“Officer testifies about finding girl on campus after alleged gang rape - Sacramento Bee” plus 1 more |
| Officer testifies about finding girl on campus after alleged gang rape - Sacramento Bee Posted: 15 Nov 2010 07:04 PM PST MARTINEZ, Calif. -- A California police officer, testifying in court Monday, took several deep breaths before describing how he found a partially nude 16-year-old girl underneath a picnic table on the Richmond High School campus last fall. "She looked wet. She looked really clammy white. I thought she was dead when I saw her," said Richmond Officer Todd Kaiser, the first witness to testify at a preliminary hearing for seven men and teen boys charged in connection with an alleged gang rape on the campus during or after a homecoming dance on Oct. 24, 2009. Kaiser, a patrol officer, said he was dispatched to the school at 11:48 p.m. that night on reports of a naked female walking on the campus. When he pulled up to the northwest side and shone a spotlight on a courtyard, Kaiser said that between five and seven men standing around a picnic table took off running. One of the men was shirtless, and grabbed a white T-shirt and a skateboard before he fled. Kaiser walked up to the table and found the victim under the table, bent over a steel pole that attached to the bench seat. Her lavender dress was twisted up over her nude bottom. Her face was covered in vomit. Her back was marked with bloody scrapes. Kaiser said he shook the girl to see if she was alive, and she moaned. Around the picnic table were discarded condom wrappers, an Oakland A's hat and an empty bottle of brandy, the victim's school ID card on a lanyard, her emptied purse, a walkie talkie and a silver high-heeled shoe. After being treated by paramedics at the scene, the girl was taken by helicopter to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. She was hospitalized for five days after the assailants plied her with alcohol and then raped, beat and robbed her over two hours, according to police. Numerous spectators witnessed the assault but did nothing to stop it, police said. One man told reporters he tried to help the girl but he was roughly ordered away by the group when he refused to participate in the rape. When the victim's distraught father arrived on the campus that night, he said his daughter had volunteered to help dance organizers that night, Kaiser said. The girl was supposed to call her father for a ride home, but he never heard from her. The father told Kaiser that he called his daughter's cell phone numerous times. At one point, a male answered his daughter's phone and told him, in crude terms, that the girl was good at sex and performing oral sex. Kaiser is the first of more than two dozen witnesses scheduled to testify for the prosecution at the preliminary hearing under way in Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Caskey's courtroom. Caskey will rule at the end of the estimated two-week hearing whether the prosecution has enough evidence to bring some or all of the boys and men to trial on the charges. The defendants are John Crane Jr., 43, of Richmond; Cody Ray Smith, 16, of San Pablo; Ari Abdallah Morales, 17, of San Pablo; Marcelles James Peter, 18, of Pinole; Manuel Ortega, 20, of Richmond; Jose Carlos Montano, 19, of Richmond; and Richmond's Elvis Josue Torrentes, who turns 23 on Tuesday. Ortega was apprehended near the school by police soon after the victim was found, Kaiser testified Monday. "(Ortega) said, "I just wanted to pimp her out,' " Officer Gunnar Googins testified. Ortega, visibly intoxicated, told officers to "just go ahead and kill me" several times, Googins said. All of the juvenile defendants are charged as adults. All seven, except for Torrentes, face charges that call for life in prison because of a special allegation that they physically participated in the rape. Torrentes could get up to 26 years in prison. What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.) Here are some rules of the road: • Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior. • Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear. • Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals. • Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message. • Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box. • Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time. • Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed. • Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience. You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa. If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name. If you choose to use our "reply to comment" feature, you should note that the length of the quoted comment will count against the size limits for your comment. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bring your skateboard, stunts to competition - Desert Sun Posted: 26 Nov 2010 12:50 AM PST Tamara H. Sone • Special to Cathedral City Sun • November 26, 2010 Skateboarders from across the Coachella Valley and out of town will grind rails and kick-flip their boards next weekend for judges during an Epidemic Skate Shop competition at Palm Springs Skate Park. Sponsored by the shop, Emerica Shoes and Altamont Apparel, the competition is open to boys and girls in all age groups, with all levels of experience. Prizes will be awarded for first-, second- and third-place finalists. It will take place Dec. 4. "This is our first organized full competition that we have done," said Glen Coy, event co-host and owner of Epidemic Skate Shop in Cathedral City. "We've put on a couple of other events, but this is the first competition with individual runs, different age groups, sponsors and vendors." About 75 people have signed up to compete. The last competition Epidemic sponsored drew about 500 spectators, according to Coy. In addition to watching the skaters perform hair-raising stunts, big-name skate companies and magazines such as DVS, etnies, Analog, Vans and Circa will hand out free merchandise and products to competitors and attendees. "We won't be bringing out merchandise to sell, but we will have boards there so that if someone breaks theirs we can sell them one cheap," Coy said. "We are trying to keep it a promotional thing with free products. We have a whole back room full of things that are going to be given out." The Coachella Valley Arts Scene will also be at the park with various arts and craft projects for kids who don't want to compete but still want to watch and have fun. DJ Alf Alpha is expected to drop tunes to keep the skaters pumped and the crowd amped. For those 21 and older, an after-party is planned at the Ace Hotel and Swim Club in Palm Springs with DJ No Age. The hotel offers discounted rates for competition attendees. If the contest proves to be as successful as Coy hopes, he will consider bringing it back next year. "Having a big competition in our city would be great," said skater Ben Madrid, 16. "It would be good for the local skaters to be able to be seen by companies and maybe they would get sponsored. I hope that they do it again next year." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Add Images to any RSS Feed To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment