Monday News Roundup
News Roundup for Monday, August 8, 2016
Victim Identified in Ghirardelli Square Shooting
A college baseball player was fatally shot at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park while playing Pokemon Go on Saturday night, according to his friends and family.
San Mateo resident Calvin Riley was found suffering a gunshot wound to his torso at 9:51 p.m. in the Aquatic Park near Ghirardelli Square, according to police. He was pronounced dead there.
Police have released few details about the shooting and have not identified any
suspects. Riley had moved to the Bay Area from Lowell, Massachusetts. He graduated
from Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo in 2015, the school confirmed in a
Facebook post. Since then, he attended San Joaquin Delta College, where he played
for the school’s baseball team, according to the school. In addition to his parents,
he leaves behind a younger brother and sister.
A childhood friend from Massachusetts, Gabriel Antonio Morales, set up a GoFundMe
page to help Riley’s family with expenses that had raised nearly $27,000 as of this
afternoon. “You left me for California a couple years back. When you moved I balled
my eyes out. Now what? You had the world in the palm of your hands!” Morales wrote.
“I know you moved out there to pursue your dreams of one day making it to the league
and you had all the mechanics, talent and dedication to make your dreams a reality.
But all that was taken by a coward who wanted to shoot up a Poké stop,” he wrote.
The GoFundMe page is available at https://www.gofundme.com/27ch3rek
Criminal Charges Unlikely in Richmond Police Investigation
Several Richmond police officers likely violated department policies in their
interactions with a young woman at the center of an expansive law enforcement scandal
but don’t seem to have broken any laws, Richmond’s interim police chief wrote in a
letter to city officials.
In the letter to Richmond city administrator Bill Lindsay, Mayor Tom Butt and members
of the City Council, Brown said evidence gathered in the investigation into contact
between his officers and woman known as Celeste Guap “will likely sustain multiple
violations of policies — non criminal — against several officers.”
Several Richmond police officers have been under investigation for their interactions
with the woman, an apparent human trafficking victim who may have been victimized by
multiple Oakland police officers while underage. Richmond police Officer Jerrod Tong
was placed on leave in connection with the investigation in July after he was reassigned
away from positions where he had any interaction with youth.
Lt. Andre Hill, a department spokesman, was also reassigned from his role as manager
of the Youth and Special Services Division, but remains on active duty with the department.
The investigation into Guap, which is not the woman’s real name, began in Oakland with the
suicide last fall of Officer Brendan O’Brien. Revelations in O’Brien’s suicide note led
to police interviewing Guap, the daughter of a police dispatcher, and investigating
whether officers had sex with her while she was underage.
While the investigation proceeded quietly for months, some of the allegations became
public in May, and quickly ballooned to involve several Bay Area agencies. Three Oakland
police chiefs resigned as the scandal grew and the department’s hiring and training protocols
are being reviewed. In addition to the discipline in Richmond, so far as a result of
the investigation at least three Oakland police officers have been placed on leave, two
have resigned, a former Oakland police captain was fired as an Alameda County district
attorney’s inspector, a Livermore police officer has been placed on leave and a Contra
Costa sheriff’s deputy has resigned.
Brown said that the first investigation into the Richmond officers’ involvement should be done in the coming weeks. He praised the department’s Office of Professional Accountability’s investigation. “This is a very complex and unique set of circumstances, and investigation,”Brown said. “Guap, the primary witness, has been cooperative and truthful, yet reserved and protective of her acquaintances.”
Fire Evacuations Lifted in Monterey County
Some evacuation orders in Monterey County were lifted today as firefighters come closer
to containing the massive Soberanes Fire that has swallowed nearly 58,000 acres of forest
north of Big Sur over the last two weeks.
As of this morning, the fire was 45 percent contained at 57,500 acres. But it could take
until the end of the month to get it fully contained and it grew about 1,000 acres overnight,according to Cal Fire. About 650 structures are still threatened.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office announced this afternoon that evacuations have been
lifted for the area west of state Highway 1 from Coast Road to Graves Canyon, south of where the fire is burning. However, anyone returning there will remain under a warning and could beordered to evacuate at any time.
Areas east of Highway 1 remain under evacuation orders, according to the sheriff’s office.
Numerous residents remain evacuated in the area where the fire has been burning, which stretches from just north of Garrapata State Park in the north nearly to Big Sur in the south and to Cachagua Road in the east. Most of the Los Padres National Forest area remains closed as well.
Residents near the fire should keep up-to-date on the fire’s movement and the latest evacuation orders and warnings. Overnight, fire activity increased in the southwest portion of the fire because of high winds in the area. Much of the fire remains in steep, rugged and inaccessible terrain so getting it contained has been challenging.
The fire has already destroyed 57 homes and 11 outbuildings and damaged five other structures. It claimed the life of a bulldozer operator working to put the fire out, identified as 35-year-old Robert Oliver Reagan III of Fresno County, during the first week it burned. Three other people have been injured by the fire in recent days, but fire officials have not disclosed how they were injured.
It broke out the morning of July 22 when an illegal campfire was left abandoned in the Soberanes Creek area of Garrapata State Park. It spread quickly and, in addition to the evacuations, led to the cancellation of the Salinas Valley Half-Marathon scheduled for this weekend due to air quality concerns.
