In what's being hailed as a landmark case by civil rights groups, the mother of a gay teenager who hanged himself last September is suing a school district for wrongful death, claiming that they were aware of her son being bullied and did nothing to stop or prevent it. Wendy Walsh, mother of Bakersfield 13-year-old Seth Walsh is claiming that the death of her son was a direct result of the school's negligence, and both his suicide note and a recent investigation by the U.S. Department of Education and the DOJ appear to confirm this. more ›

There are many reasons to fear parts of California not near the coast. So much so, in fact, that LAist editor Zach Behrens and your SFist editor tend to argue about which of us has to write about items in central, non-coastline parts of the state. Here's one reason why: a Bakersfield father is in jail "after allegedly biting out one of his 4-year-old son's eyes and mutilating the other." The child told investigators, "My daddy ate my eyes." Neighbors who found the injured kid also discovered the boy's father, Angel Vidal Mendoza, 34, in the backyard of a nearby home "hacking his own legs with an ax." Mendoza has been charged with mayhem, torture, child cruelty and inflicting an injury to a child. This raises questions about the quality, or lack thereof, of Kern County's Child Protective Services department. It seems Mendoza and the boy's 23-year-old mother were "charged with being under the influence of PCP in 2006 and pleaded no contest to child cruelty charges in that case." more ›