A serious hit-and-run collision involving a motorcyclist may have been caused by vehicles racing on a San Diego-area highway.
California Highway Patrol officers responded to the Main Street exit near the junction of Interstate 5 and State Route 15 around 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Several witnesses told officers the motorcyclist was clipped by a car and then thrown from the bike.
Debris from the crash littered the highway and closed the southbound lanes to traffic for about an hour.
Emergency personnel treated the motorcyclist at the scene. Firefighters and EMTs stabilized his neck and one emergency worker even held the man’s hand to comfort him while preparing to transport him to a nearby hospital.
CHP officials said the other driver may have been racing down I-5 with two other vehicles at the time of the collision.
Witnesses described the other vehicles involved were a red 4-door Honda Civic and a gold/silver Volkswagen GTI according to the CHP.
Those individuals fled the scene leaving the man and his motorcycle torn into pieces.
It may sound like a whale of a tale, but an 8-year-old San Rafael girl who was struck by an arrow near a life-size whale structure outside the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley is telling the truth.
Nadine Hairston-Millington was hit by an arrow while playing the popular structure on Tuesday morning during a school field trip. The arrow lodged in her leg and required hospital doctors to remove the 20-inch cross bow. No one knows who shot it, and both the University of California at Berkeley and Berkeley police departments are investigating what they are calling a serious incident.
"It hurt, it hurt a lot so I started crying a little," the third grader told NBC Bay Area on Wednesday. "I stopped when my teacher came over."
Rushed to Children's Hospital in Oakland, Nadine said she sang songs to stay calm: "My teacher put Taylor Swift songs on and we both sang the words together since she is my favorite singer."
Nadine was released and is expected to fully recover.
Police Capt. Stephen Roderick told Bay City News earlier this week that investigators are trying to reconstruct the arrow's trajectory, a difficult task when "an arrow can travel 500 to 1,000 yards." University police said that nearby residents said that other arrows have been found in the area, indicating that someone has been shooting in the recent past.
Nadine's mom, Alicia Hairston, said that the entire ordeal has been bizarre and scary, but in the end, her daughter is now home and it could have been worse.
"I feel lucky it hit where it hit, didn't hit an artery, muscle, a vein. It could have been much worse," she said. Hairston says doctors are expecting a complete recovery.
Nadine doesn't seem bothered by the incident at all. In fact, she thinks by catching the arrow in her leg, she may have done something kind for the statue.
"I saved a whale," she said proudly.
Anyone who might have information about the case is asked to call UC Berkeley police at (510) 642-6760 or UC police at 510-642-0472 or 6760.
Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, were charged last month in the death of the honors student who attended President Barack Obama's second inaugural just days before her death.
The prosecuting attorney on Thursday announced 141 counts of first-degree murder against Ward and 17 counts against Williams.
After court, Pendleton's father, Nathaniel, said his fight for change will only get stronger as the violence continues to claim young lives in Chicago.
"You're going to feel some anger, but I feel confident they will do what they have to do to make justice happen," Nathaniel Pendleton said.
Prosecutors said Pendleton was the unintended target of what they say was a gang war. Ward is accused of pulling the trigger while prosecutors say Williams was his accomplice.
"He didn't do this," Matthew McQuaid, Williams' attorney, said. "He's pleading not guilty. We see this case going to trial at some point because he's not going to plead guilty to something he didn't do."
Prosecutors said Ward gave a videotaped statement to police admitting to driving his mother's white Nissan that day to the park. He said Pendleton "had nothing to do with it" and "she was just there."
Chicago police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Ward confessed to being the shooter, telling police that Pendleton was not his intended target. The superintendent said the shooting was in retaliation for a shooting last July that left Williams injured.
Pendleton, a student at King College Prep High, was shot as she and a group of other teens sought cover from a rain storm in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park, on the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue.
First Lady Michelle Obama attended her funeral, and President Barack Obama has named her in several speeches on gun control.
Pendleton's parents were guests at the president's State of the Union address, and her mother is in Washington today to attend an event with other mothers whose children were killed in gun violence.
Nuts, honey, cheese. No, these are not the ingredients for your perfect cheese board. It's a list of edible items pilfered in a string of recent giant heists.
An Illinois man accused of stealing 21 tons (42,000 pounds) of cheese was arrested Tuesday afternoon. The stolen Muenster from Wisconsin was worth $200,000, according to NBC Chicago.
Other heists have left the robbers laughing all the way to the bank with their pricey - and delicious - loot. Here's a look at several:
Whisky-A-No-Mo - A live-in caretaker at a mansion in Pittsburgh is facing criminal charges for allegedly drinking more than $100,000-worth of whiskey that belonged to the owner of the house. The suspect John Saunders, 62, said the alcohol "evaporated." Owner Patricia Hill discovered the whiskey in the walls of the historic mansion after she purchased the place in 2012. She suspects the alcohol was purchased pre-Prohibition by coal industrialist J.P Brennan. "I was told by his family that family members used to greet him at the door each day with a shot of whiskey," Hill told NBC Philadelphia.
Honey Heist - A local beekeeper in Abbotsford, B.C., fell victim in July when thieves took more than 3,500 kilograms (7,716 pounds) of honey and some expensive equipment. Police suspect the theft was committed by someone familiar with the industry, as the thieves also took 500,000 bees and 100 hive frames which placed the value of the stolen goods at $100,000. “I would be more inclined to suggest that they’re not looking to, pardon the pun, liquidate the honey immediately,” city official Ian MacDonald told the Globe and Mail.
Maple Syrup Mystery - Three people were arrested in December in connection with a theft of 10 million pounds (5,000 tons) of maple syrup from a warehouse in Quebec. The theft was discovered last summer during a standard inventory check. Police said the theives stole the syrup over the course of a year and hid the theft by replacing the missing syrup with water, The New York Times reported. The value of the stolen syrup was valued at $30 million, officials said. Two thirds of the syrup have since been recovered, police said.
Going Nuts - Eighty-thousand pounds of walnuts mysteriously disappeared last October somewhere on their way to Miami. A few days later another 40,000 pounds of walnuts vanished on their way to Texas, according to NBC DFW. Officials said the incidents were connected by a suspicious delivery driver who turned out to be an imposter posing as an employee for a trucking company.
More than 1,700 people are without power in Uptown, according to San Diego Gas & Electric.
Areas affected by the outage include Old Town, Mission Hills and Hillcrest.
Power went out around 11:45 a.m. and SDG&E workers are assessing the damage. They are unsure what caused the incident.
This is the third day of outages in the area. Power went out in parts of Hillcrest Tuesday night, and workers shut down parts of Washington Street yesterday to work on repairing the circuit.
There were three passengers: Her daughter, a 31-year-old male passenger and his daughter. Hernandez and the male passenger managed to escape the car, but the two girls drowned as they were trapped under water.
Hernandez appeared in court Thursday to plead guilty to six felonies, including vehicular manslaughter and driving drunk, in addition to two misdemeanors. She will be sentenced on May 31.
Newly-installed security cameras on a school campus in San Diego were highlighted in a visit from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer Thursday.
Perkins Elementary School in Barrio Logan has close to a dozen security cameras recording movements on campus around the clock.
Principal Fernando Hernandez said the school just got the surveillance system because San Diego Unified School District applied for more than $1 million in federal grant money.
“It is a visual deterrent but it does provide another sense of security,” he said. “Parents feel their students are safer at school.”
The cameras will be phased over time until every school in SDUSD has the cameras the principal said.
Boxer applauded SDUSD a district that “really stepped up to the plate” during her visit to promote legislation that would expand the federal grant program for school safety.
“If you look at these cameras they make a difference,” she said.
Ed. Note: We originally reported the cameras were part of a new program. There are currently 75 schools in San Diego with security cameras paid for by federal grants and funds from Prop Z and Prop S. We regret the error.
After six years in existence, Tumblr reached the 100-million blog mark this week.
The milestone -- including over 44.6 billion posts -- was hit with little celebration, according to NBC News. In fact, the first mention of the event was on The Next Web, an online publication about Internet technology. Tumblr's "About" page has a counter that shows how many blogs and posts exist on the site. The metric comes almost exactly one year after the site reached the 20-billion-post mark in similar casual fashion, at a time when there were nearly 50 million blogs.
Last week, Twitter announced it reached over 200 million users with a video on YouTube, which also hit a big milestone last Wednesday: 1 billion monthly unique users.
Although Tumblr lags its social media competitors in overall user numbers, the L.A. Times reported that a survey released earlier this year revealed that more teens and young adults use Tumblr in comparison to Facebook.
George Carlin, in his classic comic comparison of baseball and football, used the differing language of the two sports to contrast their spirits – the harsher-sounding helmet vs. the more benign cap, gridiron vs. park, penalty vs. error.
"Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life," Carlin observed. "Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying."
But as the 2013 baseball season gets set to start on Easter Sunday, it feels like winter never ended. Some ugly sports terms – steroids, human growth hormone, performance enhancing drugs – that post-date Carlin's four-decade-old routine threaten again to overshadow the sunny hope spring should bring.
Baseball's latest battle for its soul bodes perhaps the toughest test yet for fans' battered yet resilient hearts.
Just over a week before Opening Day, Major League Baseball officials launched a risky attempt at a spring-cleaning in the form of a lawsuit that could yield a hall of shame list of players who allegedly doped. Some big names already have dripped into the media.
The lawsuit promises a stark continuation of a bleak off-season in which the Hall of Fame ballot proved a rare shutout. Not even Mike Piazza, the home run leader among catchers, made the cut, likely due to largely unspoken, unsubstantiated suspicions. And at a time when the economy is only just beginning a comeback, we learn, via Yahoo! Sports, that this season kicks off with baseball's first cumulative $3 billion payroll.
But as it always does, the sport of Ruth, Aaron and Mays lures us with new – and old – reasons to cheer. The recent World Baseball Classic showcased the game as a vibrant, international pastime, with teams culled from five continents. The Mets are set to host their first All-Star Game in nearly a half-century, offering a guaranteed bright spot for those of us stubborn (and masochistic) enough to still love them. Mariano Rivera, the greatest relief pitcher of them all, is defying age and injury to return for one final season of putting out fires.
Whether baseball can extinguished the inferno threatening the sport while keeping fans' passions burning, though, is shaping up as the big story of the 2013 season.
Carlin, a cynic about nearly everything but baseball, extolled the sport’s endless possibilities and sense of optimism, as promised by a diamond with foul lines stretching to infinity and the lack of a game clock.
“Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end – we might have extra innings!” he said.
But he might be proved wrong on that account: After a two-decade rollercoaster of labor disputes, home run records that turned out to be shams, and drugs, performance enhancing and otherwise, fans’ patience could be running out. Lance Armstrong’s admitted doping, while not an offense against baseball, only promises to make the public more jaded.
Spring carries hope for redemption and renewal. Baseball, which offers the opportunity for both on the diamond, is in bad need of both off the field.
A San Diego-area elementary school’s decision to hold class despite a power outage drew criticism Wednesday.
The power outage lasted nearly 24 hours and affected 3,000 customers near Hillcrest including students and teachers at Florence Elementary.
Daniel Hall walked his 4th grader to school Wednesday but decided to take him out an hour later, citing safety concerns.
“The bells weren't working. There's no electricity. Can't call into the school. Can't call out. The phone system is down. Everything's down,” Hall said.
Hall said there was no emergency system in place if something were to happen.
School administrators told NBC 7 that safety wasn’t compromised at all.
The director of the after-school program said students were taught in well-lit areas or outside.
Instead of computers, teachers brought out books, paper and pencils.
It was an inconvenience for 5th grader Zora Williams who was working on her project about the Revolutionary War.
“We were supposed to do it online, but we couldn't so we had to do it from our social studies book,” Williams said.
Grandmother Patricia Jackson-Haynes didn’t see the reason for parents to be alarmed.
“I think if it were a concern, the first thing the school would have done was to call the parents,” she said.
“They have everybody's home numbers, cell numbers, second contacts. So I don't think there was a concern to pick somebody up or close the school.”
Hall said when he called the superintendent's office about the outage, they told him there was no reason to cancel class for the day.
San Diego Gas & Electric blamed a faulty underground power line for the outage.
Newtown killer Adam Lanza and his mother kept their home stocked with a massive cache of guns, knives, swords and ammunition — a startling array of weapons described in newly released documents that sketch a portrait of a household enamored with firearms and of a young man apparently coping with emotional issues.
The documents, released Thursday morning, outline what police found in the home following Lanza's Dec. 14 rampage, which began with him shooting his mother in bed and culminated with a massacre inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he gunned down 20 first graders and six adults and then killed himself. The school attack is believed to have lasted less than five minutes.
They also raise new questions about what Lanza's 52-year-old mother, Nancy, knew about the danger that her son posed, and whether she was complicit in allowing him to obtain guns.
Among the paperwork taken from the home they shared were photographs of what appeared to be a bloody body, a New York Times article about a 2008 mass shooting at Northern Illinois University, self-help books for understanding the minds of people with Asperger's Syndrome and autism, a paperback entitled "Train Your Brain to Get Happy," a guide to pistol shooting and a holiday card containing a check Nancy Lanza wrote to Adam for the purchase of a firearm.
A witness told FBI agents that Adam Lanza "rarely leaves his home" and was considered a "shut-in" and avid video game player, the documents say. The witness, whose identity was blacked out of the text, also told agents that Adam Lanza had attended Sandy Hook and that the school was his "life."
The documents also show that Adam Lanza kept a gun safe and a military-style uniform in his bedroom, and that he and his mother some sort of certificates from the National Rifle Association.
The NRA said in a statement to NBC News Thursday there "is no record of a member relationship between Newtown killer Adam Lanza, nor between Nancy Lanza, A. Lanza or N. Lanza with the National Rifle Association. Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory."
Police seized several of Adam Lanza's personal journals and drawings, a smashed hard drive, handwritten notes on the addresses of local gun shops and several printed emails. The documents do not indicate what they contained.
The list of weapons found in the home reads like the contents of a survivalist bunker. The guns included an Enfield Albion bolt-action rifle, a Savage Mark II .22-caliber rifle, a black BB gun and a starter pistol. In addition, investigators found several large-capacity magazines, along with a huge array of ammunition: at least 126 shotgun shells and 1,526 bullets, including 661 .22-caliber bullets, 178 .45-caliber bullets and 161 9mm bullets. There were also nine knives, three Samurai swords, a pole outfitted with a spear and blade and a bayonet.
Many of those items were found in an open gun safe, but the documents do not indicate whether they were found in the safe in Adam Lanza's bedroom, or if there was a second one elsewhere in the house.
In any case, Adam Lanza clearly had a wide array of weapons to choose from to carry out the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
He started with his mother, shooting her in the forehead with a .22 caliber rifle. Then he took four guns to the scene: a .223 caliber Bushmaster rifle, which he used to shoot the students and school workers; a Glock 10mm handgun, which he used on himself; a loaded 9 mm Sig-Sauer handgun found on his body; and a 12-gauge Izhmash Canta shotgun, which he left behind in his mother's Honda Civic outside the school. In the car there were two magazines containing 70 shotgun rounds.
All four of those guns were legally owned by Nancy Lanza, authorities have said.
The documents, which had been under court seal since the start of the investigation, cover five search warrants. The seal expired on Thursday. The judge overseeing the case granted prosecutors' request to redact certain details, including a witness’ name, a telephone number and a credit card number.
Along with the search warrant documents, Danbury State's Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III included a statement that added details to the rampage and its aftermath.
He stressed that the investigation has not ended, adding that he had determined that the release of the search warrant documents would not jeopardize the case. He also acknowledged that state lawmakers have been anxious to learn more of the attack to help them negotiate a wide-ranging gun control proposal.
The state Attorney General may release more information later this week. A final report on the investigation is expected in June.
"Our sympathies for this tragedy continues to go out to the victims' families, friends and the Newtown community," Sedensky said.
The first 911 call from the school reached authorities at 9:35 a.m., the documents say. When police arrived, they found Nancy Lanza's Civic parked in the fire lane in front of the school. Adam Lanza had shot his way into the entrance. The dead were found in two classrooms near the front door.
In one of the classrooms police found Adam Lanza's body, outfitted in military-style clothing. They recovered the Bushmaster—with 14 rounds in its magazine and one in its chamber—and two handguns, along with three fully loaded 30-round additional magazines for the Bushmaster. Nearby were six more 30-round magazines, three of which were spent, and three of which still had bullets inside. At the scene investigators collected 154 spent .223 shell casings.
Authorities headed to the Lanza home, about five miles away, and found Nancy Lanza in bed in a second-story bedroom with a gunshot wound to her forehead, and a rifle on the floor.
Besides the article about the Northern Illinois University shooting, in which Steven Kazmierczak killed five people and injured 21, the newly released Newtown documents do not add to prior reports that Adam Lanza had studied prior mass shootings.
The Hartford Courant has reported that investigators found news articles about Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian man who in July 2011 detonated bombs that killed eight people in downtown Oslo before going on a rampage at a summer retreat, shooting 69 people to death, most of them teenagers.
Connecticut Police Lt. Paul Vance has in the past dismissed reports that Lanza had felt himself in competition with other mass murderers as "mere speculation."
State police and local officials privately briefed victims' families at the Newtown Municipal Center Wednesday night on how to handle the release of the documents.
"I think it reopens...it causes them to revisit the pain they felt three months ago," said Newtown Schools Superintendent Janet Robinson. "It's really too bad when we go on this path of healing to have these things that come back to us and remind us and take us back to the events again. It's hard."
César Chávez Day is on Sunday, and the University of California, San Diego plans to honor the life and legacy of the Chicano civil rights leader for the next month with a series of special events.
To kick things off, César Chávez Day will be observed on the UCSD campus on Friday, Mar. 29.
After that, a series of events will follow over the next five weeks that include film screenings, a celebration of Chicano Park’s 43rd anniversary and a special keynote address from former U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
The celebration kicks off with an opening event on Apr. 3 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the UCSD Price Center East Ballroom. The event features a lunch and awards ceremony honoring individuals following in Chávez’s footsteps in their communities. Tickets to the opening event can be ordered by calling (858) 534-6862.
Then, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Apr. 3, Solid will speak at the Price Center East Ballroom, discussing Chávez’s contributions and what his Chicano civil rights work symbolizes in the 21st Century. A reception will follow the lecture.
On Apr. 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., UCSD’s Thurgood Marshall College will host its 35th Annual Cultural Celebration featuring music, dance, games and more family-friendly activities.
On Apr. 20 UCSD students will be treated to a trip from UCSD to Barrio Logan to celebrate the 43rd anniversary of Chicano Park. The trip includes a stop for lunch at the historic Las Cuatro Milpas restaurant.
On Apr. 30, a screening of the 2009 film “La Mission” will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the UCSD Cross-Cultural Center.
A screening of the 2011 documentary “Chicano Legacy: 40 Años Mural” will be held on May 7 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the UCSD Cross-Cultural Center. The film chronicles the backstory, installation and unveiling of the Mario Torero mural at Peterson Hall on campus.
For a full, detailed list of upcoming Chávez-related events at UCSD, visit this website.
“We are proud to celebrate the life and legacy of César E. Chávez at UC San Diego,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “Our month-long series of events honor his achievements, raise awareness about the struggle for equal rights and underscore our campus’s commitment to equity, service and community engagement.”
For a full, detailed list of upcoming Chávez-related events at UCSD, visit this website.
Rifle-toting deputies searched a dirt trail behind homes in Julian following the report of a shooting.
San Diego County sheriff’s deputies said a man who had been shot through the neck made his way to a call box along State Route 78 around 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
A passing driver stopped and took the man to Cal Fire officials said.
The shooting victim was transported to Palomar Hospital. Details on his condition are not available.
A news helicopter captured two deputies carrying high-powered rifles as they appeared to search a dirt trail behind two homes after the shooting was first reported.
Officials said they have since made two arrests. Jeffrey Roberson , 47, and 40-year-old Jennifer Minor were taken into custody.
Roberson was booked into the San Diego County Jail on one charge of Attempt Murder. Minor was booked into Las Colinas and charged with conspiracy.
The victim and suspects live along the private road Kentucky Mind Road. Officials said the land owner allows the three people involved to live on the property.
Local teenager Richard “Richie” Carrillo, 14, was shot and killed in the Mount Hope area on Mar. 24, 2012. Police say Carrillo was sitting on the tailgate of a parked pickup truck on Island Avenue, talking with friends, when a dark-colored SUV drove up to the group and stopped. Two unknown Hispanic males in their 20s got out of the SUV and began shooting toward Carrillo and his friends. Investigators say Carrillo tried to flee on foot, but he was fatally struck by the sudden gunfire. The shooting suspects were last seen driving away westbound in their SUV. READ MORE ON THIS CASE:
Unsolved Murder Richie Carrillo
A North Texas family wants everyone to know about the real dangers of driving along one of Texas' newest toll roads — and it has nothing to do with the 85-mph speed limit.
Jackie Anderson, of Mount Vernon, says her family was driving on Texas Highway 130 near Austin at about midnight last Friday when they hit 25 to 30 feral hogs crossing the highway.
"All of a sudden, it seems like I was 100 feet when I noticed them — a pack of wild feral hogs," said her husband, David Anderson.
Their SUV rolled 10 times.
"We must have rolled and flipped for 300 feet before the car landed on [the] driver's side," David Anderson said.
The family, including their 5-week-old granddaughter survived the crash, but one of the family's dogs died. Another was lost but found four days later with a broken leg.
Jackie Anderson, who was in the front passenger seat, said she remembers thinking she wouldn't live through the crash. She sustained serious injuries — a concussion, seat belt burn and soft-tissue injuries all over her body.
Jackie Anderson said she wants Texas drivers to know about the very real feral-hog problem and questions why the state hasn't done more to warn drivers of the danger or try to keep them from entering the roadway.
The Andersons said they only saw one sign on the road, near Lockhart. More lighting and signage could have helped, they said.
"Knowing that I could have seen one light bar that said, 'Careful, feral hogs,' I would've taken a different route," Jackie Anderson said. "It just makes me sick."
The Texas Department of Transportation said the safety of drivers is its top priority.
"Wildlife roadway crossings are a global problem. But we have already taken some measures to protect drivers on this highway. We currently have 'Wildlife Crossing' signs posted along the ROW of this highway," agency spokeswoman Veronica Beyer said in a statement Thursday. " We continue to work with the Concession company to identify what additional measures may be appropriate to improve driver safety. It's also important that drivers pay close attention and focus 100 percent of their attention on driving."
Everyone dreams of beating the system, but Erik Bogaard may have actually found a way to do it.
"Students are frustrated," said the 21-year old college student who has come up with a way for students to bypass the campus book store to sell their textbooks.
"The student owns the book and has the right to the fair market value of the book," said Bogaard, who is currently on leave from Boston University to run his two-year-old website, www.mybookcrate.com.
The idea is to help students meet up with other students on campus to buy and sell their textbooks.
Carolyne Chen is a student at UC San Diego and says she's tired of seeing the bookstore make so much off her used books.
"I paid the bookstore $120, they'll only buy it back for $50," said Chen.
So she tried mybookcrate.com, she found someone on campus selling a political science book she wanted and the website helped them arrange a meeting.
"I wanted a visible place on campus," said Chen.
She looked over the book and agreed to the price. But, instead of carrying around money, she paid for the book through the mybookcrate website.
"It's really powerful to be matched one minute and within the hour meet at a location," said founder Bogaard. "It is a matter of removing the shipping and handling costs as well as the wait time."
Bogaard says his website takes 10 percent of the purchase price.
But it allows students to buy books below bookstore prices and get much more money back for used textbooks.
Bogaard says bookstores often pay around 30 percent of a book's original value while people using his website make 78 percent. The students actually set the price when they list the book.
Students have used swebites like Craigslist and eBay to sell used books but this allows them to have a face to face transactions.
A 17-year-old girl was able to break free from the clutches of a suspect who allegedly grabbed her from inside a van in a kidnapping attempt in Emerald Hills Thursday afternoon, police confirmed.
According to SDPD officials, the incident happened just before 4 p.m. at Euclid and Lise Avenues.
Police say the teenage girl was walking past four or five black male suspects inside a parked white Dodge Caravan when the front seat passenger opened the door, grabbed the girl and allegedly tried to pull her into the van.
The teen resisted and was dragged a short distance as the vehicle drove away, police said.
She eventually broke free from the suspect’s grasp and fell onto the street.
Police say the girl hit her head in the fall and sustained a gash. She was taken to a local trauma center for treatment. Her current condition is unknown.
Investigators say the suspects were last seen driving eastbound on Market Street. The men were not immediately located by police.
Police say the van had white rims and tinted windows. The man driving the van is described as heavy-set.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on this case is urged to contact authorities.
After weeks of bitter legal and political feuding over San Diego's Tourism Marketing District, an agreement in principle to settle the dispute was unveiled Thursday at City Hall.
"I have said from the beginning, of course, that I believe the (law)suits that claim the TMD is illegal will succeed,” Filner told council members during a special meeting. “But that's in court, that's neither here nor there today -- although I noticed the attorney for the TMD could not avoid calling it a tax."
The underlying issue is whether the Tourism Marketing District, a creation of the city's hotel industry, has the legal power to impose the 2 percent room surcharge that the city has been collecting at the rate of $30 million a year.
A promotional campaign that includes a snappy, music-themed TV commercial showcasing San Diego’s beach attractions has been delayed for lack of the money that's accumulated so far this year, because Mayor Filner has withheld the funds on grounds that the proceeds are unlawful taxes.
He also has objected to the private election in which a dozen leading hotels overpowered hundreds of smaller properties with a “'weighted vote” to establish the district and approve the surcharges.
Last week a judge ruled that Filner need not sign the district's contract with the city, because some language was too vague.
On Tuesday, during a boisterous hearing at City Hall, the Council approved specific wording ordering his signature – prompting him to warn that he might launch a veto/override cycle and fight the issue out in court for up to a year.
"It looked, certainly to the public view, that we were at each other's throats,” Filner told reporters Thursday after the Council referred the agreement in principle to the city attorney’s office. “ If that was a sad day, this is a good day -- because it shows that although we differ in our approach, we did come together."
The understanding incorporates concessions that the mayor – with Councilman David Alvarez acting as an intermediary since Tuesday -- bargained from the hoteliers, although not to the extent he originally demanded.
The so-called "term sheets" of the proposed agreement will be vetted by City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, who said he wants to “clean up” references to TMD spending and donations to Balboa Park's centennial celebration, and legal protection for the city if the room surcharges are found invalid, and guests sue for refunds.
The final document may take a couple weeks to finish -- leaving the funds frozen during the dispute unavailable for spending, to promote San Diego as a “destination” for visitors and conventioneers.
A man accused of targeting Ford Rangers in a series of vehicle burglaries across La Mesa was arrested Wednesday, officials confirmed.
Police say Nikolas Aledam, 29, is suspected of burglarizing more than 18 vehicles – mainly Ford Rangers – in La Mesa and San Diego County.
Aledam was taken into custody Wednesday at a local courthouse when he showed up for an unrelated court appearance.
During his arrest, police learned additional information about Aledam, which was then used to obtain a search warrant for his home.
A search of Aledam’s residence yielded evidence linking him to various burglary cases in La Mesa. Police found stolen items including stereos, amplifiers, GPS devices, iPods, iPhones, watches an expandable baton and a taser in his home.
During the search warrant, Aledam’s girlfriend was also arrested for possession of a controlled substance. She was booked into Las Colinas Detention Facility while Aledam was booked into San Diego Central Jail.
Police say anyone with information on this case – or anyone who may have been a victim of these vehicle burglaries – should contact La Mesa PD Detective Sean Snow at (619) 667-7537.
A champion boxer was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport Thursday morning after he tried to check an unloaded gun, the Queens district attorney said Thursday.
Robert Guerrero, the current WBC welterweight champ who is scheduled to face Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas on May 4, was checking in at a ticket counter in Terminal 2 at about 7 a.m. and told the agent he had an unloaded gun on him, according to his manager, Luis Decubas Jr.
Decubas, who was with Guerrero when Port Authority arrested him, said he and his client were unaware it's illegal to possess an unloaded gun in New York City, and they had planned to check it with their baggage before boarding their flight.
The DA said Guerrero told authorities he had the gun, a Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handgun, with him in New York City since he arrived on Monday.
Guerrero is charged with one count of criminal possession of a weapon and three counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He faces up to four years in prison.
"If a passenger chooses to travel with a weapon, they should first acquaint themselves with the weapon laws of the jurisdiction that they are visiting and comply with any and all legal requirements," Queens DA Richard Brown said. "Otherwise, they may find themselves being arrested and charged with a felony – as is what occurred in this case.”
Guerrero was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court May 14.
