By Miriam Raftery

September 10, 2015 (La Mesa) – La Mesa Police received a call at 10:06 p.m. last night reporting shots fired in the 4400 block of Parks Avenue, only a block from La Mesa Dale Elementary School.   

Responding officers “rolled out to the scene and found three cars with bullet holes,” Sergeant Brian Stoney told East County Magazine.

Thus far police have no suspect and no motive. 

By Miriam Raftery

September 6, 2015 (Santee)—A shot was fired but no one was seriously injured during a struggle to subdue a suspect, Jennifer Rebecca McKee, in Santee yesterday. Witnesses including two law enforcement officers say McKee tried to run over her boyfriend with a vehicle, then attacked him with a baseball bat and assaulted a law enforcement officer.

By Miriam Raftery

September 3, 2015 (El Cajon) – Six soccer players from El Cajon face federal charges of disrupting a Southwest Airline flight from San Diego to Chicago. The flight was diverted and landed in Texas Monday after a confrontation between crew members and the passengers.  If convicted of interfering with an airline flight, the young people could face up to 20 years in prison.

The federal complaint alleges that the young athletes in a Chaldean soccer league, all in their late teens or early 20s, used profanity, lunged at a flight attendant, and called her racist and a pig. But family and friends of those arrested say the dispute arose after flight attendants demanded that the players, all Iraqi-American Christians from El Cajon, stop talking in their native language. Some suggest racial profiling. Now another passenger has stepped forward to say he saw no altercation at all.

By Miriam Raftery

September 1, 2015 (Oakland)--Thousands of inmates are set to be released from solitary confinement in California prisons, following settlement of a legal case reached between the state and prisoners held in isolation for a decade or more at Pelican Bay State Prison. Prisoners there spend up to 23 hours a day confined in windowless cells with no access to mail, the law library or other services. A United Nations official has called the confinement cruel and unusual punishment akin to torture.

August 27, 2015 (Pine Valley)--U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested a man at the Interstate 8 checkpoint last night who had two undocumented immigrants locked inside his car trunk.

August 26, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – A driver with a suspended license for a felony hit and run swerved into the path of another vehicle, causing serious injury to two people.

August 25, 2015 (La Mesa)—On Thursday, August 27th at 8 a.m., officers from the La Mesa Police Department and community members will come together in an informal, neutral space to discuss community issues, build relationships, and drink coffee. All community members are invited to attend. The event  is at Starbucks, 5020 Baltimore Drive La Mesa. Please contact Sergeant Brian Stoney with any questions at (619) 667-7555 bstoney@ci.la-mesa.ca.us

By Miriam Raftery

August 25, 2015 (Alpine) –Two men in a white minivan tried to lure a 10-year-old girl into the vehicle on Monday, August 24^th at noon, Sergeant L. Whalen with the Alpine Sheriff’s station reports.  The girl was playing in an apartment complex in the 2000 block of Arnold Way in Alpine when one of the suspects approached and  offered her a ride, saying had candy in the van. The girl ran away and hid in some bushes.

The  white van has had tinted side windows, a pink breast cancer sticker on the back door and two lumber boards on top. One suspect are described as a white man with a freckled face, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with drawstring pulled tight around his face and black sweatpants. Ther is no description of the second suspect.

August 22, 2015 (El Cajon)--Learn how to avoid getting reeled in by financial scammers and other crooks at East County’s first-ever “Don’t Get Hooked” event set for Wednesday, Sept. 23, in El Cajon.

East County News Service

August 20, 2015 (El Cajon)—El Cajon Police  responded to a 911 call reporting a possible shooting last night at 7:15 p.m. at an apartment complex at 989 Peach Avenue in El Cajon. Officers found the victim, a black man about 40 years old, lying on the ground in the parking lot suffering from a gunshot wound.

He was transported to a hospital for treatment, but later died of his injuries. His name has not been released pending notification of family.

East County News Service

August 17, 2015 (San Diego) – The San Diego Department is warning area residents to beware of phony callers posing as Sheriff’s officials.

East County News Service

August 16, 2015 (El Cajon)—El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman  has announced plans to retire on December 4^th, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Redman has served as chief since 2011 and has been a member of the city’s police force since 2008.

El Cajon City Manager Doug Williford has said that the crime rate dropped 25 percent with Redman at the helm. He also credits Redman with community-based policing that shows sensitivity to El Cajon’s increasingly diverse community.

By Miriam Raftery

August 10, 2015 (Spring Valley) – A man accused of stealing a gun from a sporting goods store and then carjacking a woman’s car outside the Albertson’s on Campo Road in Spring Valley Sunday evening is now under arrest.

August 7, 2015 (Lemon Grove)—Sheriff’s Deputies responded at 8 p.m. last night to a call reporting an assault with a deadly weapon at 3554 West Street in Lemon Grove.

East County News Service

August 4, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) - The 4^th District Court of Appeal  ruled in late July that Proposition 47’s sentencing reclassification provisions apply equally to children and adults. San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis had argued that juveniles are not eligible to have their past offenses reduced to misdemeanors, even though adults convicted of the same felonies may petition for such relief.