Yolo County

When the trial began, several weeks ago, there were four defendants, facing attempted murder charges among numerous counts of assault.  Now, the attempted murder charge long gone, the defendants down to three, and numerous charges dismissed due to lack of evidence, the picture is clearer but still murky.

According to court testimony, when the store security subdued him by taking him to the ground, the perpetrator indicated that race was the motivation behind his attack on the Latina female whom he had attacked with a hammer.

Mr. Benson, 25, was arrested on January 21 after his family called the police, fearing he was suicidal.  The incident, according to police sources, escalated from there and Mr. Benson was Tasered and finally taken into custody, but not before he allegedly made terrorists threats to police while carrying an assault rifle, shotgun and more than 300 rounds of ammunition in his truck.

We have been critical in the past and will be in the future of Sheriff Ed Prieto, but the Sheriff deserves praise for his handling of the coroner’s office and the firing of forensic pathologist Thomas Gill who worked for the Forensic Medical Group (FMG), a private company the county contracts with for doing autopsies.

What we know for sure is that last Sunday, an Elk Grove police officer shot a handcuffed man in the back seat of his police vehicle.  Initially, the Elk Grove Police Department had provided no explanation as to why the officer fired his rifle at the suspect, which ended up grazing the 32-year-old man in the face.

Most of the time judges are restrained, but occasionally you see in them glimpses of their true spirit.  It was thus as the first of the closing statements were wrapping up in the never-ending Niazi trial that we got just such a glimpse into Judge Stephen Mock.

The Vanguard spoke on Wednesday with Yolo County’s Chief Deputy Coroner Robert LaBrash, who downplayed any concerns that there were problems with Yolo County autopsies, arguing that any autopsy performed by Dr. Thomas Gill would have been overseen by his office and had his findings signed off upon.

According to their report, Dr. Thomas Gill had “been forced out of a teaching position at an Oregon university, and then fired for inaccurate findings and alcohol abuse by the coroner in Indianapolis.”  Moreover, he had been “demoted for poor performance as a fellow for the Los Angeles County Coroner, [and] he resurfaced at a private autopsy company in Northern California.”

Yolo County Superior Court had granted the UC Regents’ summary judgment motion, finding that Mr. Silen had not established that the promotional decision was motivated by discriminatory animus.

Ms. Duffy, who admitted she was high on meth, had been facing charges of kidnapping, child abduction and resisting arrest.

We have all wondered what would have happened had the incident involving the Galvan Brothers been filmed.  We can see the permanent life-altering damage on Ernesto Galvan’s face, but we do not know how it got there and probably never will.  In the coming months and years, a civil court will have to weigh out whether the police exceeded their authority and violated the rights of Mr. Galvan.  Had a video camera been present, we might have had the DA pursue the police rather than the victims in this case.

She calls it “one of Yolo County’s more horrific crimes” and describes the kidnapping of then 3-month-old Brandon Huff who was “dangled out of a van window as the suspects led police on a high-speed chase.”

A Yolo County jury convicted 17-year-old Kyle Vigil for his role in a drive-by shooting in Woodland.  Mr. Vigil was sentence to a 15 year to life sentence in prison, after being acquitted of the first shooting but convicted of aiding in the drive-by gunfire.

According to the police’s account, at approximately 6:00 PM on Friday evening, Davis Police Officers were dispatched to the downtown area to search for an armed suicidal 25-year-old UC Davis student, Nicholas Benson.

Take the recent nail-biter contest for attorney general between San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley.

Charges have flown that part of the family had Taliban ties and sympathies, and this apparently brought Homeland Security and the US Marshall’s Office into the investigation of an incident that is now nearly seven years old, having occurred in March of 2004.

According to a releaase from Public Information Officer, Lt. Paul Doroshov, at approximately 6:00 PM on Friday evening, Davis Police Officers were dispatched to the downtown area to search for an armed suicidal 25-year -ld UC Davis student, Nicholas Benson.