Gunman fires shots into elementary school playground

By Calvin Palmer

An elementary school in Carlsbad, southern California, was placed on lock down this afternoon when a gunman started firing wildly into the school playground.

Two students, aged six and seven, were both shot in their right arms — the bullets passed through their arms. 

The suspect, Brendan L. O’Rourke, 41, was arrested on suspicion of six counts of attempted murder and numerous weapons violations, said Lt Kelly Cain of the Carlsbad Police Department.

“He is possibly a transient who lives in the area,” Cain said. “He is not cooperating with the investigation. He probably has some mental health issues.”

The suspect, dressed in black, turned up outside Kelly Elementary School in his car shortly before noon.  He was armed with a .357-caliber handgun and began firing into the playground from the sidewalk, Cain said.

Construction workers nearby tackled the gunman before is arrest.

One of the workers, Carlos Partida, got into his truck and was able to knock the gunman down with the vehicle. Other workers then tackled  the gunman.

The bomb squad was later called to examine a propane tank found in the suspect’s car.

Parents were subsequently notified of the incident and told to collect their children.

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.]

Study claims global warming will see flood of Mexicans heading to U.S.

By Calvin Palmer

Republican global warming skeptics in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California may find themselves in something of dilemma following the release today of a study that says global warming could drive millions more Mexicans into the United States in search of work by 2080 due to diminishing crop yields in Mexico.

These Palinesque Republicans detest illegal Mexicans about as much as they despise Al Gore but may now have to perform a U-turn on the issue of global warming and welcome those efforts to reduce the threat it poses.

In this particular Republican mind-set, illegal Mexicans are all members of drug cartels. In fact, all Mexicans are members of violent drug cartels. Those who do yard work, wait on tables or work as roofing contractors only to do so to earn extra cash to put their children through college.

The money from drugs has to pay for the luxury apartments, fast cars, arsenal of weapons that any self-respecting cartel member has to have. Toiling in the hot sun doing manual labor helps to give Cesar and Juanita the education they themselves never had.

The study claims climate change will induce 1.4 to 6.7 million adult Mexicans (or two percent to 10 percent of the current population aged 15-65 years) to emigrate as a result of declines in agricultural productivity.

Researchers led by Michael Oppenheimer of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University estimated the sensitivity of migration to climate change and predicted the number of Mexicans who would migrate under a range of different climate and crop yield scenarios.

The worst-case scenario would occur if temperatures were to rise by one to three degrees Celsius (1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2080, if farming methods had not been adapted to cope with global warming and if higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide had not spurred plant growth. All three factors would result in crop yields in Mexico falling by 39 to 48 percent.

“In that case, the increase in Mexico’s emigration as a share of population would be between 7.8 percent and 9.6 percent,” said the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Using today’s population of 70 million as the base for the age 15-65 year population in Mexico, this percentage increase corresponds to an additional 5.5 to 6.7 million emigrants,” it said.

The study focused on Mexico because it is “one of the biggest migrant-source countries, because there exists state-level data on emigration, and because it has undergone diverse degrees of climate variability across regions”.

Similar doom-laden prophecies in the 1960s claimed that the world would not be able to feed itself because of the rapid increase in its population. Sadly for those soothsayers, mass starvation never came about on the scale envisaged because of advances in agriculture and new strains of crops.

The stark analysis of this study contains a great many “ifs”. And projecting 70 years into the future is a futile exercise. Who knows what technological advances will have been achieved in that time?

At the time of the US Civil War were people contemplating aircraft, automobiles, refrigerators, air conditioning, television sets. I doubt it but I bet there were people advocating all kinds of doom-laden scenarios based on some facet of life that they disagreed with.

[Based on a report by the AFP.]

Six die in bus crash in California

By Calvin Palmer

Six people were killed and nine others seriously injured when a Greyhound bus traveling from Los Angeles to Sacramento crashed in the early hours of this morning on a highway just outside downtown Fresno.

The bus, carrying 36 people, struck an overturned SUV then hit a concrete center divider and clipped another vehicle before going off the right shoulder of Highway 99 down a 15-foot embankment. It came to rest on a freeway off-ramp with its front end smashed and tree branches jutting into the vehicle.

Twisted pieces of metal, broken glass and torn clothing littered the ground around the bus wreckage, said California Highway Patrol Officer Axel Reyes.

The six dead included four women and two men. Nine people were taken to the hospital with moderate to critical injuries, Reyes said. The driver of the bus was among those killed.

Passenger Arlen Snider was asleep in the middle section of the bus when the crash occurred.

“I woke up on the floor of the bus and started helping people off the bus,” Snider, who escaped uninjured.

Linda Gee, another passenger, said she heard two booms and the next thing she knew the bus was down the embankment.

“I’m alive and I thank God I’m alive,” Gee said. “There was just bleeding everywhere.”

The SUV involved in the incident, a blue Chevy Trailblazer, had overturned in the fast lane and also landed at the bottom of the embankment, with its roof caved in and doors crushed.

Police were investigating the cause of the initial SUV crash, including whether it was related to drunken driving, Reyes said.

The two northbound lanes of Highway 99, a major route through the San Joaquin Valley, were closed for several hours after the crash.

A relief bus was sent to take nine passengers who wanted to continue on to their destinations.

[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]

Sunday school teacher gets life without parole for murder of Sandra Cantu

By Calvin Palmer

A Northern California Sunday School teacher was handed a life sentence by a San Joaquin County judge today after she pleaded guilty to murdering eight-year-old Sandra Cantu.

Melissa Huckaby, 29, apologized to the girl’s family and told them she “didn’t suffer”.

The eight-year-old’s body was found in a suitcase pulled from an irrigation pond not far from her trailer home in Tracy.

As part of a plea deal last month, Huckaby escaped the death sentence and other charges, including sexual abuse, were dropped.

Huckaby told a packed courtroom, in Stockton, she still struggles for an explanation as to why she killed Sandra, a playmate of her own daughter.

“I still cannot understand why I did what I did,” she said. “It’s not enough to say I’m sorry, but it’s all I can do.”

She said she will have to live with her decision to kill a “sweet and innocent” little girl for the rest of her life while behind bars.

She said Sandra did not suffer and added, “I did not sexually molest her.”

San Joaquin County prosecutors revealed today how the girl was killed – asphyxiation.

Sandra’s body was found April 6, 2009, stuffed in a suitcase in a dairy farm’s irrigation pond two miles from her home at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, where both the girl and Huckaby lived.

The gruesome details of Sandra’s killing were released today after Judge Linda Lofthus lifted a gag order she had imposed on attorneys and investigators.

Deputy District Attorney Tom Testa said a blood-stained piece of torn cloth had been tied around Sandra’s head and knotted into a noose. Traces of alprazolam, a sedative, were found in her system, the same medication found in Huckaby’s purse and home, the statement said.

Sandra suffered injuries to her genitalia that were consistent with the diameter of the handles of a rolling pin that was found at the nearby Clover Road Baptist Church, where Huckaby taught Sunday school and where her grandfather is the pastor. The rolling pin had a “bloody smudge” on it, and its handle was bent. The blood contained Sandra’s DNA.

A draw-cord from one of the church’s blinds had been used to tie shut the suitcase, an FBI expert determined.

Sandra was killed only moments after a surveillance video captured images of her skipping near her home March 27, 2009, prosecutors believe.

On the video, as the girl is skipping, “something catches her eye, and she looks over in the direction of Melissa Huckaby’s residence,” Testa said. Huckaby is the mother of one of Sandra’s playmates.

The same video shows Huckaby’s sport utility vehicle leaving the mobile home park eight minutes later and going to the church down the road. At about this time, Huckaby phoned the trailer park manager to report that her black Eddie Bauer suitcase had been stolen from in front of her home.

About 85 minutes later, the surveillance video shows Huckaby driving away from the church, authorities said. She was gone for about a half hour.

“It is during that 30-minute period that both a retired U.S. Marine and his wife see Melissa Huckaby and her SUV at an irrigation pond at Bacchetti Road and Whitehall Road in Tracy,” the statement said. “Melissa tells them she was there to urinate.”

The next day, Huckaby showed police a handwritten note that she said she had found in the trailer park. The note, riddled with misspellings, read, ‘Cantu locked in stolin suitcase thrown in water on Bacchetti Rd. & Whitehall Rd witness.”

“The handwriting, though disguised, has similarities to Melissa Huckaby’s known handwriting,” the statement said.

Sandra’s body was found in an Eddie Bauer suitcase in the same pond where the retired Marine and his wife had seen Huckaby, authorities said.

Huckaby was arrested four days after the girl’s body was found.

In court today, Sandra’s aunt, Angie Chavez, played a DVD showing pictures of Sandra as she was growing up. Many in the gallery wept.

“Seeing these images of Sandra is bitter. It reminds us of her. However, these are the last images we have of her,” Chavez said. “No punishment is severe enough to bring Sandra back.”

Sandra’s grandmother, Connie Cantu, and father, Daniel Cantu said they also felt sorry for Huckaby’s young daughter. Choking back tears, Daniel Cantu told Huckaby, “You took the life of an innocent little girl.”

[Based on reports by The San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press.]

Firefighters tackling dumpster blaze find woman’s body

By Calvin Palmer

Californian firefighters called to a blazing dumpster in the early hours of this morning made a grim discovery, the charred remains of a woman’s body.

Police were called to the scene behind a furniture store on Firestone Boulevard, Santa Fe Springs, and found what appeared to be a badly burned woman’s body that had been bound at the hands and feet.

Whittier Police say the woman’s hands and feet were tied with some kind of extension cord or lamp cord.

Officer Jason Zuhlke said the woman was so badly burned her age could not be immediately determined.

The case is being investigated as a homicide.

The coroner’s office is working to establish the woman’s identity.

Santa Fe Springs is 13 miles southeast of Los Angeles on Interstate 5.

[Based on a report by the Los Angeles Times.]

Bride-to-be graduate student goes missing from Yale research lab

By Calvin Palmer

Police in Connecticut are searching for a Yale graduate student and bride-to-be who has been missing since Tuesday.

Annie Le, 24, a third-year doctoral student in pharmacology, was last seen in a Yale research laboratory on Tuesday morning. Her purse, cell phone, credit cards and money were left in her office.

Police have used bloodhounds to search the lab and are continuing to comb the area, said Yale police chief James A Perotti. Footage from CCTV cameras is also being reviewed.

Le planned to get married on Sunday and was excited about getting married, according to Debbie Apuzzo, who works in the pharmacology department.

Police went to Le’s apartment on Lawrence Street in the East Rock section of the city. Her roommate, who declined to give her name, said police had told her not to discuss Le’s disappearance with anyone.

“I’m so worried,” she said.

Le is Asian, 4ft 11 ins and weighs 90 pounds. She has brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes.

She was last seen wearing a knee-length brown skirt, a bright green short-sleeved T-shirt, brown shoes and a brown necklace.

Le’s hometown is Placerville, California and she gained her undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester in New York state.

[Based on reports by the Hartford Courant and Associated Press.] 

Model’s naked body in suitcase starts manhunt for reality TV contestant

By Calvin Palmer

A former reality TV show contestant is being sought by police in connection with the murder of a Californian model who was found strangled and her naked body stuffed in a suitcase.

Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, is the last person to have seen 28-year-old Jasmine Fiore alive, said Sgt Shawn Morgan of the Buena Park Police Department.

“The evening after her body was discovered, he reported her missing to Los Angeles Police Department,” Morgan said.

The suitcase containing her body was found in a dumpster in Buena Park, California, on Saturday.

Jenkins appeared on the VH1 reality show Megan Wants A Millionaire earlier this year and listed Calgary as his hometown in his online profile for the show.

He may be on his way back to Canada, said Morgan.

Jenkins and Fiore were married for a short time, according to Fiore’s mother Lisa Lepore. She said the couple married in Las Vegas in March but had the marriage annulled in May.

Lapore said Jenkins convinced her daughter to take him back.

Fiore was a swimsuit model but left the business two years ago, according to her mother.

Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman Lisa White said if Jenkins is found crossing into Canada, he would be handed over to U.S. authorities.

[Based on reports by the Edmonton Sun and Associated Press.]

Huckaby indicted in kidnap, rape and killing of Sandra Cantu

By Calvin Palmer

A 28-year-old Sunday school teacher was today indicted by a San Joaquin County grand jury on charges of the kidnapping, rape and murder an eight-year-old girl and the drugging of two other people.

Melissa Huckaby, of Tracy, California, broke down in tears as Judge Linda Lofthus read the indictment against her.

Hucakabywas indicted on charges of murder with three special circumstances: kidnapping, lewd and lascivious acts on a child and rape with an instrument. The grand jury also added a charge of having sex with a child under 10 years old.

Huckaby previously pleaded not guilty to murdering eight-year-old Sandra Cantu, whose body was found on April 6 in a black suitcase in an irrigation pond near the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park, where the Huckaby and Cantu families live.

Huckaby was arrested April 10, four days after an intense search led to Sandra’s body. Sandra was last seen March 27 at the mobile home park.

Sandra was last seen on a surveillance camera skipping near her Tracy home just five doors down from the defendant.

Huckaby also pleaded not guilty to drugging a seven-year-old girl earlier this year as well as a 37-year-old man, Daniel Plowman, of Hayward, whom police believe she had dated. She is charged with two counts of furnishing someone a harmful substance and one count of child endangerment in the drugging case.

Defense attorney Sam Behar asked the judge to postpone setting a trial date because he said he did not have time to read the lengthy transcript. A hearing to set a date was scheduled for September 10.

[Based on a report by the Associated Press and San Jose Mercury News.]

Seven killed as car chased by police runs a stop sign

By Calvin Palmer

A stolen car being chased by police ran a stop sign and plowed into a pickup truck southeast of Fresno, killing four children in and all three occupants of the car, police said yesterday.

The four children were not wearing seatbelts and were thrown from the GMC Sierra truck, California Highway Patrol Officer Felipe Martinez said.

The Dodge Neon car was stolen either late on Friday or early Saturday in Selma, about 10 miles from the scene of the crash in Dinuba.

The children killed were Jochelyn Grace Salazar, 7; Monique Janae Salazar, 4; Michael Alexander Salazar, 3; and Sienna Rose Salazar, 1.

A fifth child from the truck, Carlos Eric Salazar, 8, was airlifted to Community Regional Hospital in Fresno with major injuries

Their parents, Carlos Salazar, Jr, 29, and Jennifer Salazar, 26, were also injured and taken to Community Regional.

 The three men in the car have not been identified. None of them was carrying identification, Martinez said.

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.]

Bullet fired into the air hits woman sleeping a mile away

By Calvin Palmer

A bullet from a gun fired into the air by a security guard attempting to break up a brawl outside Long Beach bar flew a mile an wounded a woman as she slept outside her home.

Prosecutors at Long Beach Superior Court yesterday charged Gilbert Fonoti, 23, with two counts of felony discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and carrying a loaded unregistered firearm.

On June 26, a brawl started outside the Club Cohiba around closing time. Fonoti was providing security at an event at the club. He unsuccessfully tried to stop the fight before allegedly firing his gun in the air.

The bullet traveled more than a mile and struck a 49-year-old woman, who has not been identified, as she slept on her deck.

Fonoti was arrested that night and released on bond.

Prosecutors said they pursued the charges based on ballistics evidence that showed the bullet removed from the woman was fired by the gun taken from the defendant.

The ‘magic bullet’ has often been cited by JFK conspiracy theorists discounting the official view that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy, now it would appear bullets can indeed have magical properties.

I have often wondered what happens to the bullets fired into the air from AK-47s by angry Muslims venting their anger against the United States, Israel, or both.

A mile seems an awful long way for a bullet from a handgun to travel, a rifle I could understand but not a handgun. I guess I need take out a subscription to Guns & Ammo.

[Based on a report by the Los Angeles Times.]