Two Santa Cruz police officers were shot to death Tuesday afternoon - the first time in city history that officers were killed in the line of duty. One suspect was also killed.

The two officers who died, Det. Sgt. Loran "Butch" Baker and Det. Elizabeth Butler, had a combined 38 years of experience with the Santa Cruz Police Department.

"We at the Santa Cruz Police Department are like family," Santa Cruz police chief Kevin Vogel said. "I've known both of these officers for a long, long time and there just aren't words to describe how I feel personally about this and how our department is reacting to this horrific, horrific tragedy."

Baker had been with the department for 28 years and leaves behind a wife, two daughters and a son, Adam, who works for the department as a community service officer.

Butler leaves her partner, Peter, and two young sons.

"This is the darkest day in the history of the Santa Cruz Police Department," Vogel said.

Baker and Butler went to an address on North Branciforte Avenue as a part of an investigation Tuesday. Details are unclear, but in making contact with the suspect, Santa Cruz resident Jeremy Goulet, 35, an altercation ensued.

Both detectives were killed at the scene.

After going door-to-door in the community authorities say there are no more outstanding suspects or any danger to the community.The Santa Cruz Sentinel said the investigation was possibly domestic violence related, but Santa Cruz County Sheriff Phil Wowak could not confirm what the investigation was about.

A Santa Cruz resident, who declined to give his name, said he was sitting in his house in the 800 block of North Branciforte Avenue when he heard gunfire across the street around 3:30 p.m. Police arrived soon, he said.  That's when a suspect fired at police, hitting the two officers.

A while later, he heard a "multitude of gunfire" coming from an area nearby. He said police told residents to stay inside and not to leave. 

Following the incident, schools in the immediate area were placed on lockdown. 

"We need to figure out a way to bring our department together and get through this," Vogel said. "It's a horrible, horrible day for the Santa Cruz Police Department and the community of Santa Cruz." 

After the police were killed, a second shooting occurred a half-hour later while police were in pursuit of at least one suspect, maybe two, on Doyle Street. A barrage of gunfire erupted that left Goulet dead on Doyle Street, according to the Sentinel.

Police were on a citywide manhunt for several hours after the initial shooting. The FBI joined the investigation just after 4 p.m. as well as law enforcement from the sheriff's office, Capitola, Watsonville and Scotts Valley police departments and the California Highway Patrol.

NBC Bay Area's George Kiriyama and Bay City News contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Larissa Mueller/Santa Cruz Sentinel

More sea lions have beached themselves in California this year, according to marine mammal care facilities in Southern California.

SeaWorld and other rehabilitation centers across the state have seen an increase of sea lions needing care.

More than 90 malnourished and dehydrated sea lion pups were have been brought to a Los Angeles animal care facility so far this year.

“I don’t know what’s causing the increased number now,” Dave Bard, director of the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro, told NBC. “We really don’t know.”

Seven sea lions and one seal were recently transferred to SeaWorld San Diego because the San Pedro center reached capacity.

SeaWorld officials said they have rescued 63 marine mammals from San Diego beaches so far this year. They attribute the increase of malnourished sea lions to lack of food sources, saying the majority of animals are malnourished or dehydrated.

Homicide investigators have identified an ex-con as a “person of interest” in last week’s triple homicide on the Las Vegas strip.

Ammar Harris, 26, was wanted in connection with the Thursday shooting on South Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

Tineesha Lashun Howard, also known as Yenesis Alfonzo, 22, from Miami, was identified as being inside of a black Range Rover at the time the shots were fired, police said.

Howard is 5 foot 8 and weighs about 120 pounds. She has green eyes and dark hair. She’s listed as missing and police believe she is in danger.

Police released her most recent mug shot and photographs depicting the suspect with Howard.

Police said Howard has a criminal history that includes arrests for soliciting prostitution, trespassing, possession of a stolen vehicle, and grand larceny.

A manhunt has widened to southeastern U.S. states for Harris, a former resident of South Carolina and Georgia.

He was convicted in Atlanta in 2005 of marijuana possession. He was arrested in Miami in December on a reckless driving charge, according to public records.

Harris also was arrested in June 2010 in Las Vegas on pandering, kidnapping, sex assault and coercion charges stemming from allegations that he was a pimp. He sometimes goes by the name Ammar Asim Faruq Harris.

Investigators believe Harris was the driver and the gunman who fired shots from a black Range Rover SUV into a Maserati, killing an aspiring rapper and causing a crash and explosion that killed two people when a taxi exploded in a fireball before dawn Thursday at the heart of the Strip.

"We have him identified," Las Vegas police Capt. Chris Jones told the Associated Press. "Now the focus is on locating and apprehending him. We're getting help all over the place."

A SWAT team didn't find Harris at his home after the SUV was found parked Saturday in the garage of a gated apartment complex a couple of blocks east of the Strip.

The SUV had been sought as the getaway vehicle in the shooting and six-vehicle, chain-reaction crash on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Bally's and Flamingo resorts.

Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. was mortally wounded when the dark gray Maserati he was driving was peppered by gunfire from the SUV. Taxi driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund of Maple Valley, Wash., died in the taxi.

Police say the shooting stemmed from an altercation between Cherry and Harris in a valet area of the upscale Aria resort a block south of the crash scene at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

A passenger in the Maserati was wounded in the arm, and four people from four other vehicles were treated for non-life-threatening injuries after the crash.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Burglars made off with some unusual loot from an Orange strip mall on Tuesday morning -- high-priced wigs from a beauty supply shop.

Someone smashed windows at storefronts at The Brickyard Shopping Center, a two-story strip mall in the 1600 block of Lincoln Avenue, about 1:15 a.m., Orange police Sgt. Fred Lopez said.

The affected businesses were Jin's Wig and Salon, Cosmo Prof Salon Center and Russell Walls Dentistry.

The burglars stole $100 from a cash register in the dentist's office, an empty cash register from the beauty supply store worth about $200 and several wigs worth about $1,500 to $2,000 from the wig shop, Lopez said.

A Chula Vista teacher who is accused of luring children online was given new charges on Tuesday, according to the district attorney’s office.

John Kinloch, 41, was arrested in December last year for allegedly molesting multiple children and obtaining child pornography. He now faces 32 charges – 12 of which were filed today.

The specifics of the new charges were not released by the courthouse.

Kinloch worked as a first grade teacher teacher at Wolf Canyon Elementary School and has been teaching for the last 14 years.

Federal agents believe the veteran teacher lured children online in order to obtain nude pictures of minors. He was arrested as part of a nationwide child pornography investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

If Kinloch is found guilty, he could face up to 66 years in state prison, according to the district attorney’s office. He is currently booked at the South Bay Detention Facility with bail set at $1.9 million.

Check back for updates on this story.

A Marine died in an active-duty training exercise in Riverside County on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Based in Camp Pendleton, the Marine was skydiving at about 3 p.m. as part of training. Marine Corps officials said it wast still unclear late Tuesday why the Marine went down near the Perris Valley Airport on the 2000-block of Goetz Road.

It is unknown how far the Marine fell. The victim's name is being withheld until the next of kin have been notified, the Marine Corps said in a statement.

No one else was injured during the incident and Marine Corps officials are investigating.

The financial guy who took the job as the top educator for the San Diego Unified School District announced his resignation Tuesday with a formal letter that expressed "great mixed emotions" and described great successes despite "draconian" budget cuts.

Superintendent Bill Kowba will step down effective June 30, 2013 - the day that signals the end of his three -year contract.

Read Kowba's letter of resignation

Kowba, who was selected while serving as interim superintendent for the district in 2010, was a non-traditional choice since his background was in finance, not education.

In his first year, he faced what was considered the worst budget shortfall in the district's 150 year existence.

As the state cut funding for education, the district considered closing up to 14 schools at one point.

Then, there was the threat of insolvency and the chance the state may need to step in and manage the finances for the state's second-largest school district.

"Year after year, we have had to make the most difficult decisions impacting all stakeholder groups," Kowba writes in his resignation letter. "Great collaboration and sacrifice by all have enabled us to accommodate the budget deficits."

Those were the challenges Kowba faced. As he handed in his resignation, he also highlighted some of the district's achievements during his tenure.

Among them he included "very positive trends in attendance, standardized testing outcomes, graduation rates, and drop-out figures" along with the passage of Prop S and Prop Z.

A Chula Vista police officer was injured when a patrol car collided with another vehicle and landed in a resident’s yard early Wednesday.

The collision happened at 4th and Moss at 5 a.m.

The officer was going northbound on 4th transporting a prisoner to the jail. As the patrol car crossed Moss, it collided with a vehicle heading eastbound on Moss.

Chula Vista Capt. Gary Wedge told NBC 7 San Diego the details on how the collision happened are still unknown.

The officer involved was sore and bruised but was expected to be released from the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries Wedge said.

The prisoner was taken to a different hospital Wedge said.

The driver of the other vehicle was transported to Scripps Chula Vista Hospital with complaints of pain.

Turn the bus around, it’s back to jail for this Georgia teen.

Jonathan Cole Collins, 18, took an interesting “joy ride” Sunday in Flintstone when police said he stole a elementary school bus and drove it home – simply because he was tired of walking and didn’t have a ride, WRCB reported.

Having just completed a two-week jail sentence for a misdemeanor marijuana charge, Collins had left his jail cell for mere minutes when he saw keys left in the ignition and decided to steal the school bus to drive himself the 9.5 miles home from jail, according to the Fort Oglethorpe Police Department.

The teenager now faces a felony theft charge for his alleged 20-minute ride on the $40,000 Catoosa County school bus.

“He saw the open bus door, the keys inside, and decided that he wasn’t going to walk anymore,” Fort Oglethorpe Detective James Leamon said. Unknown to Collins, however, was that as the bus ignition started the on-board security camera simultaneously turned on, and recorded the entire incident, police said.

Later when detectives found the school bus and identified Collins from the video, the teenager admitted to the whole thing, police said.

The Catoosa County Schools is now changing its policy for transferring keys among bus drivers after the incident.

A grandmother who was supposed to take her two grandsons from daycare to their birthday party at home instead killed the boys and herself, Connecticut state police said.

All three bodies were found in a car Tuesday evening, two hours after an Amber Alert went out for the 2-year-old and 6-month-old. Police have classified the case as a double murder-suicide and said all three had apparent gunshot wounds, according to state police.

The last time Alton, 2, and 6-month-old Ashton Perry had been seen alive was around 2:30 p.m. in North Stonington.

Their grandmother, Debra Denison, 47, left her Stonington home with a revolver and picked them up from daycare, according to state police.

The boys' mother, Brenda Perry, called state police around 4 p.m., when she could not find her sons and their grandmother, state police said.

She said she wanted the little boys to leave daycare early because it was Alton's birthday and they were supposed to open his presents. But the little boys and their grandmother never arrived for the party. 

"I wanted him to come home and play with his new toys and have a good day," Brenda Perry said.

An Amber Alert for  was issued around 7:30 p.m., according to state police, soon after a family member found a suicide note Denison had left behind.

"The mother's level of concern raised, and she reported them missing and evidence was found soon there after that rose our level of concern for the Amber Alert," Lt. Paul Vance, of State Police, said. "As soon as we retained that information, we ramped it up additionally and did everything we could, used every tool to attempt to locate these three people."

Police said Denison suffered from mental illness and Brenda and her husband, Jeremy Perry, told NBC Connecticut that Denison had a gun and suffered from split personalities.

Around 9:30 p.m., two hours after the alert was issued, state police received the call that would reveal the tragic end to the Amber Alert.

A caller said a suspicious vehicle was parked near Lake of Isle in Preston and three injured people were inside the car. Two of them appeared to be children.

Troopers and EMS responded, located the vehicle and a revolver and found Denison and her two grandsons. They were pronounced dead at the scene.

Christine Hare, who owns the daycare, said Brenda Perry was a former employee of hers and had called just that morning to ensure that Denison was on the list of people approved to pick up the boys.

Before Denison left with them, they followed protocol, checking her identification, Denison said.

The state police are investigating and the Office of the Chief States Medical Examiner will determine the cause and manner of death.

"We are certainly going to look at everything having to do with their movements, from the time they were picked up to the time they were located dead," Vance said.

A vigil has been planned for Friday at 7 p.m. at the North Stonington Recreation Facility.

The city of Santa Cruz began its first day of mourning on Wednesday, following an unprecedented fatal shooting of two police officers conducting a sexual assault check.

A  memorial where the officers were killed was growing, and by early morning included hearts with the message "Thank you SCPD," candles, teddy bears and flowers. People flocked to the site to pay their respects for a shootout that the police chief called the "darkest day" in the department's history.

A suspect - Jeremy Goulet, 35, was also killed during the 3:30 p.m. shootout. Goulet was found guilty in 2008 of peeping at a woman while she showered in Portland, Ore., and also convicted of carrying a gun without a permit. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported he was arrested last week for disorderly conduct, and was fired Saturday from his job as a barista at a harbor coffee shop.

"And he just came out into the open with a gun in each hand and was just shooting them like out of a movie,"  neighbor Cliff Haggerty told NBC Bay Area on Wednesday.

According to the Sentinel, Goulet apparently broke into a co-worker's house on Friday and made inappropriate sexual advances toward her, according to a coffee shop employee, who asked to remain anonymous. He was fired from the coffee shop on Saturday, the newspaper reported.

The female barista filed a police report and talked to police as late as Tuesday afternoon. That may have been what sent investigators back to Goulet's residence Tuesday.

The police officers who were killed in the line of duty - the first time in the city's history were:  Det. Sgt. Loran "Butch" Baker and Det. Elizabeth Butler, had a combined 38 years of experience with the Santa Cruz Police Department.

"We at the Santa Cruz Police Department are like family," Santa Cruz police chief Kevin Vogel said at an emotional news conference Tuesday night. "I've known both of these officers for a long, long time and there just aren't words to describe how I feel personally about this and how our department is reacting to this horrific, horrific tragedy."

Baker had been with the department for 28 years and leaves behind a wife, two daughters and a son, Adam, who works for the department as a community service officer. 

Butler leaves her partner, Peter, and two young sons.

"This is the darkest day in the history of the Santa Cruz Police Department," Vogel said.

Baker and Butler went to an address on North Branciforte Avenue as a part of an investigation Tuesday. In making contact with the suspect, Santa Cruz resident Jeremy Goulet, 35, an altercation ensued.

Both detectives were killed at the scene.

After going door-to-door in the community authorities say there are no more outstanding suspects or any danger to the community.

A Santa Cruz resident, who declined to give his name, said he was sitting in his house in the 800 block of North Branciforte Avenue when he heard gunfire across the street around 3:30 p.m. Police arrived soon, he said.  That's when a suspect fired at police, hitting the two officers.

A while later, he heard a "multitude of gunfire" coming from an area nearby. He said police told residents to stay inside and not to leave. 

Following the incident, schools in the immediate area were placed on lockdown. 

"We need to figure out a way to bring our department together and get through this," Vogel said. "It's a horrible, horrible day for the Santa Cruz Police Department and the community of Santa Cruz." 

After the police were killed, a second shooting occurred a half-hour later while police were in pursuit of at least the suspect on Doyle Street. A barrage of gunfire erupted that left Goulet dead on Doyle Street, according to the Sentinel.

Police were on a citywide manhunt for several hours after the initial shooting. The FBI joined the investigation just after 4 p.m. as well as law enforcement from the sheriff's office, Capitola, Watsonville and Scotts Valley police departments and the California Highway Patrol.

In addition to the growing memorial at City Hall, schools flew their flags at half staff, and Calvary Episcopal Church opened its doors for an impromptu service for anyone to grieve and pray.

Related stories:

Two Santa Cruz Police Officers Killed

Santa Cruz Neighbor Records Shootout on Video

Santa Cruz Suspect's Dad: He Was A Ticking Timebomb

NBC Bay Area's George Kiriyama and Bob Redell contributed to this report.

Photo credits: Larissa Mueller/Santa Cruz Sentinel; Baker family

The remains of Army Pfc. Roosevelt "Jack" Clark, a Korean War soldier reported missing in action more than six decades ago, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport Wednesday morning with a military escort.

The remains of Clark -- he grew up in Arvin and played football at Bakersfield High School in the late 1940s -- were found in the 1990s and recently positively identified. The remains arrived in Los Angeles from Hawaii at about 5:45 a.m. Wednesday.

Police and fire officials, and members of the USO Greater Los Angeles were at LAX as Clark's flag-covered coffin was transported to a hearse. Friends and family, including cousin Rennie Hunter, were at the airport.

Hunter was 7 when Clark left the family's ranch about 20 miles southeast of Bakersfield (map) and enlisted in the Army.

"This is just amazing," said Hunter. "You couldn't ask for anything any better. It just brought everything home. Everything was beautiful. All I could do was welcome him home."

His remains will be transported to his hometown in Kern County. A funeral service is scheduled for Friday in Bakersfield.

Few details regarding Clark's death are available. He was reported missing in action Nov. 28, 1950 as he fought with the 35th Infantry Regiment in North Korea.

The 18-year-old was presumed dead on Dec. 31, 1953. His remains were among those recovered from North Korea in the 1990s and identified through DNA and other tests in November.

Hunter recalled the day her aunt, who died in 2001, received information that Clark (pictured, right) was missing in action and the letters of correspondence between Clark and the family during his time in the service.

"We listened to the news, and each holiday you'd say you have one that's missing in action," Hunter said. "But you don't ever put a closure to it because you don't know what happened.

"He was a giving person. He was a kind-hearted person. He loved kindness, just laughing and doing things that some of us wouldn't think of."

For example, she remembered the time the family Jeep's brakes failed. A house was in the path of the vehicle when Clark jumped out and began pushing the Jeep, Hunter said.

"He was going to play Superman," she said. "He started pushing on the Jeep and yelling, 'I have this, I have this.'"

Clark's name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.

For 29 years, students at San Diego High School have been loading into buses and taking a California college tour.

This year, however, a union contract is putting the brakes on the trip.

San Diego High School caters to students who don't come from privileged homes. The entire campus is on the free and reduced lunch program.

For many of these kids - this trip was the trip of a lifetime.

From USC to UC Santa Cruz - thousands of students can look back and say they took the college trip with Mr. Murphy.

History teacher Stan Murphy started it in the early 80's driving students himself the first two years.

It was an annual road trip that changed the course of history for countless students.

"There are so many stories I could tell you about students who didn't think they wanted to go to college and all of a sudden they saw someplace they wanted to go," Murphy said.

This year 11th graders aren't going anywhere at least with their teachers.

That's because, as detailed in a recent district memo, the collective bargaining agreement with the labor union representing bus drivers restricts any outsourcing to charter bus services.

“It never bothered them before that we had these trips with charter buses, but the district has been cutting back on the number of drivers they have, the buses they have."

Murphy says comfort aside, the 5-day trip just isn't logistically possible on traditional buses.

It broke his heart to tell near 100 kids who'd worked hard and counted on this reward that it wasn't going to happen.

"This is a case where I think the policy is getting in the way of what’s best for students and our school," Murphy said.

The San Diego County Board of Education wants to re-write the contract to allow for this trip and is hoping the union will work with them to make that happen.

The clock however is ticking as the trip is scheduled for April.
 

A suspicious device was investigated at a McDonald's in Pacific Beach Tuesday morning.

The item was found behind the building at 4711 Mission Bay Dr. in a bush and the street was shut down during the investigation.

Bomb squad officials determined the item was a hallowed-out hand grenade.

An El Cajon man was taken into custody after a dangerous 6-hour SWAT stand-off.

Neighbors heard screaming, glass shattering and loud noises from the apartment unit on Dominguez Way late Tuesday.

A neighbor told NBC 7 San Diego the tenant was angry that his wife had just filed for divorce.

“I watched through my window him tear his apartment up, 65-inch plasma TV, he put knives through. The hutch he’d throw down on the ground. He broke every dish in the house. He was just going crazy,” said neighbor John Aguilera.

Aguilera said he had never seen the suspect like that before.

When El Cajon police arrived around midnight, they found the victim outside of the apartment with facial injuries.

She was taken to the hospital with a broken nose and possibly broken ribs.

Ennis Staten, 38, invited them in but at the same time warned them he would injure them, officials said.

Lt. Tim Henton said Staten was armed with two swords and several knives and was threatening to hurt himself and others.

"He came to the door with several knives multiple times during the incident," Henton said. “He made statements that if any officer, you know, almost inviting officers in, and saying when they came in they were going to use the knives on him."

Around 5 a.m., officers sent tear gas into the apartment. Staten came out of the unit armed with two swords but refused orders to drop the weapons, police said.

SWAT used less-lethal rounds to disarm Staten and take him into custody, officials said.

Staten faces charges of spousal abuse, false imprisonment, criminal threats and threats against a peace officer.

More than a dozen people were evacuated from the area and given shelter at El Cajon Valley High School, according to Hillary Schuler-Jones, spokesperson for the San Diego Chapter of the American Red Cross.
 

Moments after a police pursuit ended in a crash, officers searched the suspect’s BMW and found what looked like a grenade.

The man who led officers on a dangerous pursuit Tuesday night crashed into several parked cars in Linda Vista.

Officers say that suspect drove right down Comstock Street at a high rate of speed in a silver BMW and lost control after hitting a dip in the roadway.

At least five parked cars were struck.

The suspect, who has a long criminal history involving narcotics, took off on foot.

The pursuit began earlier in the evening when officers spotted the suspect’s car. They attempted to pull over the suspect because he was wanted on a probation violation officials said.

After the BMW crashed, a search of the vehicle results in money, meth and what appeared to be a grenade according to Lt. David Rohowits.

The device was a cylinder wrapped in rubber.

Officers initially planned to evacuate one square block but then they realized that the grenade wasn't an explosive device.

"From looking at it the officers at the scene had enough expertise to recognize that it was some kind of grenade but it was in safe condition so we just asked people to stay inside their residence," Lt. Rohowits said.

Investigators aren't releasing the name of the suspect because they believe they know where he may be hiding.