Los Angeles Crime Report
February 6, 2013Fullerton coach, fiance died of multiple gunshot wounds
A college basketball coach and her fiance who were found shot to death in the parking garage of their Irvine condominium complex Sunday night each died of multiple gunshot wounds, the Orange County coroner’s office reported Wednesday.
Autopsies have been completed for Monica Quan, 28, an assistant women’s basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton, and Keith Lawrence, 27, a public safety officer at USC, said Jim Amormino, a spokesman with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
He would not elaborate on the cause of death, or give information about how many times the engaged couple had been shot and where on the bodies the wounds were , citing the ongoing investigation.
PHOTOS: Memorial for slain basketball coach
Authorities are still searching for leads in the crime, which police do not believe was a murder-suicide, or motivated by robbery.
Investigators have said little about the crime or any possible suspects.
The two were engaged in January and had recently moved into an upscale condominium complex near UC Irvine and Concordia University, where both were basketball stars, family members said.
Anyone with information is asked to call (949) 724-7192.
Judge seeks California’s out-of-state prison plan
Gov. Jerry Brown must explain to a federal court by the end of Wednesday how he plans to fit 9,000 inmates currently housed in out-of-state facilities back into California lockups.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton directed California to explain in writing its exact plan to stop sending inmates to private prisons as far as Mississippi. The administration announced its intention to return the inmates months ago, at the same time it also seeks an end to court-ordered prison population caps.
Karlton’s order requires California to stipulate the total number of inmates the state plans to return to California prisons from out-of-state facilities, the planned timetable for their return, and where the state plans to house those inmates. As of Jan. 30, according to state prison population reports, California had 8,852 inmates in four prisons run by Tennessee-based Corrections Corp. of America.
[Updated, 4:50 p.m. Feb. 6: Brown’s lawyers filed papers late Wednesday afternoon arguing that the end of private prison contracts has no bearing on the delivery of mental health care to inmates, the core issue before Karlton.
[Nevertheless, California said its 4,527 inmates will finish their prison terms out of state. An average of 110 inmates are paroling out of those prisons each month.The remaining 4,325 will be returned in stages through June 30, 2016.
[“The gradual return of these inmates will allow the state to avoid bunking inmates in prison gymnasiums or other makeshift housing units again,” state lawyers told the court.]
A three-judge panel that includes Karlton recently gave California an extra six months, until December 2013, to reduce its prison crowding to 137.5% of design capacity. The state has said it expects to be over that mark even without the return of out-of-state prisoners. Brown contends further reductions are not necessary and in January he issued an executive order claiming the 2006 “emergency proclamation” that allowed prisoners to be moved against their will is terminated, as of this coming July.
Karlton’s order for more information did not come out of the three-judge panel, but was delivered in Coleman vs. Brown, the class-action lawsuit over mental health care for inmates. Along with a general bid to lift court-ordered prison caps, Brown’s lawyers filed a motion seeking to terminate that case. Karlton has set a March hearing.
In the interim, he ordered Matthew Lopes, the special master overseeing inmate mental health care, to produce as quickly as possible a report detailing inmate suicides for the first half of 2012. Lopes recently filed his annual report on the status of prison mental health care, raising concerns over what he said is a climbing suicide rate in California prisons.
LAPD seeks public’s help in finding missing Canadian tourist
L.A. police asked for the public’s help Wednesday in finding a Vancouver, Canada, woman last seen at a downtown hotel nearly a week ago.
Elisa Lam, 21, arrived in Los Angeles on Jan. 26 and was last seen Jan. 31 at the Cecil Hotel on Main Street, police said at a news conference. Lam’s final destination was believed to be Santa Cruz, authorities said, but it was unclear why she was traveling in California.
Police said Lam had been in contact with her family daily but had not communicated with them for six days.
Lam is 5-feet-4, weighs about 115 pounds and has black hair and brown eyes. She speaks both English and Cantonese, authorities said, and used public transportation.
Anyone with information about Lam’s whereabouts is asked to call police at (213) 486-6890 or (877) 527-3247. Anonymous tips can be called in at (800) 222-8477.
Heroic California hatchet-wielding hitchhiker gains viral fame
Kai – a heroic hatchet-wielding homeless hitchhiker – has a Facebook page.
So those behind a fund-raising effort to buy him a surfboard (almost $500 raised thus far) have made contact with him somewhere in Northern California.
But it was in Fresno that Kai’s meteoric rise to fame via viral video began.
On Friday, a man giving Kai a ride claimed to be God, made racist comments and drove into a black PG&E worker, injuring the man.
In the ensuing chaos, the driver attacked a woman who ran to help. A kinetic Kai described to a local KMPH television news reporter how he then saved the day by coming up behind the very large driver and hitting him with his hatchet: “Smash, Smash, SmAAaash!!!”
The video received more than a million hits.
“SmAAaash!!!” may have been the most repeated word in the Central Valley over the weekend.
And Steven Colbert ran the piece with his trademark commentary, noting that the young man’s heroics had forced him to rethink his previous prejudice against hitchhikers with axes.
California high court seems inclined to uphold bans on pot shops
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court appeared inclined Tuesday to uphold municipal bans against medical marijuana dispensaries.
Meeting for oral arguments, the state high court considered the legality of a ban on dispensaries by the city of Riverside. Several justices noted that the state Constitution gives cities wide policing power over land use and suggested that the state’s medical marijuana laws have not undercut that authority.
“The Legislature knows how to say ‘Thou Shall Not Ban Dispensaries,’ ” Justice Ming W. Chin said. “They didn’t say that.”
The court’s ruling, due in 90 days, will determine the fate of about 200 local bans on cannabis dispensaries. If the justices uphold the bans, more such measures are anticipated. Medical marijuana advocates said that outcome would force tens of thousands of patients to drive long distances or resort to the black market.
But the justices appeared more focused on the regulatory rights of cities than on patient access to cannabis.
Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said she viewed the case as a test of the “authority historically invested in municipalities” over land use.
J. David Nick, representing a dispensary, argued that municipalities could regulate, but not prohibit, an activity the state has permitted. He said the goal of the medical marijuana laws was to provide for uniformity from county to county.
“You can pass local laws, but they have to be consistent” with the state laws intended to make medical marijuana available, Nick told the court during the televised hearing.
Justice Marvin R. Baxter seemed skeptical.
“If the Legislature wanted to prevent localities from banning the dispensaries, why didn’t it say so expressly?” he asked.
Justice Goodwin Liu noted that state medical marijuana laws provided limited immunity from state sanctions, not from local rules. The laws’ “language doesn’t seem to get you very far,” Liu told the dispensary attorney.
Some justices suggested that the Legislature might not have legal authority to prevent cities from banning dispensaries through zoning.
Justice Carol A. Corrigan noted that the California Constitution confers on local governments the right to police their borders. “It is not for the Legislature to try to retract that which it does not confer,” she said.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard appeared to agree. She said municipalities had a “preexisting power” to regulate land use that is independent of the state’s medical cannabis laws.
But Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar observed that local bans on dispensaries might thwart the intent of the medical marijuana laws. Although the Legislature has given cities the right to regulate dispensaries, it was “debatable” whether regulation means outright prohibitions, she said.
Even considering Werdegar’s remarks, Los Angeles Special Assistant City Atty. Jane Usher said the court seemed headed for a unanimous decision in favor of permitting bans. Usher said Los Angeles does not plan to introduce any new regulations until voters consider three medical marijuana measures on the May ballot.
Joe Elford, chief legal counsel for a medical marijuana advocacy group, said he was disappointed that the hearing failed to elicit much concern for patients.
“I didn’t really feel like the patients’ voices were heard,” he said. He agreed that the court was likely to give municipalities discretion to ban dispensaries but expressed hope that the ruling would otherwise affirm their legality.
“I am hopeful the court will let them know it is a discretion, not an obligation, and they can do the right thing if they chose,” Elford said.
$1.79 million in pot seized in Laguna smuggling bust, feds say
U.S. Homeland Security special agents have apprehended nine men suspected of attempting to smuggle $1.79 million in marijuana from a boat off Crystal Cove State Park in south Orange County.
Border Patrol agents reported that they recovered 26 bundles of marijuana with an estimated street value of $1.79 million in the incident early Monday, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection release. The bundles weighed 1,197 pounds.
Agents were patrolling the coastline around midnight Monday when they observed a panga-style fishing boat off El Moro Bay in Laguna Beach.
The boat came ashore at Crystal Cove, and agents said they watched seven men get off the boat and unload two bundles onto the beach. Two other men were spotted getting out of a parked GMC Yukon and helped unload bundles from the boat.
Homeland Security special agents took the nine suspects into custody for questioning. Six of the suspects are from the U.S. and range in age from 22 to 45; two are from Mexico, ages 23 and 40; and one is from Guatemala, age 24. Customs and Border Protection did not provide names of the suspects.
All nine are being held on suspicion of possession of illicit drugs. The two suspects from Mexico and one from Guatemala are also charged with illegal entry into the U.S., Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio wrote in an email.
Authorities seized both the boat and vehicle.
Pricey tubas stolen from another area high school band
Another Los Angeles-area high school marching band has had its tubas stolen.
San Fernando High School, in the city of San Fernando, had its only two marching-band tubas – known as sousaphones – stolen over the Jan. 26-27 weekend, said Sergio Alonso, the school’s music director.
The brass Conn sousaphones were worth roughly $6,000 each.
Alonso said the thieves broke into one of two band rooms at the school, using a crowbar. In the first, they found only string instruments – guitars and violins – yet stole none of those.
They then broke into the second band room and passed up trumpets, saxophones, percussion instruments and a marimba.
“They could have taken all that stuff, but they only took the two sousaphones,” said Alonso.
Tuba thieves have hit several Southland high schools in the last year or so. Whittier, South Gate, Huntington Park, Fremont, Centennial (Compton), Jordan, Bell and Manhattan Beach high schools have each had several tubas stolen. Many of the tubas are valued at over $5,000 apiece. The thefts amount to a devastating blow to schools, which face slim budgets, and their bands, many of which are dependent on private funding.
Alonso said he also directs a mariachi group, which will likely have to put on concerts to raise money to buy new sousaphones for the band.
Instructors and musicians alike say the break-ins have to do with the enormous popularity of banda music – Mexican dance music using marching band instruments, and in which tubas play a central role.
Tuba players in banda music often make almost twice what the other musicians earn.
Alonso said he believes the tubas are either being used in bandas in Southern California, or are being taken down to Mexico, where tubas fetch sometimes double what they do in the United States.
“There’s no other type of music ensemble in the L.A. area that uses [the] sousaphone except for banda,” he said.
Another Los Angeles-area high school marching band has had its tubas stolen.
San Fernando High School, in the city of San Fernando, had its only two marching-band tubas – known as sousaphones – stolen over the Jan. 26-27 weekend, said Sergio Alonso, the school’s music director.
The brass Conn sousaphones were worth roughly $6,000 each.
Alonso said the thieves broke into one of two band rooms at the school, using a crowbar. In the first, they found only string instruments – guitars and violins – yet stole none of those.
They then broke into the second band room and passed up trumpets, saxophones, percussion instruments and a marimba.
“They could have taken all that stuff, but they only took the two sousaphones,” said Alonso.
Tuba thieves have hit several Southland high schools in the last year or so. Whittier, South Gate, Huntington Park, Fremont, Centennial (Compton), Jordan, Bell and Manhattan Beach high schools have each had several tubas stolen. Many of the tubas are valued at over $5,000 apiece. The thefts amount to a devastating blow to schools, which face slim budgets, and their bands, many of which are dependent on private funding.
Alonso said he also directs a mariachi group, which will likely have to put on concerts to raise money to buy new sousaphones for the band.
Instructors and musicians alike say the break-ins have to do with the enormous popularity of banda music – Mexican dance music using marching band instruments, and in which tubas play a central role.
Tuba players in banda music often make almost twice what the other musicians earn.
Alonso said he believes the tubas are either being used in bandas in Southern California, or are being taken down to Mexico, where tubas fetch sometimes double what they do in the United States.
“There’s no other type of music ensemble in the L.A. area that uses [the] sousaphone except for banda,” he said.
Charges filed against three alleged distributors of ‘bath salts’
When a woman smashed into a Moorpark home with her car last June, police at first thought they were dealing with a garden-variety DUI.
Instead, the incident led Ventura County prosecutors to file charges against three alleged distributors of “bath salts” — designer drugs that can cause psychotic episodes and are readily available in many head shops and on the Internet.
At a news conference Tuesday, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Greg Totten said the prosecution is probably the first of its kind in California. Cases involving the drugs have been difficult for prosecutors because “rogue chemists” swiftly change the drugs’ composition to stay ahead of legislation banning specific components.
The solution for Ventura County, Totten said, is to file “the same charges as if they were distributing and selling methamphetamine or Ecstasy.”
Ingredients in the bath salts are chemically similar to those in banned substances and also induce the same type of bizarre behavior, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Blake Heller, who is prosecuting the case.
The local investigation led to Jonathan Kirk Riedel, 31, in West Jordan, Utah. He has been extradited to Ventura County, where he is being held in lieu of $1-million bail, Totten said.
The other suspects are associated with two Doughmain head shops, in Moorpark and Thousand Oaks. They are Joshua Longfellow Wright, 36, and Brandon James Sarrail, 26. The three have been charged with sale, possession for sale, and distribution of bath salts.
The drugs can be snorted, smoked or injected. They are also referred to with wink-and-a-nod designations such as “ladybug attractants” or “window cleaners.” They can come as pills, powders or liquids and often are packaged with names like “Bubbles” or “Vanilla Sky” that are thought to convey an exciting appeal. Some are marketed with images of popular cartoon figures, such as Scooby-Doo.
Officials said the drugs cause long-lasting hallucinations and sometimes trigger violent outbursts. Raising body temperature, they can cause frantic users to remove their clothing. Authorities say the drugs are extremely addictive.
The artificial stimulants, often manufactured in Asia, swept into the U.S. in the last few years. Poison control centers have logged more than 6,000 calls about bath salts from 2009-11.
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