Posted Tuesday, 22-Aug-2000 17:20:05 PDT
Jump lines
AdsNewsPast issuesThe Valley PressCirculation Dept.
NewsNewsroomYour Online ConnectionObituariesPlaces of WorshipReunionsValley Life FormsWeather
Ads
Classified IndexAnnouncementsEmploymentFarm, garden, petsFinancialMerchandiseObituary noticesReal estate salesRentalsTransportationPlacing ads ClassifiedOn lineRetail displayWebsite
DirectoriesAuto dealersHome ServicesLocal Web sitesNew Homes DirectoryCommerical Real EstateDirectory
One week's news| S | M | T | W | T | F | S | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 14 |
|---|
Search
www.avpress.com
The Valley PressAbout avpress.comavpress.com FAQAbout the paperContact usJobs with us
Top of this page
Men In Black topped the year in crime
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press January 1, 1999.By STACY MATROS
Valley Press Staff Writer
When crime happens close to home, it makes the neighborhood story of the day, but when crime affects residents Valley-wide, it makes news story of the year.
The biggest headline crime story of 1998 may call to mind extraterrestrial and the movies. But Project Men In Black was strictly Antelope Valley local.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's sting operation involved 360 law enforcement officials from across the county to wrap up a four-month sting operation, netting 72 arrests.
The $350,000 bill for the April 1 operation came from the city of Lancaster to help undercover deputies set up PK&S, where everything from marijuana to electronics, from cars to guns was fenced, pawned or dealt by local criminals.
By the time the storefront operation closed down on March 15, undercover deputies recovered more than $1 million worth of stolen goods by paying slightly over $83,000 - about 8 cents on the dollar.
The major sweep netted 55 men, women and juveniles from 85 locations throughout the Valley.
The more violent criminals, 17 total, were arrested before the sweep.
Of those arrested, 93% have criminal histories and 38% were already on parole or probation, officials said.
In all, 79 hot cars and 43 stolen guns were purchased by the storefront deputies.
The Federal Omnibus Appropriation Act was credited for the grant money the city of Lancaster used to fund the operation.
The M.I.B. sting is credited with the Valley's combined drop in violent crime through the year.
Crime dipped several percentage points over 1998, compared with 1997.
FBI statistics showed a nation wide drop by an average of 5%, with the two largest Valley cities beating that average.
Also receiving much credit for the decrease in crime are four federally funded task forces - the Youth Crime Task Force, the Gang Suppression Task Force, Partners Against Crime and the Allied, Lab Enforcement Response Team.
A federal grant of more than $200,000 will supplement city funds to start a Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement team operating out of the Lancaster Sheriff's Station with the goal being to knock out meth labs.
ALERT - Allied, Lab Enforcement Response Team - focuses on the Antelope Valley because it is haven for meth cookers due to the abundant outlying areas.
The ALERT group will also focus on the children of adults involved with the production of meth, linking serious medical illness and violence to the use of the drug.
A $1.5 million grant awarded to the city of Lancaster provides the station with a full-time deputy district attorney who prosecutes only gang cases and a full-time probation officer who also handles gang cases exclusively.
The grant, called Gang Violence Suppression, is used to combat the more than 3,000 identified gang members in the Antelope Valley, a figure achieved by noting arrests and identifications of all gang members, including those who come up to the Valley from Los Angeles to commit crime.
Football star arrested
Paraclete High School football star Tommy Breech helped lead the Spirits to a league championship in 1998 while denying charges of assault with a deadly weapon, a grapefruit-sized concrete chunk that injured a woman driving on the Antelope Valley Freeway.
Prosecutors allege Breech, 17, lobbed the 10-15 pound chunk of concrete from the west embankment, hitting Janet Laurin's southbound car.
The concrete missile broke through Laurin's windshield, slicing her arm and hitting her head before bouncing into her back seat.
Breech is scheduled to face trial in January.
Vanished screenwriter
Another of the Valley's top stories of the year was the discovery of vanished Hollywood screenwriter Gary Devore.
Devore's body - still strapped to the driver's seat of his Ford Explorer - was dredged up from the California Aqueduct in July, a year after he disappeared.
County coroners pathologists have no idea how the screenwriter met his death or how he ended up in the murky waters of the aqueduct.
Citing decomposition, coroners' spokesman Scott Carrier said there was no way to tell what happened.
Widow Wendy Oates-Devore, through the yearlong search and inconclusive findings, contends authorities failed to answer crucial questions about her husband's death. Recently, the CHP said Devore probably drove into the aqueduct while fatigued.
The widow hired pathologists and detectives in her quest to find what caused her husband's death.
Devore, 55, writer of the films "Running Scared" and "Raw Deal," was working with actress Marsha Mason at her New Mexico ranch. He was on his way home to Carpinteria June 28, 1997, from New Mexico when he disappeared.
An armchair sleuth from San Diego put together what detectives could not, and, more than a year after Devore disappeared, led authorities to the sunken sports utility vehicle.
Highway of death
In 1998, CHP officers were also busy out on Pearblossom Highway. After a spate of traffic deaths, the Highway 138 Project doled out more than 1,414 citations in its inaugural month for unsafe speed and other driving violations.
Since Oct. 16 when the station added patrols, there have been eight accidents, half the number before patrols were increased.
The Aug. 22 crash that left infant Jakob Stein as the sole survivor, was catalyst for the enforcement program.
Stein was in his family's 1995 Jeep Wrangler when it was crushed under a 1974 Ford pickup truck near the two-lane highway's intersection with East Avenue W, at about 180th Street East.
Nine other people were injured in the crash that closed Highway 138 to traffic for more than four hours. Lancaster residents Keith and Teresa Stein, 23 and 22, respectively, were killed instantly, as was 33-year-old Duane Gross of Valyermo. Gross was the driver of the truck.
Gang violence
A father herding teens away from gang members in October was shot in the stomach at his daughter's Sweet 16 party. Lino Bonilla, was recovering from his wounds when more than 60 deputies from gang and narcotics units across the Valley, snagged a total of nine suspects in the shooting, many of them juveniles.
The year also saw the first gang-related killing in Rosamond.
1998 - The year in review
News page
Valley Press home page
Uploaded January 13, 1999
