Tag Archives: California

Death toll rises to 36 from California warehouse inferno

Firefighters work inside the burned warehouse following the fatal fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California.

By Curtis Skinner and Peter Henderson

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – The death toll rose to 36 on Monday from a blaze that engulfed a converted warehouse during a dance party in Oakland, California, the greatest loss of life from a U.S. fire in over a decade, as searchers sifted charred ruins being treated as a crime scene.

Authorities said they were certain to find more bodies in the gutted building and were still trying to account for about 50 people reported missing by loved ones, while ruling out any drastic climb in the tally of deaths.

“If you have a best friend out there, please hug your best friend,” Franchesca Dickerson, a 21-year old hairdresser, told a candlelight vigil, as she held a collage of images of a friend who died in the blaze.

“I’d give 50,000 years to hug mine,” added Dickerson, who was to have joined her childhood friend, 19-year old Michalea Gregory, at the party, but changed plans because of work.

The cause of the fire, which erupted late on Friday in a sprawling two-story building leased to an artists’ collective, has yet to be determined.

Officials have said arson was not immediately suspected. But charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder could feature in a potential criminal case, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley told a news conference.

Possible safety violations were expected to be one aspect of the investigation, with city officials having said the site was already under investigation for reports of illegal construction.

Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives identified an “area of interest” on the ground floor that was still out of reach, said Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

He described the spot as being at the rear of the warehouse, where makeshift studios and cubicles were clustered.

O’Malley said fire investigators and a task force from her office were working with recovery teams inside the wreckage to preserve any potential criminal evidence as they seek signs of victims and clues to the origin of the blaze.

Debris was being removed “bucket by bucket,” said Deputy Fire Chief Darren White, but a large construction crane at the scene required nearby electricity lines to be shut down for several hours, as a precaution.

FIRE HAZARDS

The nature of the fire has raised questions about possible building code violations. City officials have said the warehouse, known as the Ghost Ship, was already under scrutiny, with an inspector having visited on Nov. 17.

Municipal authorities also cited reports of people living in the structure, although it was barred to residential use. Some of those who entered the warehouse called it a potential fire trap.

The first floor, housing an artist cooperative, the Satya Yuga Collective, was a warren of partitioned studio spaces and rooms crammed with furniture, musical instruments and rugs, according to survivors, city officials and photographs posted on social media before the fire.

Two recreational vehicles believed to have been used as living quarters and work space were found parked on the ground floor inside, Kelly said.

The dance party was held on the second floor, which partially collapsed when the roof gave way. Survivors said flames spread quickly and billowing thick, black smoke blinded and choked those struggling to flee.

The 10,000-square-foot (929-sq-m) building lacked sprinklers or smoke detectors, and wooden pallets partially formed a makeshift stairway between first and second floors, officials said. It had just two exterior doorways.

Nancy Pike, 60, (L) and William Anderson, 3, put flowers at a sidewalk memorial near the burned warehouse following the fatal fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California

Nancy Pike, 60, (L) and William Anderson, 3, put flowers at a sidewalk memorial near the burned warehouse following the fatal fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S. December 5, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

YOUNG VICTIMS

The recovery of three more bodies took the confirmed death count to 36, making the blaze the deadliest in the United States since 100 people perished in a 2003 nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

“We absolutely believe that the number of fire fatalities will increase,” Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton told reporters. But Sheriff Gregory Ahern later said he was “not anticipating any more huge numbers” of victims.

By Monday afternoon, 33 of the dead had been identified and authorities were notifying families, said Ahern, adding that three victims were from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala.

Most victims had been in their 20s and 30s, but some were younger, officials said. The site was known as a “safeplace” haven for young members of the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, Kelly said.

With many bodies burned beyond recognition, families were asked to preserve items that might contain DNA to help identification. Kelly said some people died of smoke inhalation.

Officials were unsure of the numbers present when the fire erupted. One survivor has estimated them at 60 to 70.

The warehouse was one of many converted lofts on the east end of San Francisco Bay in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, a mostly Latino district where rents are typically lower than elsewhere.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Timothy McLaughlin in Chicago, Deborah Todd in Oakland and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Writing by Daniel Wallis and Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)

California bill would require reporting of ‘superbug’ infections, deaths

anitbiotic-resistant bacteria

By Yasmeen Abutaleb

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A California state senator introduced a bill on Monday that would mandate reporting of antibiotic-resistant infections and deaths and require doctors to record the infections on death certificates when they are a cause of death.

The legislation also aims to establish the nation’s most comprehensive statewide surveillance system to track infections and deaths from drug-resistant pathogens. Data from death certificates would be used to help compile an annual state report on superbug infections and related deaths.

In September, a Reuters investigation revealed that tens of thousands of superbug deaths nationwide go uncounted every year. The infections are often omitted from death certificates, and even when they are recorded, they aren’t counted because of the lack of a unified national surveillance system.

“The (Reuters) story highlighted some of the problems that have come from the lack of information, the lack of reporting, especially deaths,” said state Senator Jerry Hill, who introduced the bill. “I wasn’t aware that on death certificates, antibiotic-resistant infections have never been called out.”

Because there is no federal surveillance system, monitoring of superbug infections and deaths falls to the states. A Reuters survey of all 50 state health departments and the District of Columbia found that reporting requirements vary widely.

California is among the states that do not require reporting of superbug-related deaths. A Reuters analysis of death certificates from 2003 to 2014 identified more than 20,000 deaths linked to the infections in California, the most of any state – and probably an undercount, given the unreliability of death certificate data.

Hill’s bill would require hospitals and clinical labs to submit an annual summary of antibiotic-resistant infections to the California Department of Health beginning July 1, 2018; amend a law governing death certificates by requiring that doctors specify on death certificates when a superbug was the leading or a contributing cause of death; and require the state Health Department to publish an annual report on resistant infections and deaths, including data culled from death certificates.

Hill introduced legislation in 2014 that would require reporting of superbug infections – not deaths. It was ultimately stripped down to mandate that all hospitals in California implement “stewardship” programs to prevent the overprescription of antibiotics that promotes drug resistance. Hill said the state medical association and other physician groups opposed the initial proposal.

The 2014 legislation followed a 2013 threat report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimated that at least 23,000 people in the U.S. die every year from antibiotic-resistant infections. A Reuters analysis of the agency’s math found that the numbers are based on such small sample sizes that they are mostly guesswork.

Hill has written several superbug-related bills that have been signed into law in recent years. Those include laws that regulate antibiotic use in livestock and others that mandate antibiotic stewardship programs in nursing homes and other healthcare facilities.

“We don’t know how (superbugs) affect California,” Hill said. “We could be overreacting in certain areas or underreacting in areas that could create real problems for people.”

(Edited by John Blanton)

California fire death toll rises to 33 in grim search through warehouse

Firefighters finding victims of California fire

By Rory Carroll

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – A grim search for victims of a devastating fire that ripped through a converted warehouse in Oakland, California during a dance party entered a third day on Monday, with the list of 33 known deaths expected to grow.

The blaze, which erupted about 11:30 p.m. on Friday (0730 GMT on Saturday), ranks as the deadliest in the United States since 100 people perished in a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire.

As criminal investigators joined recovery efforts at the charred ruin, just east of San Francisco, firefighters found the remains of nearly three dozen victims at the weekend as they searched the debris-filled shell of the two-story converted warehouse being used by an artists’ collective.

The cause of the fire was still undetermined, officials said. Arson is not suspected but investigators are checking whether the building, often used for music performances, had a history of code violations.

Mayor Libby Schaaf said the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office activated its criminal investigation team at the fire scene. A representative of the prosecutor’s office is monitoring the recovery process, she said, adding she was not authorized to say if a criminal probe was under way.

The mayor said the city’s first priority was finding the victims and supporting their families, adding, “We have delivered the unacceptable and horrific news of losing a loved one to seven of our families.”

The warehouse, which served as a base for the Ghost Ship Artists Collective, was one of many converted lofts in the city’s Fruitvale district, a mostly Latino area where rents are generally lower than in the rest of Oakland.

By Sunday evening, only 35 to 40 percent of the building had been searched, said Sergeant Ray Kelly, spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

Officials are still unsure how many people were in the building at the time.

woman placing flowers at memorial

A woman places flowers at a makeshift memorial near the scene of a fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S. December 3, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

SOME VICTIMS AGED 17 OR YOUNGER

Recovery teams had yet to search an unspecified number of mobile homes parked on the first floor, Kelly said, illustrating the scope of the task. He said people appeared to have been living in them.

The building was designated for use as a warehouse only, according to the city, which was aware of reports that people were living there, although no permits had been issued.

The recovery operation was delayed for hours as the roof collapsed and the second story fell onto the first in spots, making it unsafe to enter.

The effort has proceeded slowly due to mountains of debris, with victims apparently scattered throughout the unstable structure.

“We’re finding victims in every quadrant of the warehouse,” Kelly said. “We’re finding victims where we least expect them.”

Exhaustion and the wide scale of the disaster were taking an emotional toll on crews who had been working around the clock since the fire broke out.

With many victims burned beyond recognition, families were asked to preserve items that might contain their DNA to aid identification.

After notifying their families, the Alameda County coroner released the names of seven victims who had been positively identified:

– Cash Askew, 22, Oakland, Calif.

– David Clines, 35, Oakland, Calif.

– Nick Gomez-Hall, 25, Coronado, Calif.

– Sara Hoda, 30, Walnut Creek, Calif.

– Travis Hough, 35, Oakland, Calif.

– Donna Kellogg, 32, Oakland, Calif.

– Brandon Chase Wittenauer, 32, Hayward, Calif.

Some of the victims were aged 17 or younger, although most were in their 20s and 30s, officials said. Some were from elsewhere in the United States and abroad.

One of the dead was the son of a sheriff’s deputy, Kelly said, adding, “This tragedy has hit very close to home.”

Chris Nechodom, 30, said he was on the ground floor of the building when he saw flames race across the ceiling. As he fled, he heard a loud noise and saw a plume of thick black smoke.

“It blew out maybe 10 feet out of the entrance. After that, I saw a few more people crawl out.” Nechodom said he was unsure how many people had been inside.

Two friends embrace at memorial for California warehouse victims

Rachel Saxer (L) embraces friend La Tron at a makeshift memorial near the scene of a fatal warehouse fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S. December 4, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

‘SET UP FOR A FIRE’

Photos of the ‘Ghost Ship’ venue posted online showed a space filled with an elaborate array of musical instruments, religious statues and antiques. Furnished with a mix of overstuffed sofas and colorful carpets, the site featured a maze of side rooms and nooks.

“The whole place was built like you are going to set up for a fire,” said Matt Hummel, 46, who twice visited the space before the fire and had helped renovate other warehouse spaces for artists.

The party took place on the second floor of the building, which appeared to have only two exits, officials said. There was no evidence of smoke detectors or sprinklers.

The city said it had received complaints about “blight” and construction without permits and opened an investigation. An inspector verified the “blight” complaint after observing piles of debris outside, but failed to gain access to verify the construction complaint.

Schaaf told reporters she did not know why inspectors were unable to get into the building, but she was putting together a team of city employees “to gather every piece of information.”

(Additional reporting by Tim McLaughlin in Chicago and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Nine dead, many missing, in California party fire

Firefighters exit a warehouse where a fire broke out during an electronic dance party late Friday evening, resulting in at least nine deaths and many unaccounted for in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S

By Peter Henderson

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – At least nine people were dead and about 25 were unaccounted for after a massive fire broke out during a late-night party in a warehouse in Oakland, California, the city’s fire chief said on Saturday.

Fire officials were still trying to determine how the blaze started at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday, said Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed.

The roof of the two-story warehouse in the city’s Fruitvale district collapsed during the fire, complicating efforts to recover bodies, she told a press briefing.

Officials did not know if any of the 25 missing people were among the nine confirmed victims.

“There is a large majority of that building that has not been searched,” Deloach-Reed said during a press briefing.

“We are hoping that the number nine is what there is and that there are no more,” the fire chief said, referring to the number of known fatalities.

A charred wall is seen outside a warehouse after a fire broke out during an electronic dance party late Friday evening, resulting in at least nine deaths and many unaccounted for in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S.

A charred wall is seen outside a warehouse after a fire broke out during an electronic dance party late Friday evening, resulting in at least nine deaths and many unaccounted for in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S. December 3, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Deloach-Reed said some of those who were missing may have brought themselves to the hospital or elsewhere. She said she did not know how many people were at the party.

The warehouse housed units where people lived and worked – makeshift artist studios carved out with partitions, the fire chief said. “A flea market of items” were inside, she said.

A Facebook event page showed 176 people planned to attend the party, which featured a performance by the electronic music act Golden Donna. The page, which listed 355 others as interested in going, carried posts from people who were either missing or accounted for.

Video footage posted on social media showed the structure engulfed in flames and encircled by fire vehicles pumping water into the building.

“It’s going to hit the city, it’s going to hit our organization,” Reed said. “It’s just going to be hard on everyone.”

(Additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Alistair Bell)

A year after San Bernardino attack, investigators still seek answers

Law enforcement looking over evidence

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – One year after two Islamic militants shot dead 14 people in a massacre in Southern California, FBI investigators are still seeking to answer key questions such as the location of the married couple’s computer hard drive and whether anyone helped them, an official said.

Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire on Dec. 2 during a party and training session for San Bernardino County employees, who were co-workers of Farook, injuring 22 people in addition to the 14 killed.

It was one of the deadliest attacks by militants in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.

Authorities have said that U.S.-born Farook and Malik, a native of Pakistan who lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia, were inspired by Islamic extremism. The couple, who were parents of a 6-month-old daughter, both died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is still seeking to determine if anyone assisted the couple, such as in financing the attack or helping to plan for it, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

“While we have not charged anyone with providing support to Farook and Malik, we certainly will continue to investigate to determine if they were supported in any way,” she said in a telephone interview.

To that end, the FBI is still hoping to find the hard drive from the couple’s computer, Eimiller said.

A search by FBI divers in the weeks after the attack of a small lake at a park where Farook and Malik stopped in the hours after the shooting failed to turn up the hard drive.

In addition, the FBI still has an 18-minute gap in accounting for the whereabouts of Farook and Malik in the hours they spent driving around San Bernardino in a sport utility vehicle after the attack at the city’s Inland Regional Center.

The couple left three pipe bombs at the center, in an apparent attempt to harm emergency workers caring for the wounded, according to authorities. The couple approached the center after the attack and might have been trying to detonate one of the devices remotely, Eimiller said.

Several public events are scheduled for Friday in San Bernardino to mark the one-year anniversary of the attack.

Elected officials and emergency responders who handled the attack will attend a ceremony at a San Bernardino blood bank on Friday morning. In the evening, another event is expected to draw at least 2,000 participants to an arena in the city.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

California seeks long-term water savings as drought lingers

Mud cracks along a dried riverbed are pictured near San Ysidro, California

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California water regulators on Wednesday recommended tighter oversight of agricultural irrigation and a permanent ban on over-watering urban lawns, a first step toward developing a long-term conservation plan amid ongoing drought.

The proposal comes as nearly two-thirds of the state heads into a fifth year of severe drought despite a wet fall and heavy rains last winter that have ameliorated conditions in many areas.

“The last few years provided the wake-up call of all wake-up calls that water is precious and not to be taken for granted,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, one of several state agencies that worked on the proposal.

California has been in the grip of drought since 2013. It has cost billions to the state’s agricultural economy, led a half-million acres of farmland to be fallowed and deprived some communities of reliable sources of drinking water.

In January 2014, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought an emergency and in 2015 he ordered urban areas to cut back their water use by 25 percent. Earlier this year, Brown ordered the state to develop a long-term conservation plan.

“We learned during this drought that our planning efforts just weren’t robust enough,” said Max Gomberg, climate and conservation manager for the water board. Going forward, the most populous U.S. state will need to provide water for yet more people while also facing warmer and drier weather associated with climate change, he said.

Rain has returned to Northern California parts of the south over the past year, leading scientists at the U.S. Drought Monitor to declare about 25 percent of the state drought-free. Even so, 60 percent of California is still experiencing severe drought and it is not clear how long those conditions will persist.

The draft proposal released Wednesday will now go through a period of public comment before it is finalized, likely early next year. The legislature must also sign on to parts of the plan.

It calls for urban areas to submit annual water use budgets and plan for droughts of at least five years in length. Suppliers of agricultural water will be required to submit reports on water usage and show that they are working to increase efficiency.

Water utilities must also report how much water they lose through leaks, and speed up repairs.

Temporary requirements such as bans on over-watering lawns, hosing down sidewalks and washing cars with hoses that do not have a shut-off valve would become permanent under the plan.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

More anti-Trump protests planned across United States

riots in Oakland

By Timothy Mclaughlin and Alexander Besant

CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest against Republican Donald Trump’s surprise presidential election win, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

In New York, thousands filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump’s gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted “Not my president.”

In Los Angeles, protesters sat on the 110 and 101 highway interchange, blocking traffic on one of the city’s main arteries as police in riot gear tried to clear them. Some 13 protesters were arrested, a local CBS affiliate reported.

An earlier rally and march in Los Angeles drew more than 5,000 people, many of them high school and college students, local media reported.

A demonstration of more than 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed store front windows.

Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

Two officers were injured in Oakland and two police squad cars were damaged, Johnna Watson, spokeswoman for the Oakland Police Department told CNN.

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like “No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA.”

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators’ path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

“I’m just really terrified about what is happening in this country,” said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: “Enjoy your rights while you can.”

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said it was unrelated to the demonstrations.

Protesters railed against Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: “It is time for us to come together as one united people.”

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that “Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form.”

“DREAMERS” FEAR DEPORTATION

Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities – Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish “the people united will never be defeated,” the group held signs with slogans such as “Not Supporting Racism, Not My President” and “Immigrants Make America Great.”

Many of those students were members of the “Dreamers” generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

“A child should not live in fear that they will be deported,” said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were U.S. citizens.

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesday’s demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump’s victory against heavily favoured Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

(Reporting by Noah Berger and Stephen Lam in Oakland, Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago, Alexander Besant in New York, Curtis Skinner in Berkeley, California, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler, Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)

Protests grow tense after police slaying of black man in California

Protests in California after black man was shot

By Dan Whitcomb and Marty Graham

EL CAJON, Calif. (Reuters) – A second night of mostly peaceful protests over the fatal police shooting in Southern California of an unarmed black man said to be mentally ill climaxed on Wednesday as protesters confronted officers in riot gear who retreated as tensions rose.

Protesters earlier in the day shouted “murder” and demanded a federal investigation of Tuesday’s shooting in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, which came just as racially charged anger over similar incidents in two other U.S. cities during the past two weeks had begun to subside.

The Tuesday mid-afternoon shooting unfolded after two El Cajon police officers responded to several calls about a mentally unstable person walking in traffic, then confronted the man behind a restaurant.

One policeman opened fire with his service pistol and his partner simultaneously fired a Taser stun gun when the man pulled an object from his pocket and took aim at them in a “shooting stance,” according to police.

No weapon from the man, however, was recovered at the scene, police said. The object he was said to be carrying was not specified.

The next day, Mayor Bill Wells confirmed the victim’s identity as Alfred Olango, a 38-year-old Ugandan immigrant with a U.S. felony record of convictions for drug and weapon offenses, according to federal court records.

Friends and activists said Olango was mentally ill and may have been suffering a seizure in the moments before his death.

Police said they obtained cellphone video of the shooting from a bystander, but authorities released only a still frame showing two officers pointing weapons at a man who was aiming an object at them.

In a separate video clip taken moments after the shooting and posted on social media, a woman who refers to herself as the victim’s sister is heard crying in anguish, “Oh my God. You killed my brother. I just called for help and … you killed him.”

Wells told a news conference on Wednesday that he had seen the footage obtained by police. He described it as “certainly enlightening,” adding, “I don’t believe that this is going to be a tremendously complicated process for people to figure out what happened.”

“I saw a man who was distraught, a man who was acting in ways that looked like he was in great pain, and I saw him get gunned down and killed, and it broke my heart. If it was my son I would be devastated,” Wells said.

Wells said all 120 officers on El Cajon’s police force receive training from San Diego County’s Psychiatric Emergency Response Teams, or PERT, program, though no PERT-assigned officer was available for dispatch to Tuesday’s call.

CRIES FOR ‘JUSTICE’

Two other black men were killed days earlier by police in questionable circumstances in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, igniting demonstrations decrying racial bias by U.S. law enforcement. Authorities imposed a state of emergency and a curfew to quell unrest in Charlotte.

Olango’s slaying in California likewise immediately sparked hours of angry protests near the shooting scene.

Speaking to reporters the next day, El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis appealed for calm and urged against rushing to judgment. The predominantly white city is home to some 100,000 people, including many residents who are immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.

Civil rights activists and several hundred protesters returned to the streets on Wednesday, gathering first outside the police department to chant “murder,” “justice for Alfred Olango” and “black lives matter.”

“We are not going to stop until we get justice,” the Reverend Shane Harris, president of the National Action Network’s San Diego chapter, said at the rally.

Protests continued after dark with hundreds of people marching from the shooting scene to City Hall and back, shouting Olango’s name, taunting police and periodically blocking traffic.

The crowd later staged a boisterous but peaceful rally near the site of Olango’s death that turned tense when police officers, who initially kept a low profile, made a renewed show of force in riot gear.

A standoff appeared on the verge of escalation as some protesters hurled water bottles at police, who stood their ground before pulling back in what seemed to be a tactical retreat.

Demonstrators milled about the streets afterward, but the mood grew more relaxed and the crowds gradually diminished with no immediate signs of further lawlessness.

The San Diego County District Attorney was investigating the shooting, and police said the bystander’s video would be released once that probe was complete. Wells said the FBI also was probing the incident.

(Additional reporting by Norma Galeana and Alan Devall in El Cajon, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Laila Kearney in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Jeffrey Benkoe and Bernard Orr)

Northern California wildfire forces hundreds to evacuate mountainous area

A firefighter from the Sonoma Valley Fire & Rescue Authority work on a a hotspot during the Rocky Fire near Clearlake, California

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Firefighters worked to control a wildfire on Tuesday in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco Bay area that has forced hundreds of residents to evacuate, despite its relatively small size, officials said.

The so-called Loma Fire broke out on Monday afternoon and has scorched more than 1,000 acres (405 hectares) about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the town of Morgan Hill, fire officials said. Firefighters have built containment lines around 5 percent of the blaze.

The fire threatens about 300 homes spread out along a network of rural roads through valleys and hills in the Santa Cruz Mountains, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents, said Captain Brian Oliver of the Moraga-Orinda Fire District.

With temperatures in the area nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), the more than 500 firefighters working to contain the blaze scrambled on Tuesday to protect buildings in the area, officials said.

Oliver said the fire, coming at the height of California’s wildfire season, has the potential to balloon in size.

“A lot of it just depends on what kind of progress they can make before any significant winds come in,” he said by phone.

The blaze has destroyed one structure and damaged another, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Heather Williams.

Fire officials are investigating its cause.

More than 60 miles (96 km) to the south, firefighters on Tuesday continued to make progress against the more than two-month old Soberanes Fire. It was 78 percent contained after scorching more than 127,478 acres (51,589 hectares), mostly in the Los Padres National Forest, and destroying 57 homes and 11 outbuildings, officials said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Report details horror, heroism during San Bernardino shooting

A Memorial for those killed in the San Bernardino Shooting

(Reuters) – A report into last year’s shooting rampage by a husband and wife in San Bernardino, California, reveals how three county workers battled to stop the shooters as they sprayed bullets into a conference room full of their colleagues.

The report released on Friday describes the carnage found by rescue workers after Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik opened fire during a Dec. 2 party and training session at the Inland Regional Center for San Bernardino County health workers, killing 14 people and wounding 24 others.

Authorities have said the couple — who were killed by police during a shootout — were inspired by Islamist militancy, and have called it the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

The 141-page document by the Police Foundation describes how three male county workers “tried to stop the shooters by rushing one of the gunmen but all three were shot.” It did not say if the three men were among the 14 killed in the assault.

The dispatch also contains new details about the horrific scene discovered by first responders when they entered the conference room.

“It looked like a bomb had gone off. Bodies were strewn across the floor. Many had devastating wounds. Blood was everywhere. The smell of gunpowder filled their nostrils and the sprinklers sounded like they were hissing,” it said.

It revealed that the gunmen had left three pipe bombs that they planned to detonate remotely as emergency workers cared for the wounded.

“It is a frequent practice used in terrorist incidents,” the report said. The devices were detonated by a bomb squad.

Friday’s report concluded that the first response by police to the shooting was “exemplary” and likely saved lives.

“First responders acted with courage and discipline – using their training and skills to act quickly and decisively in a horrifying situation,” it said.

However, the review highlighted the challenges faced by first responders and investigators from different agencies, including overlapping responsibilities and different protocols in dealing with hundreds of witnesses and three different crime scenes.

“It is imperative to examine, analyze and learn from police-involved critical incidents in an effort to continually improve. Certainly, that is true of this incident,” wrote Jim Bueermann, the president of the foundation, in a letter introducing the report.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Helen Popper)