Local News

Bay Area news roundup

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

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A roundup of Bay Area stories making news today.

A man who stabbed a woman on a San Francisco Municipal Railway train Monday morning resembles the suspect sought in the stabbing of an 11-year-old boy on a Muni bus in September, police said.

Monday's incident was reported at 10:40 a.m. on an outbound J-Church train.

Police spokesman Sgt. Wilfred Williams said a 24-year-old woman sitting near the back of the train was stabbed twice on the left side of her torso.

The train operator was alerted of the situation and the train stopped on Church Street near 18th Street. The woman was taken to San Francisco General Hospital and is expected to survive.

The suspect was described as a 25- to 40-year-old black man, about 6 feet tall with a full beard and a "bad body odor." He was wearing a black sweatshirt, a black jacket over the sweatshirt, and a black do-rag on his head.

"There are similar characteristics" to the man who stabbed 11-year-old Hatim Mansori on a Muni bus heading through the Mission District on Sept. 1, Williams said.

Mansori was riding home alone in the back of a 49 Van Ness/Mission bus at 19th and Mission streets when he was stabbed and seriously wounded by a man police then described as a "scruffy-looking," possibly homeless black man with a bad body odor who was wearing a black sweatshirt.

Mansori later recovered from his wounds but the suspect was never found.

In both cases, the attacker said nothing to the victims before stabbing them, police said.

Williams said police will review the camera on the J-Church train to see if it captured Monday's attack.

He said the suspect was seated near the victim on the train, then got up and walked past her toward the front of the train before turning around and, without any words or interaction, stabbing her twice, Williams said.

The man stopped to pick up a pair of tennis shoes that had been dangling by the shoelaces around his neck and had fallen off, and then got off the train near Church and Market streets, according to Williams. He fled in an unknown direction.

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Police officers throughout the Bay Area offered condolences Monday to their colleagues in Lakewood, Wash., where four officers were shot to death in an attack at a coffee shop on Sunday.

In Oakland, where four officers were shot and killed by a wanted parolee on March 21, Police Officers Association President Dom Arotzarena said officers "are horrified at the events that took place this past weekend in the state of Washington."

In a statement, Arotzarena said, "We want to extend our deepest sympathy to the families, friends and colleagues of the Lakewood police officers who were killed."

He said, "Unfortunately, the loss of four officers is all too familiar to us here at the Oakland Police Department. Our department is continuing to heal from the events of March 21."

Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said Lakewood police officials have contacted Oakland police for advice on arranging funeral services for the four officers killed in the Lakewood area.

More than 20,000 people, including police officers from throughout the country, attended the service for the four slain Oakland officers on March 27.

"We stand ready to provide any guidance or assistance when called upon," Arotzarena said.

He added, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the Lakewood police officers."

Thomason said some Oakland officers have expressed interest in attending the service in Lakewood but no arrangements have been made because the service hasn't yet been scheduled. Oakland officers will have to pay their own way to Lakewood because the city doesn't have the money to pay their expenses.

In East Palo Alto, where Officer Richard May was fatally shot in January 2006, the Police Department also offered its "deepest sympathy and condolences" to the Lakewood Police Department.

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A California death row inmate who came within hours of being executed at San Quentin State Prison in 2004 came a step closer to exhausting all possible appeals Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the latest appeal by Kevin Cooper, 51, who was convicted of murdering four people at a ranch house in San Bernardino County in 1983.

The victims, who were hacked and stabbed with a hatchet and knife, were Doug and Peggy Ryen of Chino Hills, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and an 11-year-old houseguest, Christopher Hughes.

Another family member, 8-year-old Josh Ryen, was attacked but survived. Cooper had escaped from a nearby state prison two days earlier.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1985.

After completing an earlier round of appeals, Cooper was sentenced to be executed early the morning of Feb. 10, 2004.

But several hours before the execution, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco blocked the lethal injection and ordered further tests on hair and a blood-stained T-shirt.

After a federal district judge in Southern California found that the tests did not exonerate Cooper, an appeals panel upheld that conclusion and the full 9th Circuit Court by a divided vote refused to consider the case further.

Cooper then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which turned down his habeas corpus petition Monday morning.

His attorneys vowed to continue trying to stop the execution. A U.S. law governing death penalty appeals in federal courts severely restricts additional appeals unless significant new evidence is found.

One of Cooper's lawyers, Norman Hile, said that unless defense lawyers can block proceedings with a new habeas corpus petition, the case will now go to a judge in San Diego County Superior Court, where the trial was held, for setting of an execution date.

All executions in California have been on hold since 2006, however, until the state completes a new lethal injection protocol and receives approval from a federal judge in San Jose.

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A 22-year-old man was fatally shot at a San Rafael apartment complex Monday night in the city's first homicide of the year, a police spokeswoman said.

The shooting happened shortly after 9 p.m. in the courtyard of an apartment complex in the 100 block of Larkspur Street, police spokeswoman Margo Rohrbacher said.

Arriving officers located the shooting victim and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Rohrbacher said the victim lived at the apartment complex.

Officers from the San Rafael Police Department, California Highway Patrol and Marin County Sheriff's Office remained at the apartment as of 10:45 p.m. investigating the shooting and interviewing witnesses.

Rohrbacher did not provide a suspect description and said the motive of the shooting is under investigation.

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Former Contra Costa County sex crimes prosecutor Michael Gressett was assigned a new attorney Monday morning to defend him against charges that he raped and sodomized a colleague in 2008.

Veteran defense attorneys Michael Cardoza and Daniel Russo had been representing him, but during a hearing earlier this month, Gressett, 52, said he no longer had the financial resources to pay for his own attorney.

The public defender's office couldn't take the case because it had a conflict of interest, which meant that the case had to be sent to a county bar panel known as the Criminal Conflict Panel. The panel provides private defense attorneys to represent defendants when there are conflicts of interest in the public defender's office.

The panel selected Lafayette-based attorney Michael Kotin to appear with Gressett in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez Monday morning.

Kotin said he would be happy to take the case, but that, for the sake of continuity, Gressett would prefer to be represented by Russo, who is also a member of the county bar association's conflict panel and could be appointed to represent Gressett at no cost to him.

Judge Carlos Ynostroza said he would hear further arguments on the matter during a hearing on Dec. 7.

Gressett is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 8 on a 13-count grand jury indictment, which alleges that Gressett committed four counts of forced sodomy, four counts of sexual penetration by force, two counts of forcible rape, one count of forced oral copulation, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal threats against the victim during a lunch break at his Martinez home on May 8, 2008.

The indictment also charges Gressett with numerous enhancements, including allegations that he used an ice pick and a handgun and tied or bound the alleged victim during the assault.

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A federal judge in San Francisco Monday refused to dismiss the FBI and two agents as defendants in a lawsuit filed by two Berkeley community groups whose computers were seized in a raid last year.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said the two groups, Long Haul Inc. and East Bay Prisoner Support, could continue to pursue their claim against the FBI and the agents for alleged violation of a federal law called the Privacy Protection Act during the raid on Aug. 27, 2008.

He also said they could maintain claims against the individual agents for violation of the constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches.

The purpose of the raid was to seek evidence related to a threat sent to a UC animal research scientist from a public computer at Long Haul, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by a University of California police officer.

The FBI agents and several UC officers seized 14 computers from the two groups at an office building they share at 3124 Shattuck Ave.

The computers were eventually returned and no arrests have been made, but the two groups say in their lawsuit that they believe the FBI and UC police illegally retained information from the computers.

The lawsuit, filed in January, also named three UC police officers and two supervisors as defendants, but the UC officers did not ask to be dismissed from the case.

White's ruling keeps the case on track for evidence gathering and possible summary judgment motions or trial against both the FBI and UC defendants.

Jennifer Grannick, a lawyer for the two groups, said, "The judge has upheld the essence of our claims. We're going to go forward and litigate this case."

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A Santa Rosa man was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison Monday morning for the stabbing murder of his mother in their apartment last year.

Christopher Lavis, 43, pleaded guilty in October before the start of his trial to the Sept. 11, 2008, murder. In return for his guilty plea, the prosecution agreed to drop an enhancement alleging the intentional infliction of torture that subjected him to the death penalty.

Constance LaSalle was stabbed or sliced 45 times with kitchen shears and a Roman gladius knife, according to preliminary hearing testimony.

Deputy District Attorney Traci Carrillo contended at the preliminary hearing that some of those slicing and stab wounds were superficial, suggesting Lavis applied a "controlled use of force" to torture his mother.

Deputy Public Defender Amy Chapman cited Lavis' admission to police that he used the kitchen knife to inflict most of the wounds but used the larger Roman knife to deliver at least one lethal wound because he did not want his mother to suffer.

LaSalle wanted Lavis to move out of her Stony Point Road condominium, according to testimony at the hearing.

Lavis stayed in the condo for 10 days after the murder, ordering take out pizza three times. He was arrested in San Francisco on Oct. 10, 2008, after being detained for not paying for a meal at a restaurant.

Santa Rosa police found LaSalle's body in the condo on Sept. 27.

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A 46-year-old San Francisco man has been arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing another man early Monday morning inside a market in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood.

Patrick Sullivan was arrested at the scene minutes after allegedly stabbing 40-year-old William Quinn, of San Francisco, at about 1:50 a.m. inside the Cadillac Market at 499 Eddy St., according to police.

Police spokesman Sgt. Wilfred Williams said homicide investigators believe a verbal argument between the two men began outside the store and continued inside. It was not immediately known what the argument was about.

Irfan Ali, the owner of the market, said Monday that one of his employees, who was working behind the counter at the time, told him that a man walked in and asked the employee to call 911.

A second man, apparently Quinn, followed the man inside the store, according to Ali.v Ali said the first man then pulled a knife on Quinn and stabbed him.

Ali said he had "no idea" why the stabbing occurred. He added that police responded quickly to make the arrest and were examining surveillance video from the store.

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A Cotati man has been identified as one of two pilots killed when their planes collided in midair over Lake County late Saturday morning, authorities said Monday.

The crash happened at about 11 a.m. as both pilots, one flying a Schleicher glider and the other in a single-engine Piper Pawnee, were headed for Crazy Creek Gliderport in Middleton, Calif., Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The pilot of the glider has been identified as 63-year-old Harold Harvey Chouinard of Cotati, Lake County sheriff's Capt. Jim Bauman said.

Bauman identified the other pilot as 44-year-old Robert Sean Boylan of Lake County.

Gregor said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

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A San Francisco man was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries Monday morning after being shot in the head while trying to prevent his car from being stolen, police said.

The shooting happened at about 4:40 a.m. in the 400 block of Wilde Avenue, at Rutland Street, in the city's Visitacion Valley neighborhood.

Police spokesman Officer Samson Chan said the victim came out of his house to find three males trying to break into his Buick.

When he tried to intervene, one of the suspects pulled out a gun and shot him twice, once in the head, Chan said.

The victim was taken to San Francisco General Hospital.

Witnesses said the suspects, who were all wearing dark clothing, fled on foot before police arrived, according to Chan. No further description was given.

Chan said the area is "usually a quiet residential area."

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact the police tip line at (415) 575-4444.

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Two victims were critically injured Monday afternoon in a shooting at 59th Street and Shattuck Avenue in Oakland but are expected to survive, according to police spokesman Jeff Thomason.

Officers responded to the intersection at about 4:30 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting, Thomason said.

He said officers discovered two victims suffering from apparent gunshot wounds and had them quickly transported to a local hospital.

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High clouds dim our afternoon sunshine and keep our temperatures close if not slightly cooler than yesterday.

Concord: 63°
Oakland: 64°
Redwood City 64°
San Francisco: 62°
San Jose: 64°
Santa Rosa: 66°

Coast:
Mostly Sunny
Highs: Lower 60s
High Clouds
Lows: Upper 40s

East Bay:
Mostly Sunny
Highs: Lower to middle 60s
High Clouds
Lows: Lower to middle 40s

East Bay Valleys:
Mostly Sunny
Highs: Upper 50s to middle 60s
High Clouds
Lows: Middle to Upper 30s

North Bay Valleys:
Mostly Sunny
Highs: Lower to middle 60s
High Clouds
Lows: Lower to middle 30s

Peninsula:
Mostly Sunny
Highs: Lower to middle 60s
High Clouds
Lows: Upper 30s to Lower 40s

South Bay:
Mostly Sunny
Highs: Middle 60s
High Clouds
Lows: Lower 40s

Wednesday:
More of the same.
HIGHS: 1 - 2° cooler