Groovy baby yeah *

While Fred Robledo's prep sports blog appears to be up and running, Crime Scene remains frozen in time like Austin Powers.

I'm not pushing as hard for it to come back online, because the techies have bigger fish to fry as far as computers go.

As you know (if you subscribe to one of the LANG papers in Southern California), our computer system has been running on life support since Wednesday night -- There's a strong possibility the problems will persist through the weekend. How much stuff can they possibly fix in a day or two?

With that in mind, the reporters and editors I work with have been busting their asses to round up the best news, get the paper out and maintain our presence on the Web.

I'll do what I can to keep Crime Scene standards up while we're here.

Any thoughts? Let me know. Thanks for hanging with me.

*And guess what ? 20 minutes after posting this Crime Scene came back to life.

Yeah Baby.

See ya there.

Bank robbery site

Security expert Mike Alerich tracks California bank robberies on the Web via blogger.

Here's today's entry:

Never Stops, today, so far....5-2/1400hr First Bank, Ventura Bl., Encino,
Calif.... Bank 2115-2/0900hr Wells Fargo, El Camino Rd., San Clemente,
Calif....Bank 2115-2/1000hr Wells Fargo, Herndon (Fresno Area), Calif.....Bank
Take-Over; one male, armed, fake beard, ran in bank yelling "everyone on the
floor,robbery".6 hits yesterday Thur. 5-1-08

The photo? It's the Newlywed Bandits. They're still awaiting trial for a late fall 211 spree

Strawberry Quik

It's a candy flavored version of crank that Day One in Pasadena wants you to know about. Here's a small piece from a story by Robert Hong that ran Friday:

A nonprofit health advocacy group is sounding the alarm about a relatively new trend in methamphetamine abuse - a sweetened version of the drug officials fear could tempt younger teens and pre-teens to try the addictive stimulant.
Sometimes called "strawberry quick," the new form of methamphetamine comes in bright colors and has a sweet taste - properties added to the drug by adding Jell-O or Nestle Strawberry Quik to meth during the "cooking" process, federal drug officials said.

A community group held a town hall-style meeting Thursday night to warn parents about the new meth and the increasing use of the drug among teens, particularly teen girls.

Snopes.com indicates the federal government officials quoted in the story may be perpetuating a myth. Link here.

$100K in mattress goes missing

This missed publication in yesterday's WDN:

SANTA FE SPRINGS -- Burglars got into a house and stole $100,000 kept under a mattress by a family.The residents told officers they didn’t believe in banks. That’s why the money was in the house, according to Whittier Police spokesman Officer Jason Zuhlke.
Detective Gonzalo Ponce said the victims never told anyone about the money being in the house.“He (the resident) was going to buy a house in Mexico,” Ponce said.The crooks didn’t take anything else from the house. Just the cash. Ponce said according to witnesses, the suspects were not there long.The burglary was reported Tuesday morning in the 11700 block of Parkmead Street. There were no signs of forced entry but detectives found a locked sliding glass door that could be easily opened, Zuhlke
said

Craigslist scam Day 3

Amanda Baumfeld, who is out at the scene on Caldera Avenue in unincorporated Covina this morning reports that at least one family with their belongings packed into a U-Haul truck pulled up to the house this morning only to find out they'd been scammed.
Here's a snippet from her story (that didn't run yesterday sorry)

Authorities are searching for Pardeep Singh, the property owner of 5441 N.
Calera Ave. in the unincorporated area near Covina.
"We don't have money to
pay rent now," said Rafael Labra, whose wife is pregnant. "We just wanted a
little piece of the American dream even if we didn't own it."
Singh
allegedly has lease agreements with multiple families who gave him first and
last month's rent, totaling $2,400, to move in on May 1, officials said.
"We
have probable cause that a crime has occurred," said Capt. Joe Hartshorne, of
the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. "You can't rent a house to more than
one person."
Representatives from Supervisor Gloria Molina's office are
expected to be at the property today offering mental health and homeless
services to victims.

Latest dog beating news

By Sandra T. Molina

Staff Writer

NORWALK — The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office filed a felony charge of cruelty to an animal Tuesday against a 90-year-old Norwalk woman, who allegedly beat her son’s dog to death with a garden shovel.

Beatrice Godinez Castillo will not be taken into custody because of her age, said Deputy District Attorney Kevin Young.

She will be arraigned May 13 at Los Cerritos Superior Court.

If convicted, she could face a maximum of three years in state prison or one year in county jail, Young said.

The Southeast Area Animal Control Authority is investigating the incident, which took place April 14 at a home in the 12000 block of Bayla Street.

These guys ain't no Sopranos

This comes from our sister paper in Northern California, the San Jose Mercury. I'm posting a link here because there is a Duarte connection as you will see in the snippet below:

They were the gang that shot straight but could not do much else. The killers of Mark Achilli pumped seven slugs into his body, truly finishing the popular Los Gatos man's life. But in the police affidavit that was released on Friday, the accused killers emerged as the ultimate bumblers: Guys who badly mixed technology with an old-fashioned crime conspiracy.

Two blocks from the scene of the March 14 shooting, police found two items that were key to solving the case: an AOL-generated map showing directions from an unlisted address in Duarte, Calif., to Achilli's town house on Overlook Road, and also a crumpled photo of Achilli downloaded from Metroactive.com.

The find was almost as good as fingerprints. It allowed detectives to put pressure on the man believed to be the pivot of the conspiracy, bar bouncer Daniel Chaidez. When Chaidez lied to the cops, it got sweeter.

Did anyone in this gang ever watch "The Sopranos"? Did any of them see Tony Soprano hunched over a computer, printing out directions to the home of his next victim? Fuggedaboudit. It just wouldn't happen.

Send me your links

We're still in the process of moving to a new server, so posts are slow appearing.

As we move forward, I plan on revamping parts of the site including the links. So,

If you have a site you think Crime Scene should link to, post it up in the comments below.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Frank

Wanted

Arcadia police released a photo Wednesday of a man suspected of participating in a bank robbery that netted $3,600.

The robbery, which occurred about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday occurred in the HSBC Bank at 1107 S. Baldwin Avenue.

Why here?

As you've probably guessed by now, the server move at LANG is taking longer than expected. I put several posts up yesterday. The titles were visible on the SGVN Web sites (thanks to RSS). I'm going to post yesterday's stuff here later this morning.