Santa Clarita

Best of L.A. 2013

LAPD Officer Arrested For Lewd Conduct With Minors, Cops Say

Updated at the bottom with the officer charged. First posted at 4:02 p.m. Monday. An LAPD officer was arrested today on suspicion of lewd conduct in a case involving underage victims, authorities told the Weekly. The officer was arrested in the Santa Clarita area, a sheriff's official said. Accord ... More >>

Bike Week L.A. Is Here; Free Bus, Metro Train Rides Thursday

It's officially Bike Week L.A., so try not to mow down bicyclists as usual, Angeleno drivers. What is Bike Week L.A., you ask? Mostly it's just a way to encourage you to step away from the gas guzzler and instead pedal to work. Among the enticements, which include cleaner air and toned legs, is thi ... More >>

Awesome Twerk Video Means School Suspension for SoCal Kids

Southern California's Scripps Ranch is one of the wealthiest communities in the nation (median income: $144,438 -- much higher than Beverly Hills'). At 71 percent Anglo, it's also one of the whitest 'hoods this side of the Santa Clarita Valley. So it was a little surprising to us to see an awesome ... More >>

Snake In A Car Scares The Hell Out Of A SoCal Freeway Driver

If you were driving down the freeway and a snake unexpectedly joined you for the ride, what would happen? You'd probably be lucky to keep it on the road, right? That was the case for Angie Guerrero, who was scared by a snake while she was driving in Santa Clarita over the weekend:

Carmageddon II Could Clean Up 405 Air Pollution By Up to 83 Percent -- UCLA

See also: *Why Carmageddon II Could Be For Real; 10 Freeway Stretches in L.A. to Avoid. Having to be cooped up for this weekend's Carmageddon II is going to suck (L.A. leaders are encouraging you to keep shopping, so long as you stay away from the 405), especially since a fall heatwave is going to ... More >>

Eric Yee, Yale Dropout, Allegedly Threatened to Shoot Valencia Schoolkids, Aurora Style, in ESPN Chat Room

Updated at the bottom with personal details on Eric Yee, and the comments that may have triggered his arrest. (Headline has been changed to reflect the suspect's identity.) Originally posted at 9:30 a.m. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department is refusing to release the name of a young Asian man in h ... More >>

Bank Robbery Suspects Toss Cash During Chase, Crowds Form in South L.A. (VIDEO)

Latest updates at the bottom. Another day, another crazy chase. This one had suspects in a Volvo SUV throwing cash out a window. That move apparently drew crowds to the South Los Angeles area near USC where the chase was going around in circles until it came to a stop and alleged bad guys were app ... More >>

Paul Mingyu Sang, South Korean Exchange Student, Suffocates in Sand-Pit Collapse at College Beach Party

A 19-year-old foreign-exchange student at a small Christian college in Santa Clarita reportedly suffered a tragic death at a SoCal beach on Wednesday, when a hole he was digging in the sand collapsed around him. South Korea native Mingyu Sang, whose American name was Paul, dug the hole while attend ... More >>

Old Lady Pepper Sprayed in Face at Burbank Metrolink Station; A-Hole Sought

A grandmotherly old woman was pepper sprayed in the face this week as she waited for a Metrolink train to take her to work, police said. A man in his 50s walked up to the 73-year-old, said something "unintelligible," then started spraying, Burbank police Sgt. Darin Ryburn told the Weekly. The winn ... More >>

Rape Is on the Rise in Los Angeles County

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck held their biannual crime-stats press conference today in typical feel-good fashion: They were proud to announce that for the first half of 2012, violent crimes were down 8.8 percent from last year. But the same cannot be said for reported ... More >>

Amber Popiel, Santa Clarita Mom, Killed When Car Splits in Half on Soledad Canyon Road

The Santa Clarita woman killed over the weekend in a brutal crash along Soledad Mountain Road has been identified as 30-year-old Amber Popiel. The victim "graduated from Canyon High School in 2000 and worked at Peterson Dean Roofing," reports the Santa Clarita Valley Signal. She was just a mile-and ... More >>

Bicycle Theft Ring Targeted High-End Bikes on Craigslist, Used Facebook For Personal Info

As evil as cops paint these guys to be, you gotta admit, they were scary sophisticated in their use of Craigslist, Facebook and social manipulation -- if the story's true. Here's the deal, according an announcement by L.A. County Sheriff's officials this week: A crew of bike thieves targeted victi ... More >>

Michael Downs, High-School Senior From Santa Clarita, Charged With Raping 14 Girls He Met on Facebook, at Parties

Michael C. Downs via FacebookThat Justin Bieber haircut isn't fooling anybody.​Updated at the bottom with creepy details from Downs' Facebook and Formspring profiles. No, this is not a scene from that Clive Owen movie about what your tween daughter is really doing on her smartphone all day. ... More >>

Adult Diaper Company Reamed Taxpayers: SoCal's Shield Healthcare Will Pay us Back $5 Million

This guy's a U.S. Senator. Really.​Turns out you, the American taxpayer, has been overpaying for adult diapers. (Yeah, we didn't realize we were buying them either). The largest supplier of adult diapers in the nation charged us more than twice what it paid for the items, a no-no under federa ... More >>

Teens Steal $50,000 Worth of Stuff, Try to Sell it to Undercover Cops Via Craigslist, L.A. Sheriff's Investigators Say

Ah, this is where, kids, you learn about the criminal called a "fence." He's the middleman who fences the dirty goods for you to shady shops and maybe even the general public. Unfortunately for a pair of L.A. County teens up to some seriously advanced no good, they were caught selling hot goods the ... More >>

SoCal Residents Sue L.A. Sheriff for Seizing Their Cars, Jewelry in $7M Raid of 'Criminal Ring'

Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff's Station via The SignalFrom a video of the "crime" scene.​It was one of the finest raids in the history of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff's Station. In January 2010, the sheriff's LoJack vehicle-recovery system located a Bobcat that had been stolen from a cemet ... More >>

Marijuana Farm Worth $4 Million Busted in Angeles National Forest North of Santa Clarita

All your bud are belong to the L.A. Sheriff's Department.​All that legal pot-shop weed being grown "collectively" in grandmothers' gardens everywhere, and somebody still finds that it's profitable to start a marijuana plantation in the middle of a national forest? Hmm. Authorities north of S ... More >>

Strip Club Shooting in Valley Takes Life of Thomas Valdez, 30: Club Employee Allegedly Flees With Murder Suspect

VIP Showgirls.​A strip club patron was fatally shot over the weekend, police said. It happened about 10 p.m. Saturday inside VIP Showgirls Gentlemen's Club at 12147 Victory Blvd. in North Hollywood's struggling Valley Plaza shopping center, according to the LAPD. It's not clear what set off ... More >>

30 Scoops in 30 Days: The Aftermath

​ It's summer. You want to eat ice cream. Here's a map to help you do it. From Altadena to Artesia, from Santa Clarita to Redondo Beach, from Echo Park to Venice, it's a roundup of all the places we visited on our 30 Scoops in 30 Days quest, plus a few other hot ice cream spots. And it's just ... More >>

Hot Boarding Skateboard Accident Involving Car Tow Puts 35-Year-Old Edward Culhan in Hospsital

Hot boarding.​Updated at the bottom: The skateboarder died. Mix speed, a skateboard and alleged drunk driving and you probably have a recipe for hospitalization. Authorities say a skateboarder being towed by a suspected DUI driver crashed and ended up hospitalized with critical injuries over ... More >>

Hey There, Cowboy

DUI Checkpoints Abound in L.A. This Weekend: Where Not to Drive Drunk

The coppers come out on Friday (and Saturday) night​Updated with a few more stops from around the county. OK, technically you shouldn't be driving drunk anywhere (bad!), as we learned for the umpteenth time from a Long Beach fire captain who nearly killed a cyclist in Seal Beach last week, bu ... More >>

Daniel Donovan, Junior College Student, Allegedly Tried to Videotape 12-Year-Old Boy Peeing in Public Bathroom

FoxHerbert.​A brazen attempt at illegal perversion was thwarted this week by one smart kid. When 32-year-old Daniel Donovan allegedly tried to videotape a 12-year-old boy taking a pee in a public restroom at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, the kid rightly fled running (and hopefu ... More >>

Fiery Hate Crime Targets Black Man Living in White, Wealthy Santa Clarita Neighborhood

KTLANo suburban SUV is safe​How far has Los Angeles County really come, since the mid-century school desegration and the 1992 L.A. Riots? For a black man living with his white roommates in the affluent Santa Clarita suburb of Saugus, a hate crime outside their home in the 20700 block of Satinw ... More >>

Give, Laugh, Repeat

L.A. County Sheriff Busts Pitbull Fighting Ring, Confiscates 17 Dogs, 4 Kids, 1 Ounce of Cocaine

Antelope Valley's finest​There have been some major shenanigans going off in Lake Los Angeles -- that soulless (and ironically lake-less) unincorporated no-man's-land in the Antelope Valley, backdrop to many a meth lab and our worst "Hills Have Eyes" nightmares. Now, the bumpkin community can ... More >>

Santa Clarita High School Students Get Marijuana Grow Lights For Class Experiments

Fast TimesSpicoli would have been happy to take delivery of grow lights in class.​The kids at Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita are getting an early holiday present: Grow lights -- actual hydroponic devices used in real drug operations, donated by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. ... More >>

Cameron Smyth Wins* California State Assembly District 38 In Election 2010, His Triumphant Warcry Shattering The Very Soul Of Opponent Diana Shaw

​We're calling it: Cameron Smith (R) of Santa Clarita is your next representative for California State Assembly District 38. He beat opponent Diana Shaw (D) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But thanks to sleazy incum ... More >>

Heat Alert For L.A. County Friday And Saturday

​Summer's late, like Pamela Anderson to an interview, but we'll take what we can get. On Thursday the county of Los Angeles issued a "heat alert," warning that it'll be a blazer Friday and Saturday in L.A. basin, especially for Lancaster and the Santa Clarita, San Fernando and San Gabriel Vall ... More >>

National Weather Service: 'Dangerous Heat Expected' For Much Of L.A.

NASA​Hot enough for you yet? Still complaining about that cool summer? Didn't think so. And it looks like Madre Nature is about to turn it up a notch. The National Weather Service has issued a notice that states, in part, "dangerous heat expected" for Wednesday. The usual suspects should be o ... More >>

'Excessive Heat Watch' Issued For L.A. This Week: Record Temps Expected

​An "excessive heat watch" has been issued by the National Weather Service for much of Los Angeles Tuesday and Wednesday, with "dangerous heat possible" and even record temperatures for the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, and the Santa Monica Mountains. A high-pressure system is ... More >>

Heat Wave: DWP Urges Angelenos To Conserve Power As Temps Soar

​The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is urging consumers to conserve power to avoid straining the city's electric grid. The National Weather and Service issued a excessive heat watch for parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties from Thursday through F ... More >>

Tributefest: Food, Beer & U2

It's safe to say that the first-ever Tributefest in Santa Clarita on Saturday, May 1, was a success, and not just because of the eight tribute bands to take the stage. With almost twenty food trucks and dozes of beers on tap, the wide selection of mobile cuisine might just have been the real highlig ... More >>

"Gay Hawkwind Tribute Band" Are the Most Awesome Four Words in the English Language: Meet Cockwind, Tonight @ Pehrspace

Oh yes they did: Lemmy would not have approved of Hawkwind's 1978 makeover​Tribute bands are so a dime a dozen in LA that there even was a whole festival of them last weekend (Tributefest in Santa Clarita, which you knew about thanks to a glossy band covering up half of our awesome Cypress Hil ... More >>

Does Santa Clarita Have A Massage Parlor Problem?

​A statement from a group claiming to be "very concerned Santa Clarita parents and business people" says that message parlors in the northern Los Angeles County city of 177,000 residents are out of control and number at least 65. A statement given to the Weekly along with a printout of the na ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

First '09 Downtown Murders Two men were shot and killed at Skid Row's Lamp Lodge hotel early Easter morning. They were the first Downtown murders since June, 2008. L.A. TimesNative Habit Threat Conservationists are worried about an oil-company's proposal to build 3,900 new homes in the middle of the ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Octuplets Mom Seeks Bailout Nadya Suleman has set up a Web site that has a link for readers to make donations to her family, the L.A. Times notes.LASD Scores Paranoid Emails The Sheriff's Dept. is criticizing an email alert warning residents of a Santa Clarita neighborhood about a "suspicious van," ... More >>

Best Ape Hoots and Howls: Gibbon Conservation Center

Sets and the City

Metrolink Tries to Censor Bloggers

A paranoid transit agency spends public money threatening critical Web sites

Elissa Fleak

The bone collector

Peddling Smart Growth

Call your project “smart” — even when it isn't — and get millions in public funds.

Best Spots You're Sure Not to Get Shot by Mark the Cobrasnake

Tenant Services

On the Map

Southern California’s last wild river gets a national spotlight, but will it matter?

Letters

Giving Up the Ranch

Newhall gets its way with county supervisors

Web Extra: More of the Weekly’s Interview With John Quigley

The Toad vs. the Big Cement Company

L.A. County must take sides