Melissa Brown, accused of vehicular manslaughter in the July 4, 2010, death of a fireworks show spectator, pleaded no contest today to the charge against her.

Shotly after 11 a.m., San Fernando Superior Court Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell accepted Brown’s no-contest plea, which the judge says amounts to a plea of guilty for the purposes of her court.

Brown is to be sentenced next month. She was advised by the judge that a maximum sentence for the crime is six years.

So why did Brown plead no contest (effectively guilty according to the judge)? The article doesn’t say but consider that there was video evidence from the scene as well as multiple eye witnesses who were prepared to testify against her.

But there was also more.

Much of the discomfort and criticism over charging Brown for her negligence that night quieted down after it was revealed that Brown had “trace” amounts of Vicodin and THC in her system and that she had been cited several times for speeding and running stop signs. Prosecutors decided not to include her drug use in their argument, given that the amounts were so minuscule, but the traffic citation history had to be a powerful argument compelling her to change her plea.

A lot will depend on how much (if any) time Brown is sentenced to, but still, nothing about this case feels like justice to me. Of course Brown didn’t intentionally kill Garnica, but she is still dead and whatever punishment Brown receives isn’t going to change that. What’s more, young people in the SCV will still drive recklessly on our high-speed streets and occasionally kill themselves or others in the process.

Indeed, that’s why we have an entire “Honor Grove” inside Central Park to remember the young who have been killed while driving around town. In the end, Brown’s story will only serve as another (largely unheeded) reminder to area youths to drive carefully.

IT is easier to see now,as i look back on my life today and my drinking , that from the very beginning alcohol had been a part of every disaster in my life .I saw my alcohoism took me to new depths of disgrace, embarrassment and despair. i have found out above all i am healing spirtually

That was posted in April. By July, he was posting about how he was back into recovery, so I’m assuming he slipped again. On July 29, he announced his engagement to Karla Brada:

Then, just six days later, an arrest was made at Brada’s home for inflicting “Corporal Injury on Spouse/Cohabitant”.

Yesterday, she was found lying on her bed, not breathing. She didn’t even make it to the hospital; LA County paramedics declared her dead at her house in Plum Canyon.

I’m feeling sick to my stomach over this. What happened here? Could this have been prevented?

Rest in peace Karla.

I don’t know if you recall, but about a year and a half ago, the LA Times did a series of well-researched stories on how black tar heroin was making inroads into “Middle America” and the suburbs. Here’s an excerpt:

Immigrants from an obscure corner of Mexico are changing heroin use in many parts of America.

Farm boys from a tiny county that once depended on sugar cane have perfected an ingenious business model for selling a semi-processed form of Mexican heroin known as black tar.

Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths.

One of the things that came through he Signal’s story and this video is that parents had no idea heroin was so easily available in the SCV. After all, people move to places like Santa Clarita to get away from those kinds of things which we associate with the inner city or urban areas. I’m guilty too- for a long time I didn’t believe it was a real problem. So how the hell did heroin get into our town to the extent that we have hundreds of overdose cases and 10 deaths?

Let’s step back a bit. First of all, when did it become more profitable for poor Mexican farm boys to cultivate heroin rather than sugar? Billions of people use sugar each day, and millions probably grow it, but how many people use heroin? Were the margins too low on sugar or what? And once these farmers decided it’d be more profitable to produce heroin, how’d they develop the business intelligence to realize that a places like the SCV would become fertile marketplaces for their product? Why not a more dense place like LA, or Chicago or Buffalo? Did they take a look at the competition (other drugs) or the cops and realize it’d be an easy market to conquer?

I guess what I’m saying is that we have to look at this heroin problem as a classic case of supply and demand. Before, there wasn’t too much of a supply in heroin in the SCV, so demand was low or nonexistent. These Mexican farmers decided one day to make heroin instead of sugar, and part of their business plan was to find customers who liked the high they got from the drug. And one day they decided Santa Clarita would be the next market they target. Voila! A marketplace was born.

And now, after creating the demand for their product, the SCV will be just another marketplace for heroin in the eyes of drug producers. They’ll do everything a typical CSUN MBA would do: tally their profits and losses, improve their infrastructure, and get as much margin per unit from their salesforce.

Oh sure, every now and then we’ll read a good tale about our Sheriff’s Deputies busting some 20 something kid who has in his possession a brick or two of heroin. The City will release a blurb about the number of heroin balloons that were seized in Q4. This will make us feel good, but in reality, it will just constrain supply for a little while, and prices of heroin will probably go up in the SCV, enriching dealers even more.

This is basic capitalism and supply and demand. You can’t stop it. Deputies are no match for marketplace forces. We’ll never win this war. All you can try and do is educate people not to get into it in the first place, which is what we’ve started to do.

But that never feels satisfying enough. Especially against a background of increasing and accelerating globalization where normal Americans can never move fast enough or far away enough from the effects of every disruption in the global market, from Greece’s debt ratio to the price of sugar in rural Mexico.

In the incident at the fast-food restaurant, a deputy in a McDonald’s heard his car alarm go off and went outside to find that the vehicle had been hit. He and the other driver agreed to exchange information, but the other driver didn’t want to alert police, prompting the deputy to pull his gun out and tell the driver he was a cop.

The other driver, surprised by the statement, got back in his car and drove off.

As the car pulled away, the deputy fired several rounds at it. The man wasn’t struck, but his car was.

When investigators arrived, the deputy claimed he had reached into the other car while the other driver was trying to flee, and was dragged 15 feet before he started firing. The incident, however, was caught on tape, showing that he wasn’t dragged. The deputy, a new hire then still on probationary status, was fired after he refused to cooperate with an investigation into the August 2010 incident in Stevenson Ranch.

According to the report itself, four of the shots fired by the Deputy hit the suspect’s car and one of the shots hit a nearby business. The report also states that the driver of the car was later found to be intoxicated. The Deputy’s version of events that day were contradicted by video surveillance at the restaurant.

The LA County Sheriff’s Department employs nearly 18,000 people, a little over half of whom are sworn Deputies. With a workforce that large, you’re bound to have some people who aren’t law enforcement material slip through the cracks. So it’s a relief the Deputy above was dismissed.

On a side note, the misconduct review also shows that Deputies are under the same financial pressures the rest of us are. It speculates that the terrible economy and personal financial pressure may have lead to an increase in the number of financial misconduct cases Deputies were involved in in the last year:

the financial pressure that may have been faced by the involved deputies due to the Global Financial Crisis could well have played a role in their alleged decisions to violate the law and their oaths of office. Deputies were among the many borrowers who financed their homes with adjustable-rate mortgages, but had difficulty making their payments or refinancing once interest rates reset and market values declined. Deputies have also been affected by an increase in unemployment among their spouses as well as unexpected increases in he cost of gasoline and college tuition for themselves and their children.
…
Regrettably, the reduction in available overtime may also have contributed to the rise in poor decision making by deputies who appear to have, at times, resorted to unfortunate measures in order to get out from under debt possibly caused by living beyond their means. In essence, vehicles and other luxury goods may have been acquired when overtime was readily available, and those deputies who no longer have overtime as readily available may not have been able to keep up the payments on those luxury goods.

County crime statistics released Monday show a steady drop in almost all crimes inside the Santa Clarita Valley over the last five years.

The latest figures released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department show a 43.3 percent drop in violent crimes locally since 2006, and a 35.5 percent drop in property crimes for the same period.

The only crime showing an increase locally is arson.

With only one homicide happening in the Santa Clarita Valley in the past year, local law enforcement can report a 76.5 percent drop in homicides compared to five years ago.

Similarly, six reports of forcible rape means a 70.3 percent reduction in that crime since 2006.

Robbery and aggravated assault dropped by 46.6 percent and 37.6 percent, respectively, over the five-year period.

This is such good news I made a chart showing the homicide rate change. The first line is how many people got killed some time ago, and the second line is to show how many people were killed later:

Alas, even though this crime news is good, can we really feel safe while the pudding bandits are still at large? Flying chocolate attacks in the SCV are up like 200% this year compared to some point in the past.

“We’ve had several people in the last little while report their catalytic converters stolen,” sheriff’s Sgt. James Anderson said Tuesday.

“It does seem to be the trend right now.”

The smog-reducing devices are often made with small portions of precious metals, including platinum, palladium and rhodium, which thieves cash in for between $100 and $150 a converter.

SIGNAL

In 2007, COC warned students that thieves had stolen catalytic converters off student cars in the massive COC parking lot. Then in 2008, a rash of thefts was reported again, with the Long Beach Telegram reporting that it had become a nationwide trend. Now the thieves are targeting commuters who leave their cars in park and ride lots, or at the mall.

It’s become such a problem that the market has devised a solution: theft-proof your catalytic converter for about $100:

If your career path includes precious metal thievery, I have to think the payout is bigger and the risk is smaller for catalytic converter thieves than copper wire thieves, the other group of thieves who occasionally target the SCV (and sometimes get electrocuted in the process).

Oh hell. I know you’re all going to laugh very hard even if you do like me, so go ahead. I’ll be your entertainment for the night.

Less than one hour ago, I was the victim of a drive-by pudding. My wife were on a walk in Old Orchard 1, walking our dog north on Avenida Ronada, when, I kid you not, someone threw a full cup of chocolate pudding at me from the passenger side window of a speeding 2nd Generation grey Toyota Prius.

And it hit me. Bulls eye, with full force on my back, exploding its contents all over my shirt, my new shorts, my left arm, and my Tissot Swiss watch. My wife and dog, thankfully, were spared from the chocolatey assault.

I immediately let loose with an f bomb and jumped about 3 feet as the Prius driver, who had sped to within about 6 inches of the curb, gunned the hybrid and took off Avenida Ronada. Once I realized what happened, I jumped out in the street, raised my arms in the air as men and gorillas do when they’re ready to fight, but the cowardly Prius drove off, no doubt with at least two guys laughing hysterically.

My wife didn’t realize what I was cussing about until 5-10 seconds later, when I angrily spurted out that someone had thrown something at me. In the dim evening light, it was hard to figure out what it was, but it was soft, warm, and dark brown, so I feared the worst.

Boiling with rage, I immediately thought of calling the police. But what would I report? “Yes. *clearing throat* Umm, I’m in Valencia and someone threw a pudding at me from a car.” I’m sure when the Deputy stopped laughing, the full weight of the SCV Sheriff’s Station + air support would be brought to bear on the cursed Valencia Prius pranksters. I considered downplaying the drive-by pudding and emphasizing the careless, reckless driving I observed (maybe suggesting the driver was drunk) but elected not to.

So I did the next best thing. I had my wife take a picture of the scene of the crime. Notice the spent weapon of chocolatey goodness in the grassy knoll:

Image altered to protect the victim. Yes you can click for bigger.

Who would do such a thing, you ask? Naturally I suspected you readers. Maybe I pissed one of you off to the extent that I deserved chocolate vengeance. Maybe this is Valencia’s way of telling Newhall people to stay off their nice paths and pasesos, to keep with their own kind south of Lyons. Is there perhaps a fraternity at Master’s College or CalArts where pledges have to throw pudding at random pedestrians? Is there a faction of chocolate foodies who target fans of vanilla like myself?

Sticky, gooey, angry, and deep in thought, I wiped my hands and arm on my shirt and walked home hiding behind my wife lest someone think I had an accident. I don’t know who assaulted me, but I hope the karma police catch them someday.

After heading down the path with his dog, he got into a confrontation over the noise with three 20-something men and one woman who were drinking there, Blake said.

The argument apparently escalated, leading the three young men to start punching and kicking the man, according to the sheriff’s report.

This is the kind of thing that brings out the righteously angry suburbanite in me, because despite my liberal tendencies, I value peace, quiet, and order just like everyone else. I’m so angry about this I feel like starting an all-volunteer Citizen’s Auxiliary Paseo Patrol (CAPP), complete with an official insignia, red or black arm (or head) bands, and, of course, billy clubs. We could divide up Valencia’s paseos into patrol districts, and monitor our districts on bike or foot, looking for trouble. We won’t wait for trouble to find us; we’ll find it and CAPP it promptly.

Valencia’s paseos are an interesting piece of SCV transportation infrastructure. They were built by a private company, but function as public walking paths. Yet, unlike sidewalks, they are mostly secluded and hidden from view. This makes them very pleasurable places to stroll on (my sister in law can’t wait to have her baby and push her around on a stroller on a paseo), but also can encourage or provide shelter for bad, non-Valencia-conforming behavior.

So the question is, how do you manage safety on such paths?

In the past the Sheriff’s Station has approached this problem by using Deputies on bikes and, lately, by purchasing the goofy police trikes. I’m just one guy and everyone has an anecdote, but in all my years of walking and biking on paseos or bike paths, I’ve never seen a Deputy (nevermind Frank Ferry) patrolling a paseo or bike path. But, let’s be real. The Sheriff’s Station only has so many resources and it’s probably a waste to pay a Deputy or two or three to patrol the paseos constantly, which is what would be needed to make the busters feel like it’s not a safe place to carry on.

That’s why if I was a homeowner in Valencia, I’d be pushing for part of my HOA dues to pay for private security patrols of paseos. For all its faults and hassles, a hyper-local and ever-vigilant HOA + security company patrols is probably the best way to ensure safety on quasi-private paseo system.

The story that’s emerging is that this loosely connected ring of thieves made a living of performing petty to medium-level thefts of individuals, retail stores, and companies throughout the SCV and SFV. They then quickly pawned off their ill-begotten goods and, according to one Deputy, used the money to fund purchases of heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana, which they apparently consumed together, communally, in 900-1200 sq. ft.  opium dens/flophouses in Valencia and Newhall.

Yes, from the heart of Awesometown this bleak news story exploded on the SCV stage yesterday. One of the opium dens was in on Arroyo Park, a stone’s throw from Granary Square in the center of the Master Plan at the bottom of the Summit, and one in Circle J ranch, identified in reports as “Newhall,” but really in that vague no-man’s land between Saugus and Newhall near the perchlorate storage facility otherwise known as Whitaker Bermite.

What really catapulted this story up was the arrest of 50 year old Traci Pontecorvo, a woman who was well-connected in this town, who had a respectable job selling membership in the powerful SCV Chamber of Commerce, whose Facebook page says she’s friends with several important people in town. Back in her prime, I bet Traci graced the society pages of Michele Buttelmen’s weekly column, which is more than most of us can say.

The “How the mighty have fallen” and “Long arm of the law” angles aside, this story makes me uncomfortable and a bit sad. I don’t know how to relate to these people and I don’t understand how they chose to live such an uncertain, bleak existence in Santa Clarita, which, all things considered is a really nice place to live. One suspect’s story jumps out above all others. A 25 year old woman was among those arrested last week and so I, like many of you I suspect, Googled her name. The first hit was her Facebook page and reading through her wall -which is set for public view- I got a sense of her life, her family situation, and saw in her posts foreshadows of what was to go down in the near future.

The woman, we’ll call her Tonya, has posted off and on on her Facebook page for months. Earlier this year, she started a countdown timer in her status entries. “Only 10 days left!” she’d write, and all her friends would chime in with joy.

“9 days left,”, “4 days left,” and on and on until finally I realized what she was writing about. Tonya was counting down the days before her boyfriend/husband (it’s not clear) was to be released from the state correctional facility in Susanville California.  He (his name is also in the list of suspects the Sheriff’s Station released) had apparently been incarcerated for two years.

In between the countdown, Tonya posted gleefully about her child, which could be the 2 year old mentioned in the Sheriff’s release. She noted the first time her child successfully used a toilet, she talked about reuniting the toddler with her father, and constantly updated her friends and family about the baby. This is standard stuff you could read on any Valencia mom’s facebook page.

And then, just like that, one status entry read, “Only 43 more days until I’m done with this Prop 36 crap!”

Which sent me back to Google, where I found a description of Prop 36:

The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, also known as Proposition 36, was passed by 61% of California voters on November 7, 2000. This vote permanently changed state law to allow first- and second-time nonviolent, simple drug possession offenders the opportunity to receive substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration. Proposition 36 went into effect on July 1, 2001, with $120 million for treatment services allocated annually for five years

So Tonya has had a history of drug abuse and has been caught before. But instead of incarcerating her for a non-violent drug offense, the people of California offered her a substance abuse treatment program, which she apparently dreaded but worked her way through (she posted about it in April…I wonder if she completed it).

With her significant other about to be released from prison and nearing the completion of her program, maybe Tonya figured her life was about to get better.

Until last week when she, along with her just-released significant other and 14 other alleged abusers and thieves, got busted in the largest burglary rings the SCV has seen in a long time. And now her Facebook posts, in which she expressed hope and motherly pride & love as well as hints of dark secrets and deadly addictions, have ended.

I’m all for justice and I hate thieves but it’s still kind of hard to see another person’s life through a series of Facebook posts, knowing that it’s about to crumble and crash down. I suspect a lot of these people were relatively normal before the pernicious effect of drugs forced them into this desperate and bleak life.

Show your bad side SCV:

I filtered the above map by simply zooming out and taking a look at all reported crimes committed between April 1 and April 30, 2011. There are 349 crimes on the map.

The site even has an interesting (if primitive) “Trends” button which groups crimes by categories and shows when we SCVers are feeling violent or grabby. (Hint: it’s usually Friday and Saturday nights)

Of course if it was a true trending tool, it would not just tell me what crimes happened, but, Minority Report style, when and where they are going to happen in the future.

It also doesn’t group crimes by community, zip code, or neighborhood tract, which would be useful for all sorts of things like deciding where to buy your next home or using such data as ammunition in our on-going and neverending bashing of Stevenson Ranch and/or Canyon Country.

But anyway, go on over and check it out.