s law enforcement community.”

But, he added, “to lose a son at the hands of rogue police officers is an indescribable horror. There is nothing this council could ever do to compensate her for the loss she’s suffered.”

The bank robber called the Well-Dressed Bandit is changing his expensive threads for prison garb.

Anthony Burgess, 30, of San Diego, was sentenced Tuesday to four years and three months in federal prison after pleading guilty to the nine bank robberies that the FBI called the Well-Dressed Bandit series because of the robber’s taste in clothes.

Under a plea agreement accepted by federal Judge Michael Anello, Burgess will pay $48,024 in restitution to the banks.

Burgess was arrested after an off-duty police officer saw him leaving the scene of the ninth robbery in a late-model Mercedes.

–Tony Perry in San Diego

LA Times

A $2,000 pair of pocket pistols and a military rocket launcher — sans rocket — were among the 1,673 firearms that Los Angeles residents traded in for gift cards in the city’s gun buyback this weekend.

Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed off an array of handguns, rifles, shotguns, rifles and assault weapons collected at six locations and piled before them Monday at a news conference outside the Los Angeles Police Department Administration Building.

Some of the weapons were functional and some were not, they said, but most still had lethal potential.

“You’re not hunting ducks with this stuff,” Villaraigosa said. “Too often, these weapons are used to hunt and shoot down people — and that is why we are here today.”

Gun owners traded their unwanted firearms for gift cards from Ralphs or Visa — up to $100 for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and up to $200 for assault weapons. Participants could turn in guns anonymously, with no questions asked.

This year’s buyback, an initiative of the mayor’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development Office, yielded 791 handguns, 527 rifles, 302 shotguns and 53 assault weapons, including one with a 50-round clip and silencer. Last year the effort netted 2,062 firearms.

The buyback includes an educational outreach campaign involving police, gang prevention and intervention agencies, and community and religious leaders.

“In the four years we have been doing this, we have taken almost 8,000 weapons off the streets of Los Angeles,” Beck said, adding that gun violence has dropped nearly 20%.

Despite such efforts, there still are an estimated 3 million firearms in Los Angeles, Beck said.

He said he has “no problem” with legal gun ownership, but that unwanted firearms are often an attractive nuisance and can fall into the hands of people who might do harm to themselves or others with them.

“Your homes are safer without unwanted guns,” he said.

Dramatic details emerged from grand jury testimony unsealed in the massacre at the Seal Beach hair salon that left nine people dead.

The transcripts, released Thursday, described a desperate scene when the gunman began opening fire in the bloodiest shooting rampage in Orange County history.

In the pandemonium of people scrambling to escape, Kenneth Caleb saw a lone, limping figure possessed of a strange calm.

PHOTOS: Seal Beach shooting

Caleb was staring out the window of Patty’s Place, the Seal Beach restaurant where he went for lunch that day in October. Moments earlier, a terrified employee at the Salon Meritage next door had rushed into the restaurant screaming one phrase over and over:

“Call the police, he’s shooting everybody!”

Caleb heard gunshots. Through the glass door, he could see the scene outside the salon. There were “people running everywhere … a bunch of chaos of people running around,” he told a grand jury in January.

Amid the commotion, he saw one man with a limp move casually through the parking lot, his shoulders square, his gaze cast downward with “zero expression on his face.”

It reminded Caleb of a man strolling in a park. “I am trying to put the picture together,” Caleb testified. “I thought he was a derelict and he just didn’t understand what was going on, and he was putting himself in harm.”

The man turned out to be Scott Dekraai, the 42-year-old former tugboat crewman accused of opening fire in the hair salon, shooting customers and employees alike. He’s now charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in the massacre. He has pleaded not guilty.
Police say Dekraai was bent on revenge against his 48-year-old ex-wife, Michelle Fournier, when he entered a side door of the crowded Pacific Coast Highway salon just after 1 p.m. last Oct. 12.

The couple had divorced in 2007 and fought bitterly over custody of their 8-year-old son. Gordon Gallego, a hairstylist who thought of his salon coworkers as “my family,” said he would see Fournier come to work upset by the toll of the fight.

He also knew the face of the man on the other end of that court battle. He had been to Christmas parties and birthday parties with Dekraai, and a month before had seen him drop off his son at the salon.

So he recognized Dekraai when he walked into the salon that afternoon and headed toward the shampoo bowls, he told the grand jury.

At one of the bowls, Fournier was shampooing the hair of Christy Wilson, 47, a salon employee and mother of three. “I heard him blurt out, ‘This is what you wanted,’ or ‘This is how you wanted it,’ and started shooting both girls,” Gallego said.

Both Fournier and Wilson were killed. Gallego said he grabbed a coworker, fled to a bathroom in the back of the salon and tried to hide behind a toilet as he heard “constant screaming and gunshots” from the other room.

Gallego said he heard Laura Elody, a 46-year-old stylist and newlywed, banging on the door of the facial room, trying to escape the slaughter. Then he heard her lean against the door of the bathroom where he was hiding.

“You don’t have to do this, please don’t kill me,” he recalled her saying.

Then came the sound of gunshots. “I heard her take her last breath,” Gallego said.

After a few minutes, when the gunshots had faded and it seemed safe to come out, Gallego testified that he tried to push the bathroom door open, but Elody’s body was blocking it, forcing him to climb onto a sink and over her body.

The salon was covered with the dead or dying, he said.

The 14-year-old boy who allegedly shot and killed his father, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, was angry after being disciplined for misbehaving, according to law enforcement sources.

Fueled by anger, the boy grabbed a handgun, sources believe, and fatally shot his father, Myron W. Chisem, as the father sat watching television Wednesday evening. Investigators are continuing to examine the events leading to the shooting.

Chisem, 42, who was in the family room, was hit once in the head by the shot fired from his Carson backyard. The father might not have seen the shot coming because he was seated with his back to the window, according to one of the sources.

The son called 911, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said, and deputies found Chisem’s ICE-issued handgun in the front yard. The sources declined to specify whether the teen admitted shooting his father when he made the initial call.

About eight hours later, the teen was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder.

“This was a domestic violence incident,” Lt. Holly Francisco of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. Authorities did not identify Chisem’s son by name and said the motive was unclear.

Shawn Butler, a friend of Chisem, told The Times on Thursday that there “was never any indication” of trouble between Chisem and his son. He said the boy had moved in with his father less than a year ago after a family agreement.

“They had a great relationship,” Butler said. “He was very proud of his son. He loved him very much. … All the time I had been around them I had never seen any kind of issues of tension between them.”

Francisco said Chisem’s girlfriend also lived in the home, but she returned to the 19300 block of Broadacres Avenue after police arrived. Authorities said that after questioning the teen and the woman for most of the night, the boy was arrested about 5 a.m. Thursday.

“This is a difficult time for the family and loved ones of the agent, and for everyone at ICE,” ICE Director John Morton said in a statement. “Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.”

It was the second fatal shooting of an ICE agent in the Los Angeles area this year.

Elected officials are demanding answers after Daniel Chong, a 23-year-old UC San Diego student, was left unattended for five days in a Drug Enforcement Administration detention cell.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called on U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for an “immediate and thorough” Department of Justice investigation into the matter.

“After the investigation is completed, I ask that you please provide me with the results and the actions the department will take to make sure those responsible are held accountable and that no one in DEA custody will ever again be forced to endure such treatment,” she wrote.

The DEA apologized Wednesday to Chong, who was accidentally left unattended in a holding cell for five days and reportedly drank his own urine to survive.

San Diego attorney Gene Iredale said his client was “still recovering” from the ordeal. The attorney submitted the initial paperwork needed for a lawsuit Wednesday. The claim seeks $20 million in compensation for the incident.

“He is glad to be alive,” Iredale said of Chong. “He wants to make sure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

News of the incident came to light when Chong told a San Diego television station he spent nearly a week in the cell without food, water or access to a toilet after an April 21 raid on a house in San Diego.

The DEA, which identified Chong only as “the individual in question,” said he and eight others were swept up during a raid of a suspected Ecstasy distribution operation, where agents found guns, ammunition, 18,000 Ecstasy pills and other drugs.

The nine suspects were taken to a DEA area headquarters, where they were fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed, the agency said. After processing, seven were taken to a county detention facility and one was released.

Chong, the agency said, was “accidentally left in one of the cells.” He told NBC San Diego he kicked the door “many, many times” in a futile attempt to get agents’ attention.

When they finally found Chong, he was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he stayed for five days. Iredale said Chong, who was close to kidney failure and had trouble breathing, spent three of those days in the intensive care unit.

Chong also suffered hallucinations and “thought he was going insane,” Iredale said. Chong told NBC San Diego he tried to kill himself by breaking his glasses and cutting his wrists.

“I didn’t care if I died,” he told the station. “I was completely insane.”
William R. Sherman, acting special agent in charge of the DEA’s San Diego Division, apologized in a statement Wednesday and said he had ordered “an extensive review” of DEA policies and procedures.

“I am deeply troubled by the incident that occurred here last week,” Sherman said. “I extend my deepest apologies [to] the young man and want to express that this event is not indicative of the high standards that I hold my employees to.”

The DEA said Chong told agents he had been at the house that was raided “to get high with his friends” and later admitted that he used a white powdery substance found in his cell that tested positive for methamphetamine.

Iredale confirmed Chong had stayed with friends the night of April 20 to “celebrate” the day heralded by many marijuana aficionados “in the typical way — by smoking some pot.”

But the attorney said the meth found in the cell was not his client’s and was there before his arrival.

“The DEA’s protocol was so sloppy that somebody who was a previous prisoner secreted a small amount of meth in a plastic bag inside a blanket,” Iredale said.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wants a congressional investigation.

The incident occurred near 4th and Hill streets when some protesters appeared to swarm a smaller number of LAPD officers, who in turn called for backup.

A police official said a female officer was struck in the head with a skateboard and taken to a hospital. The impact of the blow dented her helmet, the official said, but her injury appears not to be life-threatening.

PHOTOS: May Day protest

Overall, however, officials said most of the thousands of protesters were nonviolent.

Angry protesters chanted with their fists in the air after officers refused to let them through a street that leads to the Civic Center. Almost 1,000 protesters marched uphill through the Financial District, looped through Bank of America and were trying to push their way back downhill when officers turned them away.

Officers issued a call for help at 4th and Hill streets at about 4:20 p.m. when protesters, many from the Occupy movement, began circling officers and chanting, “We are the 99%.” The crowd swelled as officers arrived by bicycle, motorcycle and on foot to quell the brewing confrontation.

The crowd quickly calmed down.

“I think this is the end,” said Timothy Murphy, 29, of Pasadena, who met up with the East caravan of the Occupy movement earlier.

“It was a beautiful march until on our way back down,” he said.

Another skirmish was reported at the corner of Olympic Boulevard 9th Street.

LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said he was not aware of any arrests in downtown L.A.

Traffic is expected to remain jammed in parts of downtown through the evening, with many streets subject to closure.

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‘Octomom’ Nadya Suleman: I’ve hit ‘rock bottom’ with bankruptcy
May 1, 2012 | 11:08 am

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“Octomom” Nadya Suleman said her bankruptcy filing and possible eviction have left her and her children at “rock bottom.

“I don’t think you can get farther, deeper down into the rock bottom than we are at this point,” Suleman told HLN in an interview. “[My kids] are healthy [and] safe. They don’t feel it. I do. All the weight is on my shoulders … we cannot afford our home at this present time.”

In filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in Orange County Superior Court on Monday, Suleman said in court papers that her debts could approach $1 million.

In court documents reviewed by the Orange County Register, Suleman said she had $50,000 in assets and up to $1 million in debts. She reported she owes more than $30,000 in back payments on her home.

“I have had to make some very difficult decisions this year, and filing Chapter 7 was one of them,” Suleman said in a statement released by her spokeswoman. “But I have to do what is best for my children, and I need a fresh start.”

Her La Habra home could be auctioned off and Suleman and her 14 children, including the octuplets for whom she received her nickname, could face eviction if the house is sold.

A $200,000 yellow Lamborghini owned by celebrity chef Guy Fieri and stolen from a San Francisco car dealership was found in a Point Richmond storage unit, police said Monday.

The 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo was stolen in March 2011 from a dealership on Van Ness Avenue when a thief rappelled from the roof, entered through a window and drove away in the car, police said, according to CBS Channel 5 in San Francisco.

Surveillance video obtained from the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin County town of Tiburon showed the Lamborghini driving by after the theft, but the car was not found until Saturday when Marin County sheriff’s investigators stumbled upon it while searching a storage unit in Point Richmond.

The unit belonged to a 17-year-old boy who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of a shooting into an occupied car in Mill Valley earlier this month, according to the sheriff’s office.

San Francisco police spokesman Officer Albie Esparza confirmed Monday the Lamborghini found in the storage unit was the same one stolen from the dealership.

Fieri, who hosts various TV shows, could not be reached for comment.

LA Times

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to shield Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca from being sued for racial gang violence in the jails he supervises.

The justices without comment turned down an appeal from the county’s lawyers, who argued Baca cannot be held personally liable for the stabbing of an inmate since he had no personal involvement in the incident.

Instead, the court let stand a decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Baca can be sued for “deliberate indifference” to the inmate’s rights since he was on notice of the jailhouse violence and failed to take action to stop it.

Dion Starr says he was stabbed 23 times by Latino gang members at the Central Men’s Jail in 2006. He also says he was kicked in the face by a guard who saw the incident and refused to come to his aid. In his suit, Starr named Baca as well as the guards and deputies who were at the scene.

Sonia Mercado, a lawyer for Starr, said it is important that the county sheriff be named in the suit.

“Unless the supervisor is held accountable, nothing will change. This horrendous misconduct will continue,” she said.

Timothy Coates, a Los Angeles lawyer, appealed to the high court in December, urging the justices to throw out the claim against the sheriff. He said plaintiffs’ lawyers try to win big damages judgments by naming top officials, whether or not they had a personal role in the actual case.

“If you are the head of an agency, you are a big target, and you can get dragged into lots of lawsuits,” he said.

Judges in California had been split over whether there was enough evidence for the suit against Baca to go forward. U.S. District Judge George Wu in Los Angeles threw out the claim against the sheriff in 2008, since there was no evidence personally linking Baca to the jailhouse stabbing.

The Supreme Court in 2009 also made it harder to sue top officials. In a 5-4 decision, it threw out a suit against former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft seeking to hold him liable for the arrest and jailhouse beating of Muslim men following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The court said plaintiffs need specific facts showing a top supervisor was directly involved in a constitutional violation. Afterward, a divided 9th Circuit allowed the suit against Baca to go forward.

– David Savage in Washington
LA Times