Month: April 2005

Citizens alerted police and fire officials today to a person crawling around in the sewer beneath Bunker Hill Ave. and Sunset Blvd. After fighting rush hour traffic to reach the scene, Fireman Gordon Davis heard breathing and lowered himself through the manhole. Within was a half-naked and muddy James W. Holland, 32, of Newport, Tenn. Davis suggested Holland resurface, where he told Officers J.P. Brennan and C.G. Cunning that he had been “looking for my baby.” Holland was taken to jail for a shower and additional questioning.

A wayward vegetarian today ensured himself a more traditional diet after Radio Officers B. Gonzales and C.A. Boughton responded to the sound of gunfire at Lincoln Park. There they discovered Trinidad C. Quroz, 29, of 338 Clarence St. and his trusty .22 rifle, both some way out into the lake. Called to shore, Quroz reported that he had become tired of his vegetarian diet and, craving duck, had shot the specimen that floated, yonder. Taken into custody on suspicion of illegally discharging a firearm, Quroz pled guily before Municipal Judge Louis W. Kaufman and was sentenced to a 20-day culinary tour of the City Jail.

Shouting to a neighbor “Look after the kids!,” 32-year-old scrap yard worker Efren Saenz bolted from the family home at 4032 Princeton St. yesterday, leaving wife Amelia, 28, dead in a bedroom closet with several knife wounds in her left breast. The couple’s daughters Irma, 7, and Maria Teresa, 3, were playing in the yard at the time of the murder.

East L.A. substation Sheriff’s Deputies Tommy R. Johnson and Robert E. McHaney told reporters that Saenz, who they were seeking, was also arrested in late March on an assault with a deadly weapon charge for throwing a table radio at Mrs. Saenz.

Deputy Sheriffs today broke up a rehearsal in a Vine Street radio studio in order to charge bobby-soxer dreamboat Frank Sinatra with a misdemeanor battery charge, incurred Tuesday night outside Sunset Strip hotspot Ciro’s. New York Daily Mirror columnist Lee Mortimer claims someone sucker-punched him, and Sinatra then beat the 42-year-old writer while goons held him down. This effectively broke up Mortimer’s working date with Miss Kay Kino, Chinese songbird whom Mortimer was grooming for a role in a show he’d written for New York’s China Doll Cafe.

Sinatra initially admitted involvement in the fracas, noting “For two years he has been needling me. He called me a dago ——–. I saw red. He gave me a look. I can’t describe it. It was one of those ‘Who do you amount to?’ looks. I followed him outside. I hit him. I’m all mixed up.” Later, through his attorney, Albert Pearlson, the story became one of an unprovoked name calling and physical attack from Mortimer–who has written searing columns on the singer’s relationship with gangster Lucky Luciano–on the sheepish Sinatra.

Judge Bert P. Woodward set bail at $500 and trial for May 28. Sinatra pled not guilty, and hopped a flight to NY to receive the Thomas Jefferson Award from the Council Against Intollerance in America.

Robert Ahlberg, 21, late of Denver, was happy to see police officers M. C. Jacobsen and L.O. Sheets early today, even as they handcuffed him.

Alerted by his victim’s cries, two students in a nearby hotel saw Ahlberg attacking a 46-year-old woman in City Library Park (Fifth and Hope Streets) and dragging her 75 feet into the bushes. A crowd several dozen stong gathered at the scene, but did not rescue the woman, telling arriving officers they were afraid her attacker might have a gun.

Officers Jacobsen and Sheets dragged Ahlberg from the bushes, divesting him of a knife with which he had threatened his victim. At this point, the crowd became brave, and cried out “Let us have him!”

Ahlberg was booked into Central Jail, where he gave his local address as 621 1/2 W. Sixth Street, just a short stroll from the assault scene.