A pair of thieves tunneled into a family business in South Los Angeles and took off with about $100,000 in cash and MoneyGram money, according to the victims.
Surveillance footage recorded from Pichinte Tax and Multi Services show two men in hooded sweatshirts in the parking lot of the business early Monday. One of the men is then seen entering the establishment from a hole that was created in the wall, while the other was seen using a crowbar-like tool to break into a door once they were inside.
“This is my dad’s life,” said Jennifer Pichinte, whose family runs the small business. “This is 15 years’ worth and over of our hard work. It’s hard to believe that everything was taken within a couple minutes, literally in minutes. They came and they took everything from us.”
After reviewing the surveillance footage, the victims learned that the thieves used equipment to create the hole in the wall that they used to gain entry.
“It’s just like another day for them and to us, it’s like our life,” Pichinte said. “Honestly, for my family, it’s devastating. And we’re going to try to like push through it and still work.”
According to an online fundraiser posted by Pichinte, the business was uninsured since its insurance company cancelled its policy due to “high risk.”
Police is now seeking the public’s help in identifying and locating the burglars. Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact law enforcement.
A helicopter made an emergency landing on the 110 Freeway in South Los Angeles on Thursday night, bringing southbound traffic to a halt for hours.
The California Highway Patrol received a report at 8:25 p.m. from the craft’s pilot, who said he was forced down by a loss of power, CHP Officer Sean Lough told The Times.
Besides the pilot, two passengers were aboard the private helicopter. No injuries were reported.
All southbound lanes were closed from Century Boulevard to the 105 Freeway, Lough said.
The CHP was coordinating with the pilot and two heavy-duty tow trucks to remove the aircraft. Lough said the lanes were expected to reopen shortly before 11 p.m.
KCAL-TV reported that Flight Tracker showed that the flight originated at Hawthorne Municipal Airport about 7:34 p.m.
A man was found dead in a South Los Angeles home on Sunday after firefighters extinguished a blaze on the property.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said crews were made aware of a house fire at 140 E. 71st St. around 7:30 p.m. Forty firefighters were able to knock down the fire in less than 15 minutes and found a 52-year-old man dead in the home after the blaze.
LAFD did not release the name of the deceased. His identity and cause of death will be determined by the County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner.
Authorities said one woman was displaced by the fire. They did not specify what relationship she had with the man who died.
South Los Angeles resident Channing Martinez recalls the days years ago when he couldn’t find enough change for the bus and was forced to hop on his bicycle.
Martinez, 36, co-director of the Labor Community Strategy Center, a think tank and advocacy organization for working-class families, rode roughly seven miles to El Camino College in Torrance from his home near Florence Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard. He then transferred to Otis College of Art and Design in Westchester, which was a nine-mile trek.
“It was a heck of a ride that I’ve never forgotten,” Martinez said. “But in those days, I had no choice. I had to get to school.”
Today, Martinez’s community organization is one of several groups behind a plan to bring transportation access to South Los Angeles in the form of e-bikes.
People posed with some of the 250 e-bikes.
(Courtesy of Colin Sweeney)
The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and L.A.’s Department of Transportation, aided by nearly $3 million in funding from the California Air Resources Board, debuted their e-bike “lending library” Tuesday at Leimert Park’s Ride On! Bike Co-Op.
The library was christened the “South Central Power Up” and was bolstered by the delivery of 250 e-bikes that are immediately available to the public.
“We are very excited to launch this pilot, which will meet an essential need for the community, making checking out a clean, reliable e-bike as simple as getting a book at the library,”the incubator’s president and chief executive, Matt Petersen, said in a statement.
The bikes will be placed at seven locations throughout South Los Angeles and will be available for rental for up to one month. Michelle Kinman, the incubator’s senior vice president of market transportation, said the 250-unit fleet comprises 215 commuter bikes, 29 cargo bikes and six adaptive bikes, including tricycles.
The service will be free for the next six months. The incubator and community partners, including People for Mobility Justice and Mercado La Paloma, are developing a fee for the future. The bikes, however, are expected to remain free for lower-income riders.
“E-bikes can support a wide range of personal transportation needs while reducing car trips, pollution, and overall congestion on streets,” Laura Rubio-Cornejo, general manager of the Department of Transportation, said in a statement. “The e-bike lending library will make this option affordable and accessible to residents of South L.A.”
The library is part of a two-year pilot program funded by $2.7 million from the Air Resources Board. The money covered the purchase of the e-bikes and insurance along with maintenance and repairs, obligatory and complementary training for all participants, and additional support.
Kinman noted one advantage of e-bikes over non-motorized bicycles is the less-strenuous, lower-impact physical activity. They are equipped with a motor to enhance and ease pedaling.
Tricycles are also available for those uncomfortable with two wheels, Kinman said.
After the initial two years of funding end, grants will be provided by the state’s Strategic Growth Council under its Transformative Climate Communities Program.
For Martinez, the e-bikes not only address mobility issues, but also enable people of color, particularly the Black community, to circumvent the historical ills of the bus and metro system.
Martinez, a longtime Bus Riders Union member, said his group found that 50% of all arrests and citations made in Los Angeles transit over the last decade or so were against Black people.
“This is an opportunity to break away from those systems of criminalization and dehumanization,” said Martinez, a member of the Garifuna people and the queer community.
Martinez also appreciated the forward-thinking aspect of e-bikes. He believes that as more people grow comfortable using the vehicles and potentially getting away from cars, such a movement will force the city to implement more bike-accessibility projects.
“The infrastructure is not there yet in Los Angeles,” he said. “But if we continue to grow, things will have to change.”
A man whom police shot after he allegedly pointed a weapon at officers in South Los Angeles was hospitalized in critical condition, the Los Angeles Police Department announced Saturday night.
Just before 1 p.m. Thursday, police got a radio call for a possible assault with a deadly weapon near 54th Street and Manhattan Place after a man reportedly pointed a handgun at an unidentified person.
Officers from the LAPD’s 77th Street Community Police Station were responding to an unrelated radio call about three blocks west, near 54th Street and Gramercy Place, when they saw a man walking in Chesterfield Square Park and “recognized him as the possible suspect” of the assault with a deadly weapon call, the department said in a statement.
The LAPD identified him as Jose Robles.
When officers spoke to Robles, he “did not comply with officers’ commands to drop the handgun he was holding” and pointed it at them, the statement reads.
Police shot Robles, who “dropped the handgun, and fell to the ground,” the statement reads. He had multiple wounds.
Paramedics took Robles to a local hospital. No one else was injured.
A BB gun with a removable magazine was recovered at the scene, according to the LAPD statement, which said it had “the appearance of a semi-automatic pistol.”
The department’s Force Investigation Division is investigating the shooting. No further details were provided.
A security guard at a South Los Angeles home department store fatally shot a man who allegedly tried to leave the scene after authorities say he assaulted someone, according to police.
The shooting was reported shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday at a Home Depot store on Slauson Avenue, the Los Angeles Police Department said. There, a man allegedly assaulted someone who was hospitalized as a result of their injuries.
The man accused of the assault then tried to get away, but a security guard shot and called him, according to LAPD.
Authorities did not identify the deceased, but the man’s loved ones described him as a father and an electrician.
“His family needs answers. They need closure,” said Rubi Orozco, a friend of the man who was killed.
Loved ones are processing the man’s death and are describing the security guard’s actions as callous.
“You could have de-escalated the situation and he could have lived,” Orozco said.
LAPD said the security guard, whose name has not been released, has been taken into custody. It is unclear if they will face charges.
Footage newly released by the Los Angeles Police Department shows how a police cruiser fatally struck 26-year-old Luis Espinoza in Watts in the gathering twilight on Dec. 8.
According to the department, the incident occurred on East Century Boulevard around 5 p.m. City fire paramedics transported Espinoza to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Footage from stationary cameras facing East Century Boulevard shows the police SUV rapidly traveling eastbound on the street with its emergency lights flashing. A slow-motion rendition of the video shows a blurred image of Espinoza running across the street about 75 feet away west of the light at McKinley Avenue, which was green for the cruiser.
There, the cruiser struck Espinoza so violently that his body flew and tumbled into the intersection, crossing the junction and rolling at least 50 more feet, the slow-motion footage shows.
On an audio recording released by the department, a female officer can be heard calling for help after the collision. Another video from a stationary camera shows an officer attending to Espinoza about a minute after the collision, appearing to administer chest compressions.
Police have not released the name of the officer driving the cruiser. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the officer was part of the department’s community safety partnership bureau, which seeks to improve relationships between police and the communities they serve across the city. At the time of the collision, they said, she was running an errand for a member of a youth sports team affiliated with the department.
The 7-plus-minute video released by the LAPD is a combination of dashboard camera footage and clips from stationary locations.
A department spokesperson would not confirm the source of the non-dashboard footage and said there was no further information involving the investigation.
LAPD Capt. Kelly Muniz said in a community briefing Sunday that the investigation into the incident was handled by the department’s multidisciplinary collision investigation team.
She said that the investigation was “still in the early stages” and that a resolution may not happen for months. However, she said the case has been “presented to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for filing consideration.”
“We also do not draw any conclusions about whether the officers acted consistent with our policies in the law until all the facts are known and the investigation is complete,” she said.
Last month, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said he had “very serious concerns regarding the officer’s driving leading up to the collision.” He also said a separate internal affairs investigation was being conducted.
A burglary suspect being chased by law enforcement crashed into two vehicles in South Los Angeles early Wednesday, killing one of the innocent drivers.
The pursuit started around 1:30 a.m. after the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded to a burglary call in Rancho Palos Verdes, the department said in a news release.
Deputies saw at least four suspects get into a white Lexus and a black Porsche, authorities told KTTV Channel 11. Deputies chased them onto the 110 Freeway, where the suspects drove with their headlights off.
The Porsche exited the freeway during the pursuit, and deputies continued to chase the Lexus. Deputies called off their car pursuit because of excessive speeds but followed from the air and notified the California Highway Patrol, which picked up the chase on the freeway, according to the Sheriff’s Department. The CHP did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Times.
Not long after, the Lexus crashed into two other vehicles near the intersection of Imperial Highway and Olive Street in Broadway-Manchester, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Around 2:20 a.m., firefighters responded to reports of one person ejected from their vehicle in the crash and another person trapped in their car.
A driver not involved in the pursuit was killed in the collision, according to Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Brian Humphrey, and three ambulances took patients to hospitals. There was no immediate information about their ages or genders.
Three people in the Lexus were taken into custody and also treated for their injuries, according to news reports.
A 23-year-old male bystander was shot and killed Friday night during a South Los Angeles street takeover, police said.
Officers responded to an assault with a deadly weapon call near 54th Street and Manhattan Place about 11:55 p.m. Friday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
They arrived to find a man on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound as numerous vehicles and pedestrians were leaving the area, police said.
Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded and pronounced the victim dead at the scene. The victim’s identity is being withheld pending next of kin notification, authorities said.
In recent years, street takeovers have become a regular occurrence in neighborhoods across Los Angeles County, where drivers perform stunts in the middle of busy intersections or race their vehicles in residential streets as spectators look on, posting videos on social media. These gatherings have on occasion turned deadly, with shootings and vehicle crashes.
The Los Angeles Police Department has joined other California law enforcement agencies in stepping up efforts to crack down on the illegal phenomenon, including impounding vehicles of anyone caught participating or attending street takeovers. Authorities are also pushing for state legislation calling for stiffer penalties for those who engage in such activities.
Education, or lack of it, plays a significant role in many family issues and nearly every inner-city social problem. The Church of Scientology Community Center is offering tutoring and tutor training to anyone who wants to help empower the neighborhood.
Press Release –
updated: Jan 5, 2017
South Los Angeles, California, January 5, 2017 (Newswire.com)
– To help achieve all those New Year’s resolutions for 2017, the Los Angeles Scientology Community Center on South Vermont has announced a new program—tutoring and tutor training to empower anyone to accomplish their goals through quality education.
Full scholarships are available to learn to tutor—a skill that can be used in the home, the church, in community programs or any educational institution. This simple yet powerful methodology for educational empowerment can help children become proficient in math, reading comprehension and study skills, opening the door for them to accomplish their personal and educational goals and for anyone to learn new skills.
“We invite the entire community to take advantage of this program—any church, any community group, any school,” says Stormy Stokes, the Community Center director. “We aspire to help transform South Los Angeles by addressing the most fundamental issue underlying social ills and social improvement: Education.”
The tutoring program at the Scientology Community Center at 8039 South Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, kicks off on Saturday, January 21 from 1 to 3 p.m. Doors open at 12 noon.
