Tag: california

New video shows teen kidnapping victim gunned down by cops as she ran toward them for help

Newly released video from law enforcement shows the moment California cops fatally shot an unarmed 15-year-old girl who was reported missing.

The harrowing footage released Monday shows Savannah Graziano slowly approaching officers along the 15 Freeway in Hesperia, Calif. on Sept. 27, 2022, one day after witnessing her father, Anthony John Graziano, 45, murder her mother, Tracy Martinez, ABC7 reported.

Moments later, gunfire erupts and Savannah is shot down in the crossfire.

“Stop shooting her! He’s in the car! Stop! She’s OK! He’s in the car! … Stop!” the deputy can be heard yelling.

The footage was released after reporters requested it under the California Public Records Act.

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Gavin Newsom Applauds Rollout Of AI Surveillance Network In California

If you’re not a criminal then you have nothing to hide, right?  This is the perpetual argument used in favor of state mass surveillance throughout history.  It’s the underlying justification at the birth of every surveillance agency from the Soviet Cheka to the German Stasi and beyond.  Don’t commit crimes and “you have nothing to worry about.”

Of course, this argument requires the public to overlook a simple and universal truth – That which is legal today can be made illegal tomorrow, and the people who make these decisions are often not good people.  With the ability to track and trace the behavior and movements of the citizenry in real time, the temptation to abuse that technology to increase government power is exponential.  That is to say, mass surveillance tends to inspire governments to abuse their authority and treat people like criminals even when they are innocent.

As we witnessed around the world during the pandemic lockdowns, authoritarianism can rear its ugly head without much warning and with incredible speed.  Some western countries (and even a few American states) aggressively sought to make resistance to covid restrictions criminal, to the point that authorities were legislating and even building “camps” designed to lock up covid offenders.  These plans were of course denied by political leaders even as they were putting the pieces in place to implement them. 

All of this was done in the name of a virus with a 99.8% survival rate.  What might they do when a legitimate crisis comes along?

We have seen how far our governments are willing to go to go to secure greater power over the populace; they have proven they’re not trustworthy enough to handle unilateral oversight. With real-time AI based surveillance in place the dangers are far greater.  Across the country there has been a quiet rollout of a new algorithm driven camera network from a company called Flock Safety.  

Flock offers AI integrated cameras with off-grid options (solar) that they say are meant primarily for license plate reading and vehicle identification.  California Governor Gavin Newsom recently applauded the creation of a new 480 camera network from Flock that will ostensibly focus on the Oakland metro area.

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California woman’s 2001 conviction for murdering her husband is OVERTURNED after two decades in prison as evidence used against her is discredited

More than two decades ago, a California woman was convicted and sent to prison for 25 years to life for murdering her husband.

Jane Dorotik has always maintained that she did not kill her husband of 30 years, Bob Dorotik, and over the years she has filed many motions requesting new testing be done on the evidence used in her case.

Dorotik, now in her mid-70s, was finally able to get her message through to the courts that the evidence evaluated against her in 2001 needed further assessment.

During the summer of 2020, when jails were overcrowded and COVID-19 was a concern, Dorotik was temporarily and conditionally released from prison.

Her legal team hoped that release would become permanent pending a court overturning her jury’s verdict.

During a remote hearing, that is exactly what happened when, much to Dorotik’s surprise. The state requested that her murder conviction be overturned. The judge agreed to the ask.

But the good news was followed shortly by the San Diego County DA’s attempt to retry her. A judge allowed the retrial to proceed, but said some of the central pieces of evidence used against her 20 years ago would not be admissible.

Then, in May 2022, as jury selection was about to begin again, the deputy district attorney walked in and said the state no longer felt the evidence they had was ‘sufficient to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt and convince 12 members of the jury. So we are requesting that the court … dismiss the charges at this time.’

Dorotik was once again, unconditionally, a free woman. 

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Californians Take Squatting Crisis Into Their Own Hands

Agroup of Californians has taken the squatting crisis in the state into their own hands and created a business in which you can hire someone to get rid of illegal tenants on your property.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several states updated their rules to allow renters more leniency if they were unable to make their monthly payments. However, in states like California and Washington, this has given rise to unforeseen problems in which squatters stay on property they don’t own permanently, and the homeowners lose thousands of dollars in the process.

Lando Thomas, one of the business owners behind Southern California-based Squatter Squad, has been removing squatters since 2018. In 2023, though, he decided to team up with a few others and start a branded company all about removing unruly and illegal tenants from homeowners’ properties.

“Because squatting seems to be on the rise, the courts are backed up from months to years, police can’t or won’t help, property owners feel helpless and are told taking the squatters to court is the only path to getting their property back,” Thomas told Newsweek. “Even the neighbors can be victims because where there’s squatters, there’s usually bad activities going on such as drug dealing and other crimes.”

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California Bill Would Roll Back Marijuana Employment Protections For Law Enforcement Jobs

A California bill that was introduced last month as a minor technical fix to an existing law protecting workers from employment discrimination over legal marijuana use was substantially amended in committee this week with new section that would roll back the protections for various categories of workers, including those in law enforcement, coroners’ offices and animal control.

Under two pieces of legislation signed into law in 2022 and 2023, California employers are now prohibited from asking job applicants about past cannabis use, and most are barred from penalizing employees over lawful use of marijuana outside of the job.

The newly amended bill, SB 1264, sponsored by Sen. Shannon Grove (R), would remove those protections for “employees in sworn or nonsworn positions within law enforcement agencies who have or would have functions or activities” related to:

(1) The apprehension, incarceration, or correction of criminal offenders.
(2) Civil enforcement matters.
(3) Dispatch and other public safety communications.
(4) Evidence gathering and processing.
(5) Law enforcement records.
(6) Animal control.
(7) Community services duties.
(8) Public administrator or public guardian duties.
(9) Coroner functions.

The proposed change comes just months after the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training removed questions about marijuana from police job application forms. Several forms, the commission said at the time, were “modified to remove inquiries about a candidate’s prior cannabis use.”

Grove’s amendments were adopted on Tuesday, and the legislation currently sits before the Senate Rules Committee.

Both employment protections laws took effect on January 1 of this year. With certain exceptions, “it is unlawful for an employer to request information from an applicant for employment relating to the applicant’s prior use of cannabis,” one of them says.

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Lego Lineups: Company Warns California P.D. To Stop Using Lego Heads To Hide Criminal’s Faces

Murrieta is a city in Southern California with just over 100,000 residents. Even though it isn’t a huge city, the Neighborhood Scout, a website that tracks local statistics for potential homebuyers or renters, reported this about the municipality on its website:

The crime rate in Murrieta is considerably higher than the national average across all communities in America from the largest to the smallest, although at 15 crimes per one thousand residents, it is not among the communities with the very highest crime rate. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Murrieta is 1 in 65. Based on FBI crime data, Murrieta is not one of the safest communities in America. Relative to California, Murrieta has a crime rate that is higher than 40% of the state’s cities and towns of all sizes.

It’s common for the public to be interested in the details of an arrest, including the crime committed and the appearance of the suspect. However, in California, there is a law that prioritizes the rights of the suspect over the public’s right to know by requiring that the faces of certain suspects be concealed. In Murietta, this law has been taken to an extreme level, where police hide suspects’ faces with Lego heads.

In an Instagram post, the police department explained the new law this way:

On January 1st, a new law went into effect that restricts the how and when law enforcement agencies in California share suspect photos & mugshots. The new law, Assembly Bill 994 & Penal Code 13665, now prohibits law enforcement from sharing suspect photos for nonviolent crimes, unless specified circumstances exist. Additionally, the new law requires agencies to remove suspect mugshots from social media after 14 days, unless special circumstances exist.

The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community but also honors everyone’s rights & protections as afforded by law, even suspects. In order to share what is happening in Murrieta, we chose to cover the faces of suspects to protect their identity while still aligning with the new law.

Using something so ridiculous minimizes the severity of crimes and turns serious events into cartoons. People may understand the need to comply with the law, but this approach is inappropriate.

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SHOCKING VIDEO: California Man Arrested for Stealing Human Leg from Fatal Train Accident… and EATING it

A California man has been arrested for stealing a human leg from a fatal train accident — and eating it.

The accident and subsequent cannibalism took place at the Amtrak station in Wasco on Friday.

1st Responder Media, who posted a video of the cannibalism, identified the suspect as Resendo Tellez, 27.

A Wasco, CA man takes a human leg from a fatal train accident scene and starts eating it.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a fatal incident in the Wasco area where a pedestrian was struck by a train, resulting in their death and the severing of their leg.… pic.twitter.com/s3xYLLtBQ7

— 1strespondersmedia (@1strespondermed) March 22, 2024

“On March 22, 2024, at approximately 0800 hours, deputies from the Wasco Substation assisted BNSF Railroad Police with a pedestrian struck by a train,” 1st Responder Media wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

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COMMIEFORNIA: UC Berkeley Parents Hire Private Security to Protect Children From Violent Crime Surge

Parents of students at University of California Berkeley have become so concerned about their offspring’s safety they have hired private security to secure the local vicinity.

SFGATE reports that parents were forced to take matters into their own hands amid a surge in violent crime around the UC Berkeley campus located outside of San Francisco:

Parents and community members of SafeBears, a nonprofit organization started in 2022, raised $40,000 at the end of 2023 to launch the pilot program, which started March 6 and concludes on Saturday, according to the group’s website.  Six security guards from Streetplus, a third-party contractor, are patrolling five routes around the campus and the university’s residence halls on foot and by bicycle from 6:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily.

The security guards are not armed and will not enter university property, the website says, but are trained in de-escalation and CPR. They also must earn a California “guard card” from the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, requiring them to clear a background check from the California Department of Justice and FBI.

While the program will not be continuing beyond this weekend, parents hope that they will be able to convince the university to take more action.

“While we will not be extending the length of our private safety pilot beyond March 23, we will certainly continue to push the administration at UC Berkeley to do more to protect students from violence,” Sagar Jethani, president of SafeBears, told SFGATE.

The move comes amid a surge in violent crime in the local area, which is notorious as one of the most left-wing places in the entire country.

According to the Berkeley Scanner, over the course of 2023 robberies increased by 29 percent, property crime by 58 percent and sex crimes remained around the same.

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California Trans Study Finds Remarkable Increase In Suicides Post-Operation – Matches Sweden And U.S. Is Expanding Trans Operations To Illegals In America

Everyone paying attention to how parents are being slammed with the fearful and false narrative that if they do not affirm their gender-confused child choices that their child may commit suicide if the parents do not agree need to comprehend that narrative is a lie.  

A study using California government data found suicide rates double after surgery for transgender females who receive male-to-female gender change surgeries. 

A 2020 analysis of the entire Swedish population found there is “no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison.”

The California study, published in the Journal of Urology, studied 859 Californians who underwent a vaginoplasty (male-to-female gender surgery), and 357 who underwent phalloplasty (female-to-male surgery) for two years before and after their surgeries. 

“All persons undergoing feminizing (vaginoplasty) and masculinizing (metoidioplasty/ phalloplasty) genital gender affirming surgery were identified in California from 2012-2018 from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development datasets using appropriate ICD-9/10 codes,” reads the California study abstract. 

Of those who underwent gender affirmation surgery, a similar proportion of vaginoplasty and phalloplasty recipients experienced at least one psychiatric encounter, coming in at 22.2% and 20.7% respectively. 

Suicide rates were higher among vaginoplasty than phalloplasty patients after their surgeries; vaginoplasty suicide rates more than doubled from 1.5% to 3.3%, whereas phalloplasty suicide rates remained stable at 0.8% before and after surgery.

“Although both the phalloplasty and vaginoplasty patients have similar overall rates of psychiatric encounters, suicide attempts are more common in the latter. In fact, our observed rate of suicide attempts in the phalloplasty group is actually similar to the general population, while the vaginoplasty group’s rate is more than double that of the general population,” reads the study. “Patients undergoing [gender affirmation surgery] with a history of prior psychiatric emergencies or feminizing transition are at higher risk and should be counseled appropriately.”

Medi-Cal, the state’s taxpayer-supported public health system, includes hormonal and surgical gender transitions for beneficiaries, which expanded on January 1 to include illegal immigrants. 

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Warden is ousted as FBI raids California women’s prison known as the ‘rape club’

FBI agents raided a federal women’s prison in California this week so plagued by sexual abuse that it was known among inmates and workers as the “rape club.”

The action coincided with the ouster of the new warden from the federal correctional institution in Dublin. Warden Art Dulgov — just a few months into his tenure — and three other top managers were removed from their positions Monday by the federal Bureau of Prisons. Dulgov was the third new leader of the low-security prison since Warden Ray T. Garcia, who, along with more than half a dozen employees, was convicted of sexually assaulting multiple women serving time there.

Dulgov and staff are accused of retaliating against an inmate who testified in January in a class-action lawsuit that alleges “horrific abuse and exploitation” at the prison, with rampant sexual assault of incarcerated persons, according to a court filing.

The developments are the latest twist in a years-long scandal surrounding the facility. Since an FBI investigation was launched and resulted in arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty, and two have been convicted by juries. Another employee is slated to go on trial this year.

Last year, Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in prison for sexually abusing incarcerated women and lying to the FBI as part of a cover-up.

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