Climate of H8: SF Bay Area Slowly Going Mad From Political Rhetoric
A former Los Angeles deputy city attorney has been charged with assaulting police with a pole after creating a scene at San Francisco International Airport in which she vandalized a coffee kiosk, authorities say.
Angela West, 50, a Harvard Law School graduate, was seen by airport police officers smashing merchandise, milk containers and other food items with a 3-foot-long metal pole at a Peet's Coffee kiosk at SFO on Christmas Eve, said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
When officers tried to speak to her, West "raged" at them and began swinging the pole, which she had taken from a janitor's cart, Wagstaffe said.
An officer had to use a chair to fend off at least 10 blows, authorities said. West then calmed down and sat in a booth, only to start throwing items at the officers, Wagstaffe said.
When the officers tried to arrest her, she kicked one of them in the groin, Wagstaffe said. After being subdued, West shouted out that she was a lesbian and that the officers "should stop trying to have sex with her," the prosecutor said.
West was taken to a hospital and held in a psychiatric ward for a week, Wagstaffe said.
Two of the three men killed over the weekend in a shootout at a San Jose club intended to kidnap the bar's owner, and the third opened fire on the assailants before they could carry out the plan, police say.
The violence at the Mexicali Club on Oakland Road began at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday when Antonio Barraza Allon, 31, and Manuel Rodriguez Barraza, 29, both of Salinas, and a third man came into the bar looking for the owner, police said.
The three wanted to kidnap the owner over an alleged debt, said Officer Jose Garcia, a San Jose police spokesman.
But the three were confronted by a man inside the bar, Manuel Morales Mendosa, 26, who was armed with gun, Garcia said.
A shootout ensued, and Allon and Mendosa were killed, Garcia said. Barraza was also shot and managed to stumble two blocks to a Ford Explorer, where his body was found the next morning.
Another man hit by bullets during the gun battle, Humberto Velasquez Sanchez, 28, of San Lorenzo, was listed in stable condition at a hospital.
A bank employee and another man have been arrested for allegedly staging a bank robbery in San Jose, police said.
Jose Everardo Luna, a teller at the Bank of America at 565 W. Capitol Expressway, pretended to be robbed by Steven Anthony Davis at about 10:15 a.m. Dec. 28, said Officer Jose Garcia, a police spokesman.
Davis handed Luna a demand note, police said, and Luna turned over an undisclosed amount of cash.
Police investigated the case as an actual robbery until Bank of America security personnel determined that Luna had failed to follow certain procedures during holdups, police said without elaborating.
Think Armageddon is near and don't know what to do? Well, you might some take some pointers from Lark Ann Freeman of Fremont, who thought she could be among the survivors by hopping into a U-Haul and conning four men into the vehicle with the promises of money and cigarettes, authorities say.
Freeman, 36, believed the world was going to end in one big earthquake on New Year's Day, said Marin County Deputy District Attorney Linda Witong.
So Freeman got into a U-Haul truck and headed toward Marin County, but not before she kidnapped a 74-year-old man after luring him into the rental truck by telling him she would get him cigarettes in Berkeley, authorities said.
At some point, Freeman picked up three more men and told them she was hiring them as movers, Witong said. She locked them into the back of the U-Haul, prosecutors say.
Everyone ended up at Fort Baker near Sausalito, where Freeman ran a red light at a one-way tunnel in front of a U.S. Park Police car. She led officers on a chase to Rodeo Cove, where she was stopped.
She told police she was affiliated with "Save the World," authorities said.
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