News: August 2009 Archives

Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California piece of gristle who famously and fascistly told the Miss USA audience that gays should not be allowed to marry, is now suing pageant officials. Why? Because she's accusing them of "libel, slander and religious discrimination." According to CBS 5 / AP, "[t]he lawsuit claims [executive director Keith Lewis and actress and former Miss USA Shanna Moakler] both told Prejean not to mention God on her Miss USA application or at public events at least two months before she gave her anti-gay marriage answer." If you recall, Prejean was fired for being lazy, failing to show up at public appearances, brushing with Pearl Drops, or not performing whatever bizarre job duties are required of pageant winners.

Over at Pit Boss Barbeque, a restaurant located in Richmond at 12889 San Pablo Ave., two people were shot and killed around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night. The victims have been identified as Alvaro Garcia Jr., 23, and Intaz Ahmed, 32. While no motives have officially been determined, the shootings might have been gang-related. Four men are being questioned about what went down.

New details have emerged in the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kept hidden inside an Antioch home for 18 years. It seems Dugard helped her captor, Philip Garrido, run a small printing business from inside the home. According to NBC Bay Area, "Garrido's printing business customers described Dugard as a polite and efficient aide who straightened out orders on the phone and by email." Experts claim that Dugard never made a run for it due to fear/identifying with Garrido and his wife. One customer, Carla Kirkland, described Garrido as suffering from schizophrenia. "Just knowing the weirdness and the bizarre literature he would leave," Kirkland says, "the things he would say and singing songs. Now that I look back I think -- something was definitely wrong." Garrido is now being treated as a suspect in a series of unsolved Antioch murders. In related news, people have been venting their anger at Garrido on his loopy website. What with Garrido locked in the clink now, those rants are falling on deaf ears. Oh, and Antioch, it seems, is a haven for registered sex offenders.

altered image credit: plug1

After a rare four-alarm fire ripped through seven warehouses in San Francisco's Bayview district yesterday (check out photos of the inferno here), firefighters finally contained the blaze last night. According to Appeal/BCN, and most harrowing of all, "[m]arijuana was found growing in one of the buildings," which was presumably torched beyond recognition. No word yet what caused the fire.

Oh wow. This story just gets better and better. Jaycee Lee Dugard's alleged kidnapper's brother, Ron Garrido, just spoke to The Chronicle about his deviant brother, Phillip. "It just seems so bizarre, but I can believe it," said the 65-year-old Brentwood resident. "I know my brother, and I can believe he did that. ... He's a fruitcake." (Can we have a moment to talk about the derogatory use of the word fruitcake? It's awesome in that it covers so many bases. Well said, Ron.) Phillip also dabbled in LSD and drug dealing before being run out of town by angry drug dealers. Also, he kidnapped and raped a woman in Reno in the 1970s, hence his Megan's Law profile. Regarding his sister-in-law, Nancy Garrido, who assisted in the kidnapping and rapes, Ron says, she "was 'a robot' under her husband's control." He went on to say that Nancy "would do anything he asked her to" and that she was "no different from Manson and those girls." Read The Chron's entire interview with Phillip Garrido's brother here.

Just in case you didn't catch this on the SFGate's Crime Scene blog (possibly because you don't read SFGate's Crime Scene blog), we thought we'd bring your attention to this charming story in which a 33-year-old Samoan woman, apparently quite strapping at 280 pounds, chased down and punched a meter maid who ticketed her as she ran out of a hospital (where her son was being treated) to feed the meter. The woman, Lina Megailalio, appears to regret her actions, but the victim, fellow Samoan Angelina Barsi, has got Kamala Harris all over her ass. At least she wasn't writing a ticket while there was still time left on the meter!

dramatic reenactment

In honor of Michael Jackson's 51st birthday, and in remembrance of his untimely murder, the San Francisco Wax Museum will get a new Jacko wax statue to go along with the one they already have. "Michael Jackson had a lot of styles and a lot of looks," said Wax Museum owner Rodney Fong. "In tribute to his legacy, to mark his birthday we’ll show 1991 Dangerous Michael Jackson from the video Black and White era, along with the “Motown 25th Anniversary” era Michael. We believe this makes us one of the only Wax Museums with two MJ figures." The new fax figure debuts tomorrow (his 51st birthday, by the way, would have been on Saturday; he was Leo Virgo too, which explains a lot) and "the first 10 people in line on Friday will be allowed to get their photos taken with the King of Pop and get free admission to the Museum’s entire collection." What's more, the first ten people will "be able to make a free 'wax hand' from the Museum to take home as a souvenir." Which: awesome.

The fine folks over at the Bay Area Reporter have word that local health officials will postpone "cutting AIDS contracts until mid-October in order to give the Board of Supervisors time to respond to a nearly $4 million cut in state funding." The nearly $60 million cuts to AIDS health care and HIV prevention services, which could prove disastrous, might even get restored. Somehow. While vacationing in Provincetown, San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty told the BAR, "'It should be a top priority, that is what those funds are for. I will start by asking for full restoration and see where we end up,'" going on to say, "'Neither myself, nor Supervisor David Campos, nor my other colleagues on the board will stand by and let agencies be decimated because of this state action.'" Read more about it here.

CBS

Yesterday, a woman walked into the Concord Police Department claiming to be Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped in 1991 in Lake Tahoe. Dugard, now 29, "was last seen on June 10, 1991 as she was walking to a bus stop in South Lake Tahoe." As her mother Carl Probyn "looked on from the family’s driveway two blocks away, a gray sedan pulled up and someone yanked Jaycee into the car and sped off." Two people have since been arrested in connection with her dissappearence. According to the Chronicle Probyn, 60, said, "I gave up hope for 18 years, just went into recovery mode. I thought it would be nice just to recover her and capture the people and find out why they did this," said Probyn. "Now, I just won the lotto. It's just unbelievable. This is going to be a great day today." Probyn is en route from Orange County Riverside to reunite with her daughter.

For the 75892432th year in a row, UC Berkeley was named the number-one university when it comes to undergraduate education at a public university. At least according to U.S. News & World Report's 2010 "America's Best Colleges" list, it is. Overall, Cal came in sixth 21st, placing well below the more elite and classier schools like Harvard, Princton, Yale, MIT, and Stanford. This year, a total of six University of California campuses ranked in the top 50 schools -- Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Davis, Santa Barbara, and Irvine. (Put down the pipe and pick up a book, banana slugs.) Read more about the list here.

Hollywood producer and Vanity Fair scribe Dominick Dunne died today at 83. Self-described as a "a high-class Zelig," Dunne is best known for writing about the "courtroom travails of the rich and famous." He is also also known as the father of the Dominique Dunne, the actress who played the older daughter in Poltergeist, who was murdered by her boyfriend. Dunne "vented his anger at the legal system in Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of his Daughter's Killer, following the murder trial of John Sweeney, the estranged boyfriend who strangled 22-year-old Dominique Dunne, in 1982. Sweeney spent fewer than three years in prison." Dunne died after battling cancer.

While places like New York and Miami continue to see sale prices on new homes sliding downward, San Francisco was one of the top three cities in the country to see a rise in home prices in July. Our fair city saw a 5.9% increase in prices of newly constructed homes, while Cleveland and Dallas each saw 9.8% and 6.5% increases respectively. Across the country there was a 9.6% jump in the number of homes sold over the previous month, with 433,000 units sold overall. Robert Shiller of the Case-Shiller Index, speaking to CNN Money, suggests that this might just be a blip, and that prices are likely not to rise too quickly as long as unemployment remains as high as it is. But good luck getting a loan!

Edward Riley Slate III, 41, was arrested on Monday, accused of having intimate relations with a 17-year-old student. Slate, a math and special education teacher at Wilcox High School, is alleged to have had an improper affair of the heart between January and June of this year with the underage student. "This is the second teacher-student investigation that we have been involved with in the past six months," Police Capt. Doug Moretto said. "This situation is more common than any of us would like to see." Slate has since been booked at the Santa Clara County Main Jail, slammed with "multiple charges of having sexual relations with a minor." If any other tykes out there might have had relations with Slate, they are urged to call Detective Kirk Kim at 408-730-7120.

The Oakland Police Department revealed yesterday that "Officer Murray Hoyle committed suicide in an unincorporated area of Brentwood on Saturday." Hoyle, it seems, was with the OPD for more than 28 years. According to CBS 5/BCN, Hoyle "transferred to the traffic division, where he enjoyed enforcing traffic laws and riding a police motorcycle. He later transferred back to patrol and was well-known for working in the Montclair District." He is survived by his wife and three children, ages 22, 15, and 11. No word as to why, exactly, he took his own life. Sad. In related troubled East Bay police officer news, did anyone happen to catch last night's Intervention? It was about "Gloria," an alcoholic Concord police officer resident. Fortunately, she kicked the booze and no longer slaps her daughter or spends her rent money on booze. Congratulations, Gloria!

Alex Youshock, 17, has been identified as the former Hillsdale High School student who tried it set off pipe bombs at the San Mateo school yesterday. If you recall, ex-student Youshock, armed with a chainsaw, sword and makeshift bombs, tried to kill teachers and students Monday morning, prompting the school's evacuation. CBS 5's Joe Vazquez has word that "[a]gents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and local police searched the suspect's apartment on Casa de Campo Street in San Mateo on Monday evening." According to Vazquez, authorities "removed bags of evidence from the boy's apartment, including what San Mateo police Lt. Mike Brunicardi described as "bomb making materials." SFGate reports that Youshock planned "was to detonate the pipe bombs outside classrooms, then attack students with the chain saw and the sword as they fled. Youshock has been described as a "really quiet" boy who "didn't have that many friends" and "kept to himself." Which is to say, he was like most of us during our high school years. Anyway, Hillsdale remains closed today in order to repair the bomb damage.

What with last week's cyclist-meets-Muni crash still fresh in our mind, today's Chronicle Watch hit us like a blast of B.O. from a 4-o'clock-hour bike messenger. It seems that San Francisco cyclists, the single most oppressed minority group in these our modern times, fail to pay attention to get-off-the-sidewalk signs. Although cyclists should be allowed on city sidewalks -- because they're doing God's work; really, they should be allowed to ride wherever they damn well want -- they are not. Ultra-cranky Chronicle Watch reader Bill Carroll shakes his fist, saying, "Every day I walk to Aquatic Park (and) every day I and all the other pedestrians are nearly run over by all the bicyclists on the sidewalk...The 'NO BICYCLES' sign is so small and so high that no one seems to notice. The sign should be larger, lower, and state 'NO BICYCLES ON SIDEWALK.' The bicycles are supposed to be on the street." CW forwarded old man Carroll's battle cry to the proper authorities. No word on what, exactly, will be done. Why signs are needed at all boggles the mind. But feel free to implode about it in the comments.

(Good grief, San Francisco. You're really making up for last week's glaring lack of BART strike with a busy morning, aren't you? First the fire, now this.) This afternoon, according to Appeal, an L Taraval smacked into a vehicle at a little after noontime today. "L Taraval Muni Metro service has been disrupted after the L hit a car at Taraval and 34th Ave.," they report. The male driver of the vehicle was "transported to San Francisco General Hospital with unknown injuries" Muni guru Judson True reveals. Expect a joyous ride on a shuttle bus until the L gets back on track. Update: The L is back and better than ever! Not really, but it's running again.

After three students from Gunn High School in Palo Alto committed suicide this year by lying down for their final nap at the East Meadow Drive crossing, Caltrain plans to hold a press conference today. With the most recent suicide occurring last week -- a 13-year-old girl killed herself a little before 11 p.m. on Friday night -- former Palo Alto Mayor Victor Ojakian, who lost his son to suicide, spoke out about the tragedies. "To make sure that individuals who are in a state of maybe despair or hopelessness know there are other options other than taking their lives," he said. "To look at not just what is happening on Caltrain or with this particular incident that involves another Gunn student but to look at the County overall and try and do something about suicide prevention." The Santa Clara County Mental Health Director also announced a new "suicide task force" to help curb the problem.

On a Southwest flight bound for St. Louis yesterday, a mentally-estranged gentleman whipped out his penis, punched a female passenger sitting next to him, and then disrobed. Egads. According to Mercury News, it was quite the scene. Coming in at "a good 300 pounds," the man, who was wearing an Oakland A's baseball cap, "had hit a lady in the mouth," recounts passenger Jim Scanlon, who was lucky enough witness what went down. "He was yelling but not making any sense. Then he hit or slapped another woman who was sitting next to her husband, and he hit him on the top of the head. A flight attendant came running up the aisle, but he faked a swing at her, and she ran back to the back of the plane," he said. "Another two crew members came toward him. He was totally out of his gourd." No kidding. After nearby passengers tried to calm the distraught man, he got naked. Of course. (Don't believe us? Take a look at this picture snapped by a passenger.) The flight was then rerouted back to Oakland Airport. Darius Chappille, 21, who had an "outstanding arrest warrant on drug-related," was taken unto custody.

The driver of an adorable SUV crashed into a row of puny parked cars in the city's Russian Hill hood early this morning. According to reports, the big beauty was heading "down a steep hill on northbound Taylor Street" before rolling over and smashing into the vehicles. The mammoth vehicle finally came to a stop on Union Street. While specifics on injuries are not yet available, "[o]fficers and medical units responded" to the scene. Anybody see what went down? Sounds jarring. We'll up date with more info as it comes in to us.

A little after 10:30 a.m. today, a male cyclist "early to mid-twenties" collided with the M Ocean View at Arch and Randolph, temporarily disrupting service. According to SF Appeal, "the bicyclist was traveling southbound (downhill) on Arch Street and struck the right side of the train as it headed inbound (westbound) on Randolph Street through the intersection." No word yet who failed to observe the stop sign. The cyclist was whisked to San Francisco General Hospital to be treated for serious injuries. We hope his recovery is a speedy one.

KTVU

The father of five-year-old Hassani Campbell, the boy who went missing from a parking lot in Oakland’s Rockridge district last week, failed a FBI lie detector test. KTVU has word that "[l]aw enforcement sources have confirmed...that [Louis] Ross failed a polygraph test given by the FBI last week," even though he told KTVU, during an interview, that he answered all questions honestly. KTVU goes on to say that police have searched Campbell's Fremont home, looking for "biological evidence belonging to Hasanni, and a sword or cutting instrument." Evidence also suggests that it's "unlikely Hasanni wandered off." Anyway, people with information on the case are urged to call the Oakland Police Department or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572 or 510-777-3211.

You want another car fire? Well, we've got another car fire for you. An auto was set ablaze early this morning outside the Oakland Hills home of UC President Mark Yudof. The fire was started sometime before 2 a.m., and the bomb squad was also called in since it was right across the street from where the UC President lives. No arrests have been made. Yudof's home, as many of you know, has played host to a myriad of protests in the past, most recently due to UC budget cuts.

Although a 62-year-old homeless woman named Fafa Chan is considered the prime suspect in last month's auto fires, and also in that string of porta-potty fire earlier this year, a car fire erupted early this morning. It seems, according to reports, someone "set a book on fire and placed it underneath a rear tire of a Honda Accord near the corner of 21st Avenue and Balboa Street"in the Richmond around 3:15 a.m. Which is interesting. Anyway, no injures were reported, no arrests were made.

North Beach strip club Heaven, the strip/prostitute club that had City Attorney Dennis Herrera (rightfully) slammed as "a public nuisance, having allegedly violated city codes and having been cited for prostitution," was ordered to cease operations starting today. According to SF Appeal, "In a release sent by his office, Herrera says 'Today's ruling should send a message to other would-be operators of illegal businesses that even Heaven is subject to temporal laws here in San Francisco.... It's regrettable that this business chose to expend so much effort to flout the law rather than to follow it, and that a preliminary injunction was necessary to shut it down.'" Will other strip club that allow whoring (i.e., most all of them) fall like dominoes? Only time will tell. If you recall, the owner of Heaven, Peter Lambertson, says that the only reason his club was targeted was because he didn't pony up freebies to "patrons who identified themselves as off-duty officers asked to be comped on extras" -- i.e., receiving sex for free.

Today, San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon will announce a newfangled way to help stop crime. It's called Text-A-Tip, and it will allow you to do just that, text a tip anonymously to the SFPD. According to NBC Bay Area, "Text-a-Tip is currently being used by police in 40 states." Whoj is magically landed in San Francisco is anybody's guess. (Oh wait, you don't have to guess. It's because of Chief Gascon, who believes in silly little things like technology and THE FUTURE.) But the best place to use Text-A-Tip, it seems, is on Muni. Police Lt. James Miller, NBC Bay Area goes on to report, "told commissioners at a recent meeting that the program will be especially helpful for Muni passengers who want to report a crime without drawing attention to themselves." So, the next time teen thugs are mugging someone while everybody looks on, please take a picture of said thugs (provided they have picture-receiving capabilities) and send it to Text-a-Tip. (We'll update as soon as we get a police agency ID number. Which, yeah, would be helpful.)

The drama never ends with these two. Once again, all is not well in the Wright-Penn house. According to People, Robin Wright Penn filed for divorce from her husband Sean Penn last week. While the Marin-based celebrity couple have an off-again/on-again marriage, this latest development seems somewhat definite. "The papers, filed in Marin County, Calif., on Aug. 12, state that 'both parties have already agreed to [shared] custody' over their minor son, Hopper Jack, 16, and that 'the estranged couple have already agreed to division of all property.'" (Just who gets to call Tosca home away from home is still up in the air.) Irreconcilable differences is listed as the reason for the divorce. The two, married in 1989, have filed for divorce twice, as recently as May of this year. This also puts an end to rumors that Sean Penn might, in fact, be gay. He's not. With this kind of chronic drama, he is officially a lesbian.

Yesterday afternoon, a tugboat sank off Treasure Island, spilling an estimated 35 gallons or oil and diesel fuel into the Bay, creating a sheen a "400-foot debris field" sheen of oil surrounding parts of Treasure Island and the Berkeley Marina. "The Coast Guard contracted a private company to clean up the sheen," according to reports, which managed to contain the fuel before day's send. Also, allegedly, no wildlife was harmed or contaminated during the spill. So, that's good. The boat, christened The Wenonah and used by the U.S. Navy for 33 years before retiring in 1974, was docked pretty low in the water before sinking.

On Monday, the Oakland police department and Crime Stoppers offered up $10,000 for information leading to the return of five-year-old Hassani Campbell, the 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who went missing a week ago. If you recall, Hussani vanished from the parking lot of the Shuz of Rockridge shoe store at around 4:!5 p.m. last Monday. According to reports, "Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said that police have only received about 50 tips, which he said is unusually low for a week-old missing child case." And, really this is a good chunk of change. So, if you know the whereabouts or any information on Hussani, who usually wears leg braces and arch supports on his feet, call the Oakland Police Department or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572 or 510-777-3211.

In an effort to become "more of a true Web publication," the AP English class of the interwebs, Salon.com, laid off six editorial staff members. CEO Richard Gingras confirmed to Gawker that the online publication chipped away three editors, one writer, one photo editor, and one producer. The only name identified of the fallen six is culture editor Joy Press. Heather Havrilesky, we can only pray to God, will still remain with Salon after its facelift. Forever. She is, after all, a national treasure, one of the few literate folks who can write about TV without making you want to rip off your eyelids. She's that good. (And, of course, there's this.) Anyway, good luck out there, ex-Saloners.

You've heard this story too many times. A parent leaves their young offspring inside of their car (or worse, their pet dog) with the windows up, the car sits in the sun, the car gets too hot, and then the kids gets toasted to death. It's a sad tale, one that almost happened Friday after Fremont police arrested "a woman who left her two children in a parked car where the internal temperature had reached 107 degrees." Fortunately, the kids, who were "sweating profusely," were rescued before they croaked from heat exhaustion. The mother, it seems, left the inside the vehicle "for more than half an hour." How does this thing happen, Bay Area parents? Does it happen often, accidentally leaving the tykes in the Prius? Please advise.

In honor of the board game's 60th anniversary, San Francisco's Lombard Street will get a sweet makeover on Wednesday. (Heh.) The crooked street will transform into a giant Candyland board. According to SF Appeal, "The street will be closed to traffic as children from the University of California, San Francisco Children's Hospital participate in the game as colored game pieces and interact with life-sized game characters, according to organizers." (Why do only children get to play?! Bah. Nevertheless, it still sounds seriously awesome.) The game, introduced in 1849, was designed by Eleanor Abbott, while she was recovering from polio. Candyland's first ads promised parents that the game fulfilled "the sweet tooth yearning of the younger set without the tummy ache aftereffects." Some alterations to modern versions of the game include changing the name of Queen Frostine is Princess Frostine, which is stupid, and renaming Molasses Swamp to Chocolate Swamp, which makes sense because no normal child should know what molasses is. Wednesday's event will also feature a big party and delicious cake.

AP

While containment is now at 65%, the mandatory evacuation for residents affected by the Bonny Doon wildfire in the Santa Cruz mountains has been lifted. All residents need to get back inside their home if proof of residency. Hurray! But that, of course, doesn't mean the blaze is over. According to KCBS / AP, "crews were unable to fight the blaze by air Sunday because of heavy smoke, but more than 2,100 firefighters made progress on the ground along the western and southern ends of the wildfire." As of today, the fire, which sparked last Wednesday, scorched 7,000 acres, injured five, and cost over $10 million in damages.

A historic Muni streetcar was pulled out of service last week after anti-gay graffiti was found on one of the placards on the side of the train. The streetcar, dedicated to the late Harvey Milk, was tagged sometime during Pride, the Bay Area Reporter reports. "Sometime during Pride Month a tagger wrote the word 'fag' on Milk's chin and blackened out one of his front teeth on a photo of the late politician on one of the panels." On a different sign, the BAR goes on to say, the tagger(s) "wrote the word 'faggot.'" Mean! SFMTA spokesman Judson True said, "Especially in this historic week we want to be sure to honor Milk's legacy on this streetcar so we will do everything we can to remove any graffiti and get the dedication panels back in place as quickly as possible." This week, if you recall, Milk was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Anyway, the defaced streetcar was given a Silkwood-scrub down of any and all anti-gay graffiti, and put back into service on Tuesday.

An unwelcome gift for the new Oakland police chief Anthony Batts? Last night's shooting on the 17500 block of 85th Street, which saw four people get shot a little after 9 p.m. According to reports, "the victims were taken to a hospital to be treated...and their injuries were not expected to be life threatening." No arrests have been made.

While j-schoolers at Cal are busy bemoaning the state of the Journalism and perfecting that well-worn journalist look (hint: spiral notepad, unkempt hair, elbow patches, lots of chin scratching), a hacker breached UC Berkeley's School of Journalism server in July. According to the Daily Cal, "500 applicants to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism were notified [Tuesday] that their Social Security numbers and other private data may have been compromised in a recent campus security breach." This most recent hacking affects "people who applied to the school between September 2007 and May 2009." While, most likely, no one is at real risk of any serious identity damage -- real journalism students have neither a hefty bank nor decent credit -- students were notified weeks after the actual attack. According to Shelton Waggener, the school's "associate vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer," a delay in notification is typical in these situations. "It just takes time to do the investigation," he said. "Once we were certain of as much info as we could be, we began the notification process and developing the notification strategy."

We don't know if this is just a lot of grandstanding by the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 -- the sole holdout union who rejected BART's latest contract offer -- but in what suffices for drama in these things, negotiations "broke down" again yesterday, as SF Appeal is reporting. We know, you're already yawning, but bear with us: BART is holding firm about eliminating wasteful work rules and losing a total of five station agent positions through attrition--not layoffs--and they've put some floating holidays back on the table. The union is saying fuck off. Perhaps we would be more invested in this story if we were a transbay commuter, but all we can say right now is... suckaz! No really, there probably won't be a strike... or there probably will be. Flip a coin.