You'll recall the home invasion robbery we mentioned last week, which happened in a Sunset district home, and in which one 40-year-old man ended up dead. As SFist commenter Joel was quick to point out, this was mostly likely not a "home" and it was not a "familiy" that was reportedly tied up during the crime, but a "group of individuals." It turns out it wasn't a grow house, as Joel guessed, but a brothel (though ABC 7 and the cops "aren't prepared" to call it that yet). According to cops the suspects appear to be Hispanic, and about 5' 6" and 5' 7". They're hoping someone will recognize them from the tapes and report their identities to the SFPD. more ›

Obama's Justice Department may be loosening up about medical marijuana, but right on cue the DEA just busted a huge marijuana grow operation that was running out of dozens of half-million-dollar homes in the towns of Elk Grove, Lathrop, Modesto, Sacramento, Tracy, and Stockton. A total of 24,500 plants in 50 different homes-turned-grow-houses were seized, and the whole operation was estimated to have grossed about $100 million a year. Federal agents and the IRS had apparently been investigating some individuals at lower levels of the operations for several years, and the 18 people arrested in yesterday's raids were all low-level, gardener-type employees. The DEA has said that these houses were all being run by "a San Francisco-based organized crime syndicate." Who knew we had one of those? Anyway, here are pictures of the four dudes arrested in Elk Grove. more ›