Elton John Concert Attack: LA Couple Beaten at Dodger Stadium

November 21, 2022 By Koko McAboy Leave a Comment

Police have arrested one person in connection with the brutal beating of a Los Angeles couple in their 60s by a group of people following an Elton John concert at Dodger Stadium.

The Los Angles Police Department did not release any further details about the arrest but continues its investigation after video went viral on social media showing the battery incident that happened in the Dodger Stadium parking lot Thursday.

The couple’s daughter, Nicole, spoke with FOX 11 about the incident. 

“They were so excited to go have a random little date night, so they went to the Elton John concert,” Nicole said. “They had a really nice night and they wanted to beat the crowd so they left 10-15 minutes before the concert ended.”

Nicole said her parents were about to leave the stadium when they heard a loud thud.  

“They were in their car exiting Dodger Stadium and traffic got crazy out there. People were walking around all the cars, so they were in line to exit. A group of people walked around their car and they both heard this loud bang and someone had hit my dad’s mirror on his Tahoe,” said Nicole.

Nicole said her dad got out of the car to figure out what happened. 

“He looked and he was thinking his mirror was hanging off, and he looked at the people and said, ‘Who hit my mirror,’ and this group of about six people turned around,” Nicole said., “A female was like ‘I did,’ and she was intoxicated and witnesses claim that she swung [at] my dad first and he went to block. The last thing he remembers is these three or four guys just started hitting him all at the same time.”

Nicole said her mom was in the car, but got out to help once she realized what was happening.

“Her instinct was to get out and help him, and as my mom’s trying to pull men off of him, she was grabbed by the back of the head by a female in that group. Before she knew it, the gentleman in the black shirt, black backwards hat (as seen in the video), basically football tackles my mom and my mom just remembers flying and that’s it,” Nicole said. “Witnesses said that my mom hit her head so hard on the concrete that they heard her skull hit and everyone was certain she had cracked her head. My mom blacked out and when she came to, she was looking around and no one was helping them and she looked and my dad was lifeless on the floor, blacked out as well.”

Nicole said one man helped her parents and that man also recorded the video, but had a run in with the attackers. 

“The attackers witnessed him recording and went after him as well, so they broke his phone, and punched him is what I’m told,” said Nicole.

Nicole said her parents were not receiving help quickly enough, so her mom ended up driving them both to the hospital, and that’s where they made a police report with the LAPD. She said her parents suffered brain injuries and broken bones. Her mother was released from the hospital that night, but her father remained hospitalized until Saturday. 

“I didn’t know what to do. I had to really gather my thoughts, and instantly it was anger, just anger. My parents are much older than these people in the video and I can’t comprehend how people could throw away their lives and risk their livelihoods with just a careless act,” she said.

Nicole said the case got more traction after the video went viral on social media.

“As social media blew up, we were contacted today [by police] so we did give our part of the story so hopefully justice can be served and the legal system doesn’t fail us but already we’re being told LAPD is saying this started from a fender bender so from the get go, the story’s already wrong,” said Nicole. 

Click here to read the full article at FoxNewsLA

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California’s Blue City Crime Wave is On the Ballot

November 9, 2022 By Katy Grimes 3 Comments

Sacramento murders, robberies, shootings are spiking

Massive spikes in violent and retail crime is one of the most important issues on the ballot this November, and especially in California. Crime is spiking across the state.

In Sacramento’s Midtown residential neighborhood, a woman was robbed Thursday. She screamed for help. Neighbors stood and watched.

KCRA reported:

Victoria Mapson said the more upsetting part of the incident was how bystanders reacted. She told KCRA 3 that when she was screaming for help and crying, her neighbors did not jump into action. She even described how one man called her crazy and said he couldn’t do anything.

“That was just so deeply upsetting and hurtful, that someone could look me in the eye as a human and say I’m not going to help you,” Victoria said.

“Left-wing politicians and their backers recognize that rising crime rates and the lack of a general sense of safety that follows are a problem for them and their chances for reelection,” the Heritage Foundation reports. “In fact, recent polls show that voters care a lot about rising crime—an issue that is second only to rising, rampant inflation and the lackluster economy. So the Left is engaging in political traditions as old as time: obfuscation, finger pointing, and blame shifting.”

The new study by the Heritage Foundation titled, “The Blue City Murder Problem,” debunked a recent leftist claim that red states have the highest crime, which Gov. Gavin Newsom relished in restating. The Heritage Foundation found that 27 of the 30 cities with the highest murder rates are controlled by Democrats. Three of the 30 Democrat-run violent cities are located in California: Oakland, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“A super majority of those cities, even in otherwise red states, are deep blue and run by left-wing ideologues,” Heritage exposes.

Last March, left-wing advocacy organization, The Third Way, published a short study with the title, “The Red State Murder Problem.” The Heritage Foundation exposes the leftists behind the paper: “Written by Jim Kessler, a long-time Democratic policy director to Senator Charles ‘Chuck’ Schumer, and Kylie Murdock, a former intern for Congresswoman Barbara Lee and volunteer for Elizabeth Warren for President, the study states that ‘murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states.’”

Only this isn’t true.

“Those on the Left know that their soft-on-crime policies have wreaked havoc in the cities where they have implemented those policies. It is not hard to understand why ‘reforms’ such as ending cash bail, defunding the police, refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes, letting thousands of convicted felons out of prison early, significantly cutting the prison population, and other ‘progressive’ ideas have led to massive spikes in crime—particularly violent crime, including murder—in the communities where those on the Left have implemented them,” Heritage said.

The Third Way blames Republicans  for the spike in murders across the country, Heritage reports. “The not-so-subtle suggestion the study pushes is that those on the Left are not responsible for rising crime rates because crime is rising everywhere—especially in Republican-led states. Fighting for their political survival, Left-wing politicians such as Gavin Newsom and Larry Krasner have recently started to parrot the ‘results’ of this study.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who some say will be running for President in 2024 despite his feeble denials, ran with the leftist report and posted a pompous Tweet – as if he was imperiously imparting the shocking truth:

“The @GOP love to campaign on being “tough on crime.” But here’s the truth — their policies don’t work. 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates are red. Murder rates were 40% higher in red states than blue. Gun deaths are almost 2x as high in red states.”

The actual truth that is the Democrat-run cities in all states, including Red States, are sucking up the bulk of the air (and city resources) when it comes to crime. Gov. Newsom also fails to acknowledge the disproportionate number of mass shootings in California, which not only has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, but continues to pass dozens of unconstitutional gun control laws every legislative session.

Gov. Newsom isn’t talking about California’s Homicide Rates by State, 2014–2020, ranking either: California is 25th in homicides per 100,000 population.

It’s no coincidence California’s crime rate increased almost immediately in 2014 when Proposition 47 was passed by misinformed voters. Prop. 47 reduced a host of felonies to misdemeanors, including drug crimes, date rape, and all thefts under $950, even for repeat offenders who steal every day, decriminalized drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, also removed law enforcement’s ability to make an arrest in most circumstances, as well as removing judges’ ability to order drug rehabilitation programs rather than incarceration.

Gov. Newsom also ignores the crime infiltrating middle and working class neighborhoods. Fugitives were holed up in the backyard of a home in a lovely suburban Sacramento neighborhood Sunday. A Sacramento man Tweeted about this:

Fugitives holed up in a backyard in #CollegeGreens. Apparently two kids got in a car accident and started shooting at each other. They came down our street and went into a neighbor’s house. Everyone is safe. Thank-you ⁦@SacPolice #Sacramento

There was another homicide Friday in Sacramento. Sacramento Police Department patrol officers responded to reports of a shooting in a South Sacramento neighborhood. Officers located the victim, a 25-year-old male, suffering from a single gunshot wound. Sacramento Fire Department personnel responded and transported the victim to an area hospital in critical condition. Despite their efforts, the victim was later pronounced deceased, SacPD reported.

Just since November 1st, the Sacramento Police Department has had a bustling crime log including two robbery investigations and four shooting investigations – that we know of.

Sacramento had another homicide October 30th, when SacPD responded to reports of an vehicle that had collided with a fence, and found a dead male adult in the driver’s seat, with a gunshot wound.

Sacramento counted its 50th homicide October 21, 2022. At this rate, we may lose count soon.

Click here to read the full article at the California Globe

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More Violence Along Mexican Border

August 15, 2022 By Associated Press 3 Comments

The Mexican border cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito and Ensenada were hit by gang violence that included vehicles being set ablaze and road blockades.

The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana instructed its employees “to shelter in place until further notice” because of the violence.

It was the third time in a week that Mexican cities have seen widespread arson and shootings by drug cartels. The gangs appear to be targeting stores, vehicles and innocent bystanders in response to disputes or attempts to capture gang members.

Baja California state officials said 24 vehicles had been hijacked and burned at different points throughout the state: 15 in Tijuana, three in Rosarito and two each in Mexicali, Ensenada and Tecate.

Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero blamed it on disputes between drug gangs and asked them to stop the violence.

Caballero issued a public appeal to “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to stop the growing trend of targeting innocent civilians.

“Today we are saying to the organized crime groups that are committing these crimes that Tijuana is going to remain open and take care of its citizens,” Caballero said in a video, “and we also ask them to settle their debts with those who didn’t pay what they owe, not with families and hard-working citizens.”

The extent of the violence was still unclear Saturday. Late Friday, the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana said in a statement that it “is aware of reports of multiple vehicle fires, roadblocks and heavy police activity in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada and Tecate.”

On Saturday, few people ventured out in Tijuana and many of the bus and passenger van services stopped running, leaving some residents unable to get where they were going.

“Let them fight it out among themselves, but leave us alone,” said Tijuana resident Blanca Estela Fuentes, as she looked for some means of public transport. “So they kill each other, they can do whatever they want, but the public, why are we to blame?”

The federal public safety department said one person was wounded in the violence and that federal, state and local forces had detained 17 suspects, including seven in Tijuana and four each in Rosarito and Mexicali.

The mayor’s comment about Tijuana remaining open was an apparent reference to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, where some classes and public events were canceled after similar violence Thursday.

In Ciudad Juarez, authorities said gang members fatally shot nine people, including four employees of a radio station, after a fight between rival gangs at a prison left two inmates dead.

On Tuesday, drug cartel gunmen burned vehicles and businesses in the western states of Jalisco and Guanajuato in response to an attempt to arrest a high-ranking leader of the Jalisco cartel.

Oxxo, a national chain of convenience stores owned by Femsa, the country’s largest bottling company, said 25 of its stores in Guanajuato — which borders Jalisco, home to the cartel of the same name — were either totally or partly burned Tuesday.

The area around Tijuana, which borders Southern California, is a lucrative drug-trafficking corridor long dominated by the Arellano Felix cartel but that has since become a battleground among various gangs, including the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.

Speaking about the Ciudad Juarez violence on Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said: “They attacked the civilian, innocent population like a sort of revenge. It wasn’t just a clash between two groups, but it got to the point where they began to shoot civilians, innocent people. That is the most unfortunate thing in this affair.”

Four employees of the MegaRadio station who were broadcasting a live promotional event outside a pizza store in Ciudad Juarez were killed in the shootings.

Such random violence is not without precedent in Mexico.

In June of last year, a rival faction of the Gulf cartel entered the border city of Reynosa and killed 14 people the governor identified as “innocent citizens.”

The military responded and killed four suspected gunmen.

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times

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For One Pasadena Neighborhood, Gun Violence Is Unrelenting

January 26, 2022 By Nathan Solis 6 Comments

The streets were slick with rain in northwest Pasadena when Jamal Patterson went to watch “Monday Night Football” at his mother’s house last October.

The 24-year-old was sitting in a car with two other men across the street from his mother’s home after the game when someone shot into the car. Patterson usually sat on his mother’s front porch with his friends, but the recent rain made everything wet.

Patterson, a father of two, died three days later at Huntington Memorial Hospital.

One month later and one block over on Raymond Avenue, 13-year-old Iran Moreno was playing video games in his home when he was shot by someone who fired from the street. He was rushed to the same hospital as Patterson and died later that night.

“There’s always shooting, always gang violence around. They’re always hurting the most innocent people,” Iran’s cousin, Maria Balvaneda, said during a vigil at Villa Parke.

In Pasadena, shootings rose 22% between 2020 and 2021, from 60 to 73, according to the police department. Seven were killed in 2020 and six more last year.

The increase — part of a spike in homicides across Los Angeles County — has sparked grief, pain and outrage in a city marked by many upscale neighborhoods, as well as lower-income neighborhoods where crime has long been a problem, and some residents say city leaders are not doing enough to make conditions safer.

The shootings in Pasadena have been concentrated in the northwest part of the city, home to mostly Black and Latino residents. In response, city leaders and police have increased patrols in the neighborhoods hardest hit by the gun violence and have pledged to bolster after-school programs and invest in ShotSpotter technology.

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times

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Gun Violence Hits 15-Year High In L.A., Taking Lives And Erasing Hard-Fought Gains

January 1, 2022 By Kevin Rector 4 Comments

Sean Reynolds almost lost his life over a PlayStation.

The 17-year-old high school senior had arranged to sell his gaming console through the app OfferUp, and agreed to meet the buyer — another teenager — near a public housing complex in Watts. He intended to save the cash he earned for college expenses that fall.

Instead, one of two teens who met Reynolds at his car that hot day in May pulled out a gun and shot him, the bullet ricocheting off his hip and fragmenting through his abdomen. As he lay on the ground bleeding, he said, the second teen urged the first to fire again.

“Finish him off,” he heard the boy say

“I was in shock,” Reynolds, now 18, recalled in a recent interview with The Times. “It was a lot to process.”

Reynolds, who was badly wounded, is among more than 1,400 people who survived shootings in L.A. in 2021 — the second year in a row in which gun violence has increased in the city.

Had things gone differently — and they easily could have, given his extreme injuries — Reynolds would have been among the nearly 400 people killed in L.A. this year, whose deaths mark a more than 50% increase in homicides since 2019.

“We’ve seen all different types of surgeons,” said Qiuana Williams, Reynolds’ mother. “After reading his medical documents, they all look at him like he is a walking miracle.”

Amid a pandemic that has ravaged people’s financial and emotional reserves and undermined long-standing initiatives to stem violence, families like Reynolds’ are persevering through surgeries, physical therapy and the emotional labor of trying to pull their lives back together after being blindsided by bullets.

Other families — more than in any other year in L.A. since 2007 — were forced to plan funerals and process their first holiday season without sons, daughters, brothers and parents, whose lives were snatched away, mostly by gunmen.

Click here click to read the full article at the LA Times

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