Judge ends legal fight against Mt. Soledad Cross Denying a discovery-related motion, a federal judge has put to rest once and for all a decades-long legal battle over the display of a 43-foot-tall Latin cross that will remain at the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial in San Diego. In what U.S. District Judge John D. Bates called a “last gasp,” Republican U.S. Reps. Darrell Issa, Brian…
The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, Brancart & Brancart, Cooley LLP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law announced Thursday, May 25 it had reached a settlement with the City of Escondido in a two year-old discrimination suit. The ACLU sued Escondido after the city denied a permit to operate a group home for refugee children fleeing violence and persecution in…
Documented gang member Dionicio Crespin Torrez Jr., 24, pleaded not guilty to murder, Friday, March 17 at the Vista Courthouse in connection with the murder of an Escondido woman who drove through a violent gang turf confrontation on the way home from Bible study. Torrez could face the death penalty. Superior Court Judge Cynthia Freehand denied bail citing “the allegations and my concern for public safety.” “On…
No news was bad news as Escondido police renewed its call for somebody, anybody to come forward with information related to the slaying of a 55-year-old Escondido woman on her way home from church Tuesday night. A beloved wife and church worker, Catherine Kennedy was struck in the head by gunfire when she passed near some kind of crossfire between rival gangs in the 1800 block…
For several weeks earlier this year, an odd battle was waged in the halls of the U.S. Capitol over a controversial work of art by a high school student placed there after an art competition in St. Louis. At issue is whether the Architect of the Capitol had the right to direct the permanent removal of the painting, or whether doing so violated the student’s…
Escondido Police Department’s great reveal about its Jan. 28 DUI/Drivers License checkpoint took some reading between the lines to get the rest of the story. Nowhere in Lt. Mike Kearney’s “Sobriety Enforcement Results” was the most pertinent subject of a DUI/Drivers License checkpoint revealed in so many words. Which is to say, yet again, the sobriety enforcement roadblock yielded no DUI suspects. “Checkpoints are placed…
A long-simmering family feud over money boiled over early Wednesday when a 73-year-old Escondido man killed three relatives and critically wounded a fourth, according to police. Ali Zafar, of Escondido, was arrested on suspicion of homicide shortly after the shootings inside an apartment in Fontana, police Sergeant Kevin Goltara said. The 73-year-old shooting suspect surrendered to authorities at the property, police said, adding that the…
People may have behaved badly this year, but they’re behaving a lot less badly around San Marcos, about the same around Escondido and somewhat greater around Valley Center than last year. Overall, crime rates in these three communities combined dropped this year compared to last year, bucking a trend that found overall countywide rates rising. This, according to mid-year 2016 crime statistics compiled by SANDAG and…
When it comes to North County: Fire, bad. Additional fire-fighting resources, good. The bad news this week, as if residents didn’t know it intuitively: More than half the land in San Diego County – including neighborhoods reaching almost to the ocean and densely settled foothill cities – is at high or very high potential for difficult-to-control fire according to data gleaned from maps prepared by…
The Border Patrol says it has arrested two men they believe tried to smuggle $3 million in cash into Mexico from California. The agency says its agents tracked and stopped a Kia Forte in Escondido on Tuesday and found nearly $34,000 stashed in the car’s center console Authorities say another car sped off as the first vehicle was stopped but it was later found abandoned…