Third man arrested on gun charge in wake of mass shooting in Sacramento’s downtown
SAM STANTON, SacBee: “Sacramento police announced a third arrest Tuesday stemming from Sunday’s mass shooting downtown, saying they had taken into custody a man seen carrying a firearm after the incident.
Daviyonne Dawson, 31, was arrested late Monday and a gun was recovered, police said, adding that Dawson will be charged as possessing a firearm despite being prohibited from having one. “At this time, Dawson is not charged with crimes directly related to the shootings,” police said.
“Based on the type of firearm recovered, detectives do not believe that this gun was used in the shooting. Detectives are continuing to investigate this crime and identify additional suspects.”
Exclusive: Suspect in Sacramento mass shooting was out of prison despite 10-year term
SAM STANTON, SacBee: “Smiley Allen Martin, the second man arrested in the wake of Sunday’s mass shooting in Sacramento that killed six, has a criminal record stretching to 2013 and last year was the subject of a plea by Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s office that he not win early release from prison, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for domestic violence and assault with great bodily injury.
Despite a two-page letter to the Board of Parole Hearings urging that Martin remain in custody, he won his release and was in Sacramento on Saturday night recording himself on a Facebook Live video brandishing a handgun hours before the shooting.
On Tuesday, Sacramento police arrested Martin, 27, at a hospital after he was injured in the shooting. He faces charges of possession of a machine gun and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. A law enforcement source confirmed the machine gun is a handgun that was found at the scene Sunday that had been converted to be capable of firing as an automatic weapon.”
Automatic pistol found at Sacramento mass shooting. How did gun find its way to the streets?
RYAN LILLIS, SacBee: “A stolen handgun found Sunday amid the blood and bodies in the aftermath of Sacramento’s largest mass shooting had been converted to fully automatic, police announced Tuesday.
Police said the shooting, which left six people dead and a dozen wounded, appears to have been the result of a gang-related feud among people with lengthy criminal histories that would have prohibited them from owning guns, ammunition and magazines.
Investigators haven’t released any details about the weapons used in the shooting, other than to say that one of the handguns they recovered was stolen and had been “converted to a weapon capable of automatic gunfire.”
Ballot measure would tax California’s wealthiest residents to fund efforts curbing wildfires and smoke
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "How much fire season fouls up the air hasn’t been lost on anyone living in California recently: the smoke, the orange sky, the smell of burning wood.
A ballot initiative that appears almost certain to go before voters in November takes aim at wildfire pollution, and more.
Dubbed the Clean Cars and Clean Air Act, the measure would tax California’s wealthiest residents - those making more than $2 million a year - and channel the proceeds to helping the state curb wildfires, and smoke. The initiative also targets automobile exhaust by directing new tax revenue toward boosting the number of electric cars and trucks on the road."
California State Bar will investigate Armenian genocide victim payments
LA Times, HARRIET RYAN/MATT HAMILTON: "The chief prosecutor for the State Bar of California said Tuesday that the agency was taking a fresh look at attorney conduct in landmark Armenian genocide reparations cases following a Times investigation that detailed corruption and misdirection of funds in one of the settlements.
“The State Bar is reviewing these cases to determine whether there is any new information that would warrant further action,” said the bar’s Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona, a former federal prosecutor appointed last year to lead investigations and prosecutions at the agency that regulates the legal profession in California.
The bar previously disciplined one attorney and attempted to discipline two others in connection with the genocide litigation."
Ballot measure would tax California’s wealthiest residents to fund efforts curbing wildfires and smoke
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "How much fire season fouls up the air hasn’t been lost on anyone living in California recently: the smoke, the orange sky, the smell of burning wood.
A ballot initiative that appears almost certain to go before voters in November takes aim at wildfire pollution, and more.
Dubbed the Clean Cars and Clean Air Act, the measure would tax California’s wealthiest residents - those making more than $2 million a year - and channel the proceeds to helping the state curb wildfires, and smoke. The initiative also targets automobile exhaust by directing new tax revenue toward boosting the number of electric cars and trucks on the road."
Hospitals can be held responsible for sexual abuse by employees, appeals court rules
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "In a victory for abused hospital patients, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday that a hospital can be held responsible for sexual abuse by an employee, and that damage awards for pain and suffering by surviving victims who are 65 and older are not subject to California's $250,000 limit in medical malpractice cases.
The Second District Court of Appeal in Ventura upheld a jury’s damage award of $6.75 million to two elderly patients at a psychiatric hospital in Ventura in a suit against the hospital and a mental health worker. The court said the worker was hired despite a history of sexual misconduct, and had sex with both women when he was left alone with them in their rooms. The hospital, the court said, allowed male mental health workers to be alone with female patients for 20 minutes a day, with the door open.
And although the jury assigned 35% of the blame to the now-dismissed employee and the rest to the hospital and its owner, the court said an employer can be held fully responsible if workplace conditions or neglect were a cause of sexual abuse. The court ordered a retrial to determine whether the hospital, Aurora Vista del Mar, must pay the entire damage award."
San Francisco has highest COVID rate as California's decline in cases stalls
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "San Francisco now has the highest coronavirus infection rate of any county in California, followed closely by several other Bay Area counties where COVID-19 downward trends have stalled as the highly transmissible BA.2 subvariant extends its dominance.
The Bay Area overall is reporting about 700 new cases a day across its nine counties, still reflecting its steep drop since the winter surge that saw a peak of more than 18,000 new daily cases. But the number remains much higher than the 200 reported during last year’s summer lull before the delta variant of the virus took hold.
It’s not yet clear how big an impact on trends and illnesses might flow from BA.2, the omicron subvariant that federal data shows now is fueling three out of every four COVID cases in the western region of the United States."
This is the ‘crazy’ average income needed to buy a home in the Bay Area today
The Chronicle, LAUREN HEPLER: "It may pay more to work in the Bay Area compared with other regions of the U.S., but for middle-class residents, new research shows it’s a trade-off that increasingly means giving up buying a home.
Households earning around $80,000 to $165,000 qualify as “middle income” here, depending on the location and family size, compared with a national median income of $67,521. Even before pandemic bidding wars, it wasn’t enough to keep up with soaring home prices: Just 24% of homes sold in 2019 in San Francisco fell into price brackets that middle-class buyers could afford, according to a report released Monday by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation.
Those in the thick of the region’s frenzied housing market say the barrier to entry has only gotten higher since the coronavirus upended daily life. Prospective buyers are borrowing cash or moving farther away. Residents who already own homes are going to extremes to keep them. Those shut out of homeownership are spending more on rent, widening inequality and increasing fears about essential workers like teachers being priced out for good."
Help or handcuff? LAPD officers often delay providing medical aid after shooting people
LA Times, KEVIN RECTOR: "By the time a group of Los Angeles police officers cautiously approached Rosendo Olivio Jr. with guns drawn, more than six minutes had passed since they’d shot him.
Officers had confronted Olivio on a porch as the 34-year-old, seemingly in the grips of a mental crisis, held up a small knife and claimed to have doused the building behind him in gasoline, according to video from cameras worn by the officers. When he moved forward, imploring the officers to shoot, they did.
Olivio turned away and crumpled facedown on the steps. Officers screamed at him to “drop the knife!”"
In fiery speech, Ukraine’s Zelensky implores U.N. Security Council to hold Russia to account
LA Times, PATRICK J MCDONNELL/LAURA KING/JENNY JARVIE: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an impassioned address to the United Nations Security Council, on Tuesday likened Russian atrocities in his homeland to Nazi war crimes, calling for Nuremberg-style tribunals to hold Moscow accountable.
“They shot and killed women outside their houses — they killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies,” Zelensky said in a video appearance before the council, a day after an emotional visit to the ravaged town of Bucha, outside the capital, Kyiv. “They cut off limbs, slashed throats, raped women in front of their children,” the Ukrainian leader said in his most forceful excoriation to date of the Russian invasion.
In a perhaps risky strategy of sharply criticizing the body from which he is seeking help, Zelensky issued a stark challenge to world institutions to make sweeping changes to the global security architecture, asking sardonically at one point: “Are you ready to close the U.N.?”"
