A San Quentin inmate who stabbed a Novato girl's killer to death on a prison yard pleaded guilty Thursday in a deal to avoid the death penalty.
Frank Souza, 33, admitted to first-degree murder with special circumstances in the death of Edward Schaefer in 2010. The attack occurred shortly after Schaefer started his prison sentence for killing 9-year-old Melody Osheroff in a Novato crosswalk during a drunken motorcycle ride...
LINK - MarinIJ.com
]]>Fresno police have released photos to the public of a suspect they say murdered a Fresno man on Sunday hoping someone can help lead to his whereabouts and arrest.
Police say Fernando Figueroa, a parolee and known gang member is responsible for the shooting death of Sergio Lopez, 30, who was found suffering from a gunshot wound in an apartment at 5145 E Lane in south east Fresno...
LINK - KSEE24.com
]]>A parolee suspected of committing dozens of Bay Area robberies using a chrome revolver has been charged with 37 felony counts in San Mateo County Superior Court.
In the most serious case, Ricky Renee Sanders, 34 -- known as the "chrome revolver bandit" because of the silver-barreled revolver he allegedly used in some of the holdups -- is accused of shooting a store clerk while robbing a PetSmart store in San Mateo on Oct. 8, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.
The employee was shot in the leg and survived, but suffered a severed femoral artery, prosecutors said...
LINK - MercuryNews.com
]]>Gov. Jerry Brown has sent language for his 12-point pension reform plan to the Legislature's Conference Committee on Public Employee Pensions.
The proposals are divided into two groups. The constitutional amendment Brown offered broadly outlines the pension changes more narrowly defined in the language to change state law. The governor's plan won't go forward without two-thirds of the Legislature voting to put the constitutional changes on the Nov. 6 ballot, which would then need voter approval from a majority....
LINK - SacBee.com
]]>For six years, a federal receiver has been in charge of fixing California’s broken-down prison medical system.
The receiver says he can finish the job soon, but he needs state lawmakers to pay the full $2 billion they promised for medical facilities. The state has already spent a billion dollars on improvements. Lawmakers now say they don’t need to spend any more. The receiver worries that the improvements in prison medical care could slip away...
LINK - SCPR.org
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The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office is considering 33 year old Joshua Lee of Montague to be “armed and dangerous” after he allegedly assaulted his wife and drove her towards Hawkinsville Tuesday night, Jan. 31, 2012.
She got away and was picked up on Hwy 263 by a passing “good samaritan,” who kept driving, dragging Lee along, after he lunged into the car through an open passenger window, according to a press release from Sheriff’s Office public information officer Allison Giannini...
LINK - MTShastaNews.com
]]>After four months of California’s realignment program, jail overcrowding, homelessness and inadequate mental health reporting have overburdened local agencies now responsible for prisoners shifted from state to local institutions.
County parole agents and mental health workers have had to deal with a growing number of state prison returnees who have mental health issues, which county officials say were poorly described in their state prison information packets that preceded release...
LINK - PE.com (The Press-Enterprise)
]]>Sheriff’s deputies arrested a parolee on drug and other charges on Tuesday after he punched a deputy and had to be subdued with a Taser, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said.
Deputies were sent to a report of a possibly wanted male sitting in his car and smoking drugs on Newlyn Street in North Salinas...
LINK - TheCalifornian.com
]]>Pasadena police arrested a parolee in a stolen car last week, using a computerized license plate readers inside a patrol car. On Friday at 10 p.m. the automated license plate reader in a patrol car alerted a patrol officer to a stolen car driven by Christopher Castillo, 24, a Pasadena resident on active parole.
Castillo was arrested. The license plate reader can check thousands of license plates each day, leaving officers to focus on other aspects of their patrols...
LINK - PasadenaSun.com
]]>Police continue to search for a high-risk parolee as part of a burglary investigation, Livermore Police Officer Dave Blake said.
At around 11 a.m. Wednesday, a SWAT team was called to the 700 block of Holmes Street, near Aaron Street. Officers believe the wanted parolee, Jay Marcus Johnson, was inside his home in the area.
Johnson, 22, was not found in the search. He is a suspect in a Jan. 10 burglary and is considered armed and dangerous, Blake said...
LINK - Livermore.Patch.com
]]>A parolee was booked into County Jail Tuesday after an officer found him with stolen property and methamphetamine, police said.
Christopher Page, 33, was seen by an officer acting suspiciously over by Laurel and Center streets late Tuesday afternoon. Page fled when the officer tried to contact him and he was eventually apprehended by the river levee. Officers found him in possession of a file of paperwork that had been stolen from a local title office. He also had a credit card belonging to someone other than himself and had an identification card belonging to yet another person, Santa Cruz Police Deputy Chief Steve Clark said. Officers also found hydrocodone in Page's possession...
LINK - MercuryNews.com
]]>Lake Elsinore Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries introduced legislation Monday that would put in place one option for keeping inmate fire crews up and running.
The bill, AB 1562, was drafted to address anticipated cuts in the number of inmate fire crews available to Cal Fire as a result of a new law that shifts prisoners from state-run fire conservation camps into county jails, according to Jeff Greene, spokesman for the Assemblyman’s office.
The legislation gives counties an option over the current alternatives of hiring added fire personnel or losing the inmate firefighters altogether, Greene said....
LINK - LakeElsinore-Wildomar.Patch.com
]]>In January 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown announced his plan to shut down all state youth prisons by 2014. If backed by the Legislature, the governor's proposal would have counties share $10 million to develop prudent local alternatives to state custodial facilities. By January 2013, the Division of Juvenile Justice will no longer accept any new admissions, and the entire system will gradually phase out in 2014.
There is significant opposition to this proposal from many youth advocates, probation chiefs, judges and district attorneys. Some are concerned that the counties do not have the programs and resources to manage the current DJJ population, that the youth facility closure will lead to more youth being sentenced to adult prisons and jails, and that there will be wide disparities in treatment and confinement conditions across the diverse counties of the Golden State...
LINK - SFGate.com
]]>A man was arrested at about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday after a short pursuit that ended when the suspect crashed the car he was driving near American Canyon Road and Elliott Drive, according to the American Canyon Police Department.
Steven Young, 39, of Fairfield, allegedly tried to flee on foot before he was taken into custody, Police Chief Jean Donaldson said...
LINK - NapaValleyRegister.com
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