OC Crime Alert: Huntington Beach Standoff, Westminster Coffee House Shooting, Girl Kept as Slave, Knotts Berry Farm Ride Malfunction
September 24, 2012Man arrested after SWAT team standoff in H.B.
HUNTINGTON BEACH – A report of a stolen vehicle led to a three-hour police standoff and the arrest of an armed man in connection with a string of charges, police said.
Huntington Beach police officers approached a man suspected of being in a stolen vehicle at Heil Avenue and Gothard Street around 9:45 a.m., but he fled on foot into a nearby business, Lt. Kelly Rodriguez said. He barricaded himself as its occupants left.
A SWAT team responded and officers convinced the man to come out by 1 p.m., Rodriguez said. He was transported to a hospital, then later arrested and booked, Rodriguez said.
John Moreno was arrested on suspicion of burglary, unlawful possession of a firearm, stealing a vehicle, being under the influence of a controlled substance, driving while under the influence of a controlled substance and resisting arrest.
Randy McDonald, the owner of nearby Books at Sandcastle, said the standoff took place at Galla Telecommunications. Snipers were positioned around the business, but McDonald heard no shots fired.
“It was definitely scary,” he said.
Man shot in face in Westminster coffeehouse
WESTMINSTER – A man was taken to the hospital in critical condition after being shot in the face inside a coffeehouse late Friday, police said.
Police responded at 11:16 p.m. Friday to reports that a gun had been fired at the Cutie Lounge coffeehouse, inside a two-story Westminster strip mall at 9191 Bolsa Ave., Westminster police Officer Alan Aoki said.
No victims or suspects were identified at the scene, but within minutes police were notified that a shooting victim had been brought to Fountain Valley Hospital’s emergency room by a private party, Aoki said.
The victim, whose identity was not released, was moved to UCI Medical Center in Orange in critical condition, Aoki said.
Police, who worked overnight Friday interviewing witnesses, have a suspect, Aoki said.
No one had been arrested as of Saturday morning, and police were continuing to interview witnesses, Aoki said.
“It’s possible not all witnesses remained on scene after the shooting,” Aoki said. “There are usually numerous witnesses to be followed up with.”
Aoki said police were examining the possibility the shooter was in a gang. The victim was not believed to be affiliated with a gang, Aoki said.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Westminster police at 714-898-3315, or to leave an anonymous tip with Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855-TIPS-OCCS or crimestoppers.org.
Egyptian who held girl as slave in Irvine still in U.S.
An Egyptian man convicted with his wife of keeping a young girl as a slave in their Irvine home has not been deported since getting out of prison in 2009.
From August 2000 to April 2002, Abdel Nasser Youssef Ibrahim and his ex-wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-Abd El Motelib, held a 10-year-old girl, also an Egyptian national, as their personal maid, keeping her out of school and forcing her to sleep on a bare, dirty mattress in a windowless garage.
The story of the girl, Shyima Hall, took a happy turn last December when the 22-year-old became a naturalized U.S. citizen – a key step toward her goal of becoming a federal immigration agent. She had been living in Beaumont and attending college.
But the story of the Egyptian couple, who were living in the United States on non-immigrant visas at the time they kept Hall as a slave, remains unresolved.
Nassar and Motelib, now divorced, were convicted in 2006 of involuntary servitude, forced labor, conspiracy and harboring an illegal immigrant, and were sentenced to 36 months and 22 months in prison, respectively. At the time of their sentencing, their five children – then ages 10 through 18 – agreed to leave the country.
Upon completion of her sentence in 2008, Motelib was deported to her native Egypt. But Ibrahim, who got out of prison in 2009, was not immediately deported. In August 2011, an immigration judge ruled that Ibrahim could stay in the United States as long as he regularly reports to immigration authorities.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Orange County offered little details on why Ibrahim wasn’t returned to Egypt. The agency issued the following statement regarding Ibrahim’s post-prison status:
“An immigration judge ruled that Mr. Nassar was deportable, but granted him relief from removal. After the court’s decision, (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) released Mr. Nassar from custody under an order of supervision and he is subject to regular reporting requirements.”
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice declined to elaborate.
Based on public records, Ibrahim may be living in Mission Viejo. A man with the same name with a former address that matches the Irvine home where Hall was held captive lives in an apartment there, records show.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review could not provide details on the immigration judge’s decision. Such proceedings typically are open to the public, but a judge can decide to close the hearing in cases in which someone is applying for asylum, for relief from removal, or when seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture.
Hall could not be reached for comment, and officials with the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the agency that prosecuted the couple, did not respond to requests for comment.
According to a federal indictment, Ibrahim and Motelib kept Hall in their home through “extortionate threats” against her sister in Egypt. The couple then arranged through a third party to fraudulently obtain a visa for Hall so she could travel to the United States.
In addition to prison time, Nassar and Motelib both were ordered to pay $76,000 to Hall for her work for the family. In previous interviews, Hall told the Register she planned to save some of the money – a total of $152,000 – and use the rest to pay for her education.
State shuts Knott’s ride for investigation
BUENA PARK – State officials indefinitely shut a Knott’s Berry Farm ride while they investigate two incidents in which visitors were stranded hundreds of feet in the air for hours, a problem that also occurred in other parks.
Windseeker was closed Wednesday night after 20 visitors were stuck 300 feet above the ground for almost four hours while crews tried to fix a brake malfunction. State inspectors were investigating a Sept. 7 incident in which 15 people were trapped on the ride for three hours because of an electrical problem.
The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health plans to look at the technical causes of the incidents, as well why visitors were stuck for so long. The ride will remain closed during the investigation, but it is uncertain how long the closure will last.
“That’s a long time to be on a ride,” said Erika Monterroza, a division spokeswoman. “And part of what we’re going to be looking at (is) working with the park to get a process in place to evacuate the patrons more quickly.”
The same Windseeker ride also has stranded passengers at parks in North Carolina and Ohio. Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., Knott’s Berry Farm’s parent company, built Windseeker rides in six of its parks in 2011 and 2012. The Knott’s ride opened Aug. 24, 2011.
Windseeker takes riders in swing-like chairs about 300 feet in the air, where they whirl at up to a 45-degree angle. Windseeker was manufactured by Mondial, a Netherlands-based ride company that began in 1987. An email message sent to Mondial was not returned Thursday.
Stacy Frole, a Cedar Fair spokeswoman, said the ride has a manual process to bring down vehicles when the safety system is triggered, which happened at the three parks.
“Unfortunately, in this situation, it’s just a manual process at this point of time,” Frole said. “If there’s an opportunity to improve it, we’d definitely look at this.”
In Buena Park, available rescue cranes are too short to reach riders: The Orange County Fire Authority’s aerial ladders go up about 100 feet – 200 feet shy of the passengers. If a rider were suffering from a medical emergency, firefighters would have had to use a helicopter hoist as a rescue tool.
“We were ready to respond if they needed us,” Capt. Marc Stone said. Police were not called to the scene.
Jennifer Blazey, a Knott’s spokeswoman, said park crews worked to resolve the incident.
About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a brake froze and stopped the ride. Crews used a crank to manually raise the seats to the top, where they got stuck. Mechanics had to climb to the top of the ride to get the brake to release, Monterroza said. The riders got down about 7:45 p.m.
Some visitors described a scary situation Wednesday. The riders got free chicken dinners and T-shirts, Blazey said.
“I’m just happy to be on the ground,” said Abbie Bocchini, a girl on a video for Focal Point on Wednesday. “We were up there a few hours. My family. … I couldn’t stop thinking of them. I couldn’t contact them until I got down.”
Mother Cybill Giacomaro waited on the ground while her daughter was stuck on the ride.
“I was nervous and worried the whole time,” Giacomaro said on the video. “We were just waiting to see what was going to happen and really nervous and worried about when the ride was going to come down. And I had no way to contact her, so I didn’t know what they were going through, and I’m just really relieved that they’re here safe and on the ground.”
In the Sept. 7 incident, an electrical relay malfunctioned on the ride, prompting a safety stop. Crews cranked the gondolas to the top and got them to come down, Monterroza said. Knott’s replaced the electric parts and opened the ride the next day, although the state continued its investigation.
Mike Dills, whose 11-year-old daughter got stuck Sept. 7, said he’s upset that this happened again. He was told that Knott’s was going to change procedures to ensure that passengers could get down within 30 minutes.
“I thought the matter was closed,” Dills said.
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