A ROBBERY SUSPECT IN SANTEE, CALIFORNIA (San Diego area), met his maker in a fiery crash after he piled his motorcycle into the side of a truck and then into a Highway Patrol car.
KSWB-TV
The 39-yr.-old man had just held up a convenience store for some cigarettes when a patrol car spotted him and gave chase. After trying to elude the police cars that had converged to capture him, he made an unwise choice and sped his motorcycle onto a road that was closed ahead for construction. At the same moment, a CHP officer was talking to the construction crew to warn them of the high-speed chase in the area. The Union-Tribune continues:
That officer was facing south in his patrol car talking to a Caltrans employee who was sitting in his truck facing north on the highway between concrete barriers when they heard the motorcycle approaching at high speed. Both men jumped out of their vehicles and took refuge behind the barriers.
The rider had nowhere to go and crashed head-on into the truck. The bike became wedged underneath it and pushed the truck into the patrol car, before bursting into flames, [a CHP spokesman] said.
The motorcyclist was thrown about 200 feet. Emergency personnel tried to resuscitate him, but he died at the scene about 2:30 a.m. Neither the CHP officer nor the Caltrans worker was injured. A revolver was found in the debris.
KFMB-TV Ch. 8 filed this video report from the crash scene:
All three vehicles were destroyed by the crash and fire. Read the full STORY HERE.
Union-Tribune
The Shell Game Moves West
Comments OffHOCUS-POCUS STAFFING AND ROTATING CLOSURES ARE BEING practiced in California as well as everywhere else.
In San Joaquin County, the South County Fire Authority is a tax district that collects funds and distributes them to the City of Tracy Fire Department and the Tracy Rural Fire District, a 3-station department serving the rural areas around the city. In the upcoming fiscal year, the R. F. D. is facing a $600,000 shortfall and needs to reduce its expenditures.
After declining to consider a “rolling brownout” scheme for its three stations, the fire district board approved a scheme this past Tuesday that, in effect, lowers the minimum-manning requirement from 3 to 2 on the engines. The three stations are prioritized by “need” and if somebody calls in sick at one of the stations, a firefighter at the lowest-priority station is detailed to fill the slot, leaving the citizens in the Schulte Rd. area with a 2-man engine covering them. If a second FF is sick that same day, the spot is absorbed by the Durham Ferry Rd. station.
An article in Friday’s Tracy Press relates:
Insert the word “enough” to complete the sentence properly – not expected to lengthen the time enough firefighters take to arrive at either a fire or a medical call, – and you get a different understanding of the effects of short-staffing.
To summarize (yet again), when you cut back your staffing, you are cutting back your service.
Read the full article from the Tracy Press HERE.
South County Fire Authority WEBSITE.
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THIS PAST WEDNESDAY THE SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCIL approved the mayor’s 18-month spending plan that whacks an additional $82 million from an already-pared down budget. Using some sleight-of-hand and ambiguous descriptions of what they’re doing, the mayor issued a statement saying:
Keep that statement in mind for a minute. Their claim about maintaing jobs misleadingly refers to jobs that are currently filled. They are intending to eliminate 134 vacant uniformed police officer positions as well as 50 unfilled firefighter positions.
The mayor’s statement continues:
San Diego Main Library
Another set of slippery politicians with a bent set of priorities.
Read Mayor Jerry Sanders’ Fact Sheet (.pdf) HERE.