• San Jose police are on the hunt for a large group of suspects who ran a car into Kim Hung jewelry store on Aborn Road Friday afternoon and grabbed a bunch of merchandise before running off. [KTVU]
• More details have been released regarding Friday night’s drive-by shooting in Fremont — one victim died at the scene and another at the hospital. [Bay Area News Group]
• The Redwood City Police Department are searching for missing teen, Bella Tapia, who was last seen around 8 pm Saturday on Chesterton Avenue in Redwood City wearing a black zip-up sweater, jean shorts, and brown Ugg slippers. [KRON4]
• Various social media accounts are saying Chicago’s entire fleet of salt trucks were deployed along major roadways early Saturday morning with the goal of hindering potential increased ICE enforcement. [Here’sWhyKevin]

• Los Angeles’s Southern California Edison is being sued by the federal government, which alleges the utility’s equipment is to blame for sparking recent wildfires — including the Eaton Fire — due to a lack of maintenance to its infrastructure. [KQED]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

In an effort to flex some muscle on a national stage and counter the Republicans' tired narrative about San Francisco being a hellhole, billionaire Chris Larsen and Mayor London Breed threw an SF image-boosting party on Night Two of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

One of the hottest tickets to get Tuesday night in Chicago, reportedly, was to a San Francisco boosterism event featuring a speech from London Breed, and no appearance by Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. It did, however, feature a performance by The Killers — fresh off their headlining gig at Outside Lands — along with an open bar and all-you-can eat sushi, as the Chronicle's Joe Garofoli reports.

The party was awkwardly named "San Francisco Speaks: A Night of Technology and Truth," which, as Garofoli points out, sounds more like a weird conference seminar than a party. But the idea, which came together just in the last few weeks since Harris's presumptive nomination took shape, was to invite Democrats from around the country to a party that promotes what San Francisco is, and claps back against what it is not.

The 500-person, invite-only event took place at TAO Asian Bistro and Nightclub, and Larson, a Breed backer and the co-founder of crypto company Ripple, bankrolled the whole affair. (You may know Larsen from various law enforcement programs he's funded, including a controversial surveillance-camera network that is now in multiple SF neighborhoods.)

In her remarks, per the Chronicle, Breed said, "Tonight is really a time to talk about not just Kamala Harris, but to talk about everything that San Francisco represents. It is so critical that we talk about the truth about San Francisco, because the Republicans are trying to turn San Francisco into something it is not. They’re trying to turn San Francisco into a bad word."

Breed pointed out that many of the Republicans who regularly shit on San Francisco "pull out their iPhone produced in the Bay Area and introduced in San Francisco to call their Uber or Lyft — companies based in San Francisco. And while they’re riding to their Airbnb, a company in San Francisco, they’re tweeting bad things about our city in a company that, until recently, was based in San Francisco. Per the Chronicle, Breed paused after that line, without mentioning Elon Musk, and said, “Well, that’s OK." She also called the city the "AI capital of the world."

She finished by saying, "So don’t let somebody else tell the story of San Francisco. We’re here tonight to fight for not just our city, but to fight for Kamala Harris to be president of the United States."

For whatever reason, Breed and her handlers haven't posted video of her speech to her social media. But maybe everybody's still hungover.

There was reportedly a slide deck being shown on screens in the venue that touted SF's accomplishments on homelessness and declining crime rates. But Garofoli says hardly anyone noticed these.

There was another hot ticket in Chicago last night, and that was reportedly a convention afterparty thrown by billionaire Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who had spoken earlier during prime time at the convention — but he didn't book The Killers.

Investigators are trying to determine if a suspect who shot two men, execution-style, four years ago in Chicago could be the same suspect responsible for six murders in the last year and a half in Stockton and Oakland.

The "Duck Walk Killer" caused terror in the Chicagoland area in early October 2018, after the shooting deaths of two men out walking in Rogers Park — a community about nine miles north of downtown Chicago, along Lake Michigan, that is home to Loyola University. As KPIX reports, the first victim was 73-year-old Douglass Watts, who was shot on the street while out walking his two dogs on September 30, 2018. The second victim, 24-year-old Eliyahu Moscowitz, was killed while walking along a bike path near the university, about 36 hours later.

The two killings were linked by ballistics evidence.

Chicago residents were shocked by the killings, which were followed by the release of surveillance video of a suspect wearing a ski mask over his head and face — a bit less common and more sinister in the pre-pandemic times. He appeared in daylight video to be a Black male around six fee tall, with a distinctive gait and slightly outward-turned feet — leading to the "duck walk" moniker.

Rumors spread around the Loyola campus and the neighborhood in the months following the unsolved shootings, and residents continued discussing where the killer might have gone. During the pandemic, a Facebook Group devoted to the shootings surmised that the killer might be quarantining while caring for an elderly parent, or he might be incarcerated for another crime, or he might have left the Chicagoland area.

CBS Sacramento broke the story of the possible connection between this killer and the man who has been terrorizing the homeless community, and the larger community, in Stockton for the last several months. The Stockton serial killer, as we've been calling him, killed five homeless men in the city between July and September of this year, the most recent just a few weeks ago. Police quickly determined that the same gun was used to kill a homeless man in Oakland in April 2019.

A Sacramento reporter got in contact with CBS Chicago Investigator Brad Edwards, who immediately saw similarities in the brief, much more obscured surveillance video that is some of the only evidence in the Stockton case.

"Over and over and over we heard 'pay attention to the gait, the gait...the walk' and it struck a chord," Edwards said, speaking to CBS Sacramento. Looking at the figures in both videos, Edwards says, "They're eerily similar in stature, clothing, and that gait. It was very close as far as what appeared to be the same height, 6 to 6'2", weight, the same slender clothing, hands in pockets."

As Edwards says, the Duck Walk Killer shootings stood out for their randomness — neither man was robbed, both were point-blank-range shootings on the street — even in a city where nearly 3,000 people were shot in 2018, and 561 murders took place that year.

"This double murder that happened struck a chord in Chicago — no one's forgotten about it, and we have a lot of crime in Chicago," said Edwards, speaking over Zoom with CBS Sacramento on Thursday.

As of Friday morning, both Chicago police and Stockton police say they are working together, but they have not found any connection between the killings so far — and that may imply that the ballistics on the guns used don't match up, so all they have to go on is this "gait" stuff. The nature of the killings do appear different — all the Stockton shootings and the Oakland one, including one non-fatal shooting of a homeless woman, took place in late-night hours when few people were on the street, in areas with little surveillance. The Chicago shootings took place in daylight, and the victims were both walking on the street, while in the Oakland and Stockton shootings the victims were all unhoused, and at least we know the surviving female victim was inside her tent.

"As part of our investigation, we have reached out to numerous law enforcement agencies in our state and across the nation," Stockton Police Public Information Officer Joe Silva said Friday. "We did our due diligence reaching out to Chicago PD based off the videos we have seen of their suspect.  At this time though, we do not have anything linking the two investigations. At this time, it appears the two are not related."

The most recent killing took place on September 27, when a 54-year-old man was killed in Stockton.

On Thursday, Stockton police held several informational sessions with members of the local homeless community and service providers, and they say that they, "answered questions, addressed concerns, and distributed flyers containing personal safety tips."

Previously: Residents of Stockton — Especially the Homeless — Are on Edge Over Possible Serial Killer on the Loose

Prosecutors in Chicago revealed details for the first time Sunday in the gruesome homicide there on July 27 that ended with two suspects being arrested and briefly held here in the Bay Area. The allegations against the pair, who had never met in person before last month and were both employed by prestigious academic institutions, reveal a bizarre murder-suicide plot that apparently involved killing two individuals, and then killing each other simultaneously.

The Chicago Tribune reports that recently fired Northwestern University professor Wyndham Lathem, 42, allegedly met 56-year-old Oxford University employee Andrew Warren in an online chat room, and in late July paid for his plane ticket to Chicago so that the two could enact a sexual fantasy of murdering people and then killing each other. They apparently stopped short of fulfilling the entire plan, leaving Chicago together and hitting the road, headed to the Bay Area, with Lathem expressing his regrets about the killing in a video that was sent to friends and family. In the video, according to prosecutors, Lathem "elaborated that he is not the person people thought he was," and said that he'd made "the biggest mistake of my life."

In court on Sunday for a bail hearing, prosecutors said that Lathem paid to put Warren up in a hotel near his Chicago apartment, and then "lured" their first victim, 26-year-old Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, to the apartment on the night of July 26. He then texted Warren to come over at 4:30 the next morning after Cornell-Duranleau, and alledly instructed Warren to take a cellphone video of him stabbing and killing Cornell-Duranleau.

Cornell-Duranleau was apparently stabbed 70 times, as the Associated Press reports.

Per the Tribune's gruesome details, picked up by Chicagoist, via Assistant State's Attorney Natosha Toller:

As Warren stood in the doorway to the bedroom, cellphone in hand, Lathem stabbed the sleeping Cornell-Duranleau "over and over in the neck and chest area," Toller said.

Cornell-Duranleau woke up and began to scream and fight back, prosecutors said.

Lathem cried to Warren for help, Toller said, so Warren walked in and put his hands on the victim's mouth, then hit him in the head with a heavy metal lamp.

Warren left to get two kitchen knives, prosecutors said, and both men then leaned over Cornell-Duranleau and stabbed him again and again, prosecutors said. Warren was stabbing with such force that he broke the blade of one of the knives he used, prosecutors said.

The attack apparently left Cornell-Duranleau nearly decapitated, and prosecutors also reported the detail that when he woke up to find his boyfriend stabbing him, his last words were "Wyndham, what are you doing?"

Warren has also apparently told authorities that the two had planned on killing a second victim of Lathem's choosing.

In addition to stopping to make a $1,000 donation in Cornell-Duranleau to a public library in Wisconsin, which was previously reported, the pair apparently also made a $5,610 donation to the Howard Brown Health Center, an LGBT health and social services provider.

They took off sometime on July 27, driving thousands of miles to the Bay Area and setting off a nationwide manhunt after Lathem apparently called his own apartment building front desk from the library to tell them where the body was.

Both men surrendered peacefully to authorities in Oakland and San Francisco on August 4 after over a week on the lam.

Lathem's attorney Barry Sheppard has already submitted letters of support for Lathem written by colleagues, which the judge in the case has already dismissed as irrelevant.

Both Warren and Lathem continue to be held without bail after being extradited to Chicago.

Per the Tribune, Sheppard told reporters Sunday that his client "has led a life of outstanding, unblemished citizenship," and "We simply ask the public to patiently allow the legal system to work."

Previously: Two Men Suspected In Strange Chicago Murder Come To Bay Area, Turn Themselves In

For several years now, filmmaker and extremely rich person George Lucas has been working to create a massive museum dedicated to showcasing his collection of movie memorabilia, illustrations, and graphic art. After his efforts to build the museum in San Francisco were twice rejected, he then took the project to Chicago where he was greeted with open arms and lived happily ever after. Er, well, except for that last part, as we now learn that his Chicago efforts have stalled due to a lawsuit regarding the proposed lakefront location. Seizing on the reported difficulties, Oakland officials are hinting that a second attempt to convince the Californian to bring his museum to the Bay Area may be in the future.

So reports the SF Business Times, which notes that the office of Oakland's Mayor Libby Schaaf appears eager to have another shot at wooing Lucas.

“If plans for a museum in Chicago do not come to fruition," noted Schaaf spokesperson Erica Terry Derryck, "we’d be thrilled to explore the possibility of this exciting project coming to life in Oakland."

Oakland initially proposed an East Bay location for the museum last year, but at the time Lucas still seemed set on Chicago. According to the Times, pro-business advocacy group The Bay Area Council is also considering reaching out to Lucas again.

"We'd be very eager, very interested in facilitating a meeting," BAC vice president for communications Rufus Jeffris told the publication.

So could the museum actually end up back in the Bay Area? Well, that depends on what happens next in Chicago. The Chicago non-profit Friends of the Park is suing to prevent construction on the 17-acre site near Lake Michigan, but city officials are looking to begin construction regardless. A judge is set to decide on April 21 if work can go ahead while the lawsuit moves through the court. If the judge finds in the favor of Friends of the Park, and construction is delayed indefinitely, Oakland may suddenly start to look a lot more appealing.

Previously: Middle Finger Raised To S.F., George Lucas Takes His $700 Million Museum To Chicago

A United Airlines flight from SFO to Frankfurt, Germany needed to make an emergency stop in Chicago on Sunday. It seems that a crew member discovered a "sticker with a threatening message in a bathroom," so the plane was diverted as a precaution. After the plane was emptied and searched, wherein nothing dangerous uncovered, the flight then continued on to Germany.

No word yet as to what the menacing sticker said.

[AP]

Have you read Living Oprah, the greatest thing in the world, ever? Penned by a 35-year-old writer, performer, and artist living in Chicago--who doesn't give her name--for one year she will be living her life according to Oprah's edicts. Because Oprah Winfrey, as we all know by now, is Christ reborn.

Over the past few years--after becoming one of the most powerful person in the world, arguably--has achieved an inner peace and sparkling clarity that most of us can only find inside a prescription pill bottle. How long and for how much does one get in on this happiness? Living Oprah finds out. Here's just a sample of one of the tasks LO must accomplish on the road to oneness:

Ordered my 'crisp, white shirt" from Old Navy for $16.99. We were told we all needed to have one. I'm sure I'd LOVE to wear Oprah's favorite version of the shirt from Brooks Brothers, but at $89.50, it's just not going to happen. Of course, if she'd told us we needed that specific shirt, I would have purchased it, but luckily, an option was given and I'll have enough money to buy the groceries to make tonight's dinner.

This is how you get a book deal, folks. Ingenious.

(An aside: did anyone catch the episode recently where Marie Osmond gave Oprah a slave-like black baby doll? Which was part of Osmond's horrible QVC doll collection? If not, you missed one of the greatest moments in TV history.)

In January we mentioned a global Monopoly board game where you could vote on which cities you want on Hasbro's latest version of the popular board game, Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition. Fun, right? Well, not for some. Hasbro recently removed the country name "Israel" after "Jerusalem" when it received complaints from pro-Palestinian groups. And then, you guessed it, Hasbro received even more heat from people online who noticed the only city without a country was Jerusalem.

Hasbro has now pulled all country names from the site. According the Merc:

Hasbro issued an apology today after an employee, responding to complaints from pro-Palestinian groups, eliminated the word "Israel" after the city in an online contest to select names for a new Monopoly board game: Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition. The company also pulled all country names from other cities on the site when even more people complained because Jerusalem was listed as the only city without a country.

As of now, it's anyone's guess what country places like Zagreb, Vilnius, or Chicago call home.

Oh, and you have eight days left to vote for your favorite city to get recognition on the Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition. (San Francisco comes in today at #17 as far as the write-in votes go. Let's see that number climb higher, people.)

What is the best thing about Indie Fest?
Having filmgoers get to meet filmmakers and talk movies.

What are some standout movies this year?
One of my personal favorites is POP SKULL, this weird experimental horror/drug movie. DRIVING TO ZIGZIGLAND is also really good, funny, touching, interesting take on what’s going on in the middle east by telling the story of a Palestinian guy in Hollywood trying to get into movies.

What are your favorite movie festivals?
Chicago Underground, SXSW, Slamdance, Fantasia

What makes a festival good?
Good films, curious, open minded audiences, good parties-the place filmmakers get to meet film goers!

Any tips for festival attenders?
Come early, parking/muni delays happy all the time, as we know, and are schedule is pretty tight. Stick around after the film for the QAs. They can be really interesting. Buy lots of popcorn, the Roxie could use the money!

Any new festivals in the works?
Welllll, I'd be lying if I said no. But nothing firm enough to say out loud.

How many movies will you see at it this year?
35 features, about 60 shorts

And speaking of cameras...

While Chicago has seen crime rates plummet to their lowest numbers in over four decades due to the windy city's Big Brother program, San Francisco's attempt at panopticon-ish camera security is failing. Ever since the 68 city-funded cameras started rolling, our city's surveillance program has resulted in a single arrest. That was over 19 months ago.

Why the lag, you ask? Well, for starters, "choppy" video streaming, above, at 16th and Mission streets. According to the Chronicle:

Run on a modest budget, Mayor Gavin Newsom's surveillance camera program has produced footage that is disjointed and less clear than the nearly seamless and sharp quality of video that the devices are capable of delivering, a Chronicle review found.

The difference can be dramatic, leaving police with less potential evidence. A review of videos taken last year by four cameras at 16th and Mission streets found a striking problem with the cameras' frame rate, or the number of images produced per second.

On average, the Mission District-perched cameras didn't even average one frame per second, making it difficult, if not impossible, to snap, trap and prosecute our city's most randy mischief makers. (Check out the undramatic footage here.)