Friday, 20 September 2024

Police & Courts

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lakeport's annual daylong celebration to mark Independence Day turned out to be relatively peaceful, according to police.


Despite the fact that the city was once again packed with visitors, police made a relatively small number of arrests and had no serious incidents on Monday, according to a report from Lakeport Police Sgt. Jason Ferguson.


Lakeport Police credited the assistance of several local law enforcement agencies for contributing to the successful conclusion of the day's festivities.


Ferguson said the the Lakeport Police Department was assisted by the Lake County Probation Department, California Highway Patrol, Lake County District Attorney’s Office, Lake County Sheriff’s Office, California State Parks, California Department of Fish and Game, Clearlake Police Department, Cal Fire and the Lakeport Fire Department, all of which provided law enforcement presence in Library Park on Monday.

 

Altogether, six people were arrested and transported to the Lake County Jail for public intoxication and

fighting, Ferguson said.


He said six others were issued citations for charges related to resisting/obstructing a peace officer, possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, minor in possession of alcohol and possession of cigarettes by a minor.


Three children were reported missing and returned to their parents and 10 citations were issued for various parking violations, Ferguson said.


The Lakeport Police Department offered its appreciation to all the law enforcement agency members who participated in this years event, without whom, Ferguson noted, the event would not have been as successful.


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CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – Sheriff Frank Rivero will make a public appearance at a community town hall forum at the Moose Lodge in Clearlake Oaks this week.


As a leading community service organization, the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge will host the public forum beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 30, at the Moose Lodge, located at 15900 E. Highway 20 in Clearlake Oaks.


Sheriff Rivero will be the guest public official at this week’s town hall meeting. He will make himself available to community members attending the forum to respond to their questions and concerns, and to speak to the services and direction of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.


The community town hall forum hosted by the Moose Lodge will be open to all members of the public.


Pastries and refreshments will be provided at no cost, compliments of the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department is seeking two suspects that are alleged to have been involved with a stabbing early Friday.

 

Sgt. Kevin Odom said the stabbing occurred shortly before 2:30 a.m. Friday in the 700 block of Manzanita Street in Lakeport.

 

He said Lakeport Police officers were dispatched to the scene on the report of a stabbing victim.

 

Once on scene, officers contacted the 20-year-old male victim who had what appeared to be a stab wound to his stomach, Odom said.

 

The victim, who resides in the area, told police he discovered two unknown males in an adjacent vacant residence and confronted them. Odom said one of the males allegedly stabbed the victim with a small knife before both suspects fled north on Manzanita Street.

 

He said the victim provided an initial description of the suspect who stabbed him as a white male with short dark hair wearing dark clothing.

 

The victim was transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital where he was treated for his injury and later released, according to Odom.

 

The incident is under investigation, Odom said.

 

Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to contact Lakeport Police Department Officer Joe Eastham at 707-263-5491

 

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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The third and final suspect sought in a June 18 shooting in Clearlake that claimed a 4-year-old boy's life and wounded several others was taken into custody early Friday, along with his girlfriend.


Kevin Ray Stone, 29, had been sought by police since the shooting, which killed Skyler Rapp, seriously wounded his 22-year-old mother, Desiree Kirby, and left several others with gunshot wounds as well, including Kirby's boyfriend Ross Sparks, 25; his brother, Andrew Sparks, 23; Ian Griffith, 19; and Joey Armijo, 15.

Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies arrested Stone early Friday morning in a Santa Rosa neighborhood, where they found him and his girlfriend, 25-year-old Leighann Painchaud of Clearlake, parked in a stolen green Ford Explorer, according to a Friday report.

Det. Sgt. Carlos Basurto of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office Violent Crimes Investigations Unit reported that the unit's detectives received information at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday that Stone – driving the stolen Explorer – had been spotted in several different areas of Santa Rosa.

Basurto's report explained that Sonoma County Sheriff's detectives and patrol deputies searched several areas before receiving an anonymous tip at approximately 1:20 a.m. that the green Explorer was parked on Santa Rosa's Aston Way, which dead ends at La Esplanada Place.

When they responded to the location they found the Explorer, along with Stone and Painchaud, who Basurto reported were arrested without incident – Stone for the outstanding murder arrest warrant and Painchaud in connection with the stolen vehicle.

Clearlake Police Sgt. Tim Hobbs said Painchaud is believed to have taken the vehicle, which was reported stolen out of Clearlake on Wednesday, June 29.

Basurto reported that both Stone and Painchaud had been booked into the Sonoma County Jail.

Sonoma County Sheriff's officials would not release the booking photos of the pair when requested to do so by Lake County News on Friday.

Hobbs said he didn't know when Stone and Painchaud would be transported to Lake County, noting that Clearlake Police has seven days to bring the two back to the Lake County Jail.


Neither had been booked into the Lake County Jail by early Saturday morning.

Stone is the last of the suspects police were looking to arrest in the case, Hobbs said.


Police already have taken Orlando Joseph Lopez, 23, and Paul William Braden, 21, into custody in the case. Both are being held without bail in the Lake County Jail.


Braden and Lopez both appeared in court earlier this week, with Braden entering not guilty pleas to more than a dozen charges including murder, five charges of attempted murder, six counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of mayhem and several special allegations.

Braden is set for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 1, according to District Attorney Don Anderson, who said this week that he will personally handle prosecuting all three suspects.

Lopez, who had been released last week but rearrested this week after police assembled the evidence needed to charge him, also was arraigned on the same charges as Braden, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff.

Stone will face the same charges when he's brought back to Lake County. He was formally charged last week in filings submitted by Hinchcliff, as Lake County News has reported.


Painchaud had, in recent days, denied knowing of Stone's whereabouts in posts on her Facebook page.

In a June 20 posting she maintained that Stone had not shot anyone, pointing to the arrests that day of Braden and Lopez, who she accused of being the ones who actually shot and killed the child.

On June 27 she said she would never hide someone involved in such an incident. A number of people posted responses to her on her page that included obscenities and threats.

Even Sunni Forney, Kirby's mother and Skyler Rapp's grandmother, weighed in, leaving an obscenity-laced message that accused Painchaud of defending Stone. “How dare you hide him and how dare your friends stick up for you!” Forney said Stone took “one of the most important people in my life,” noting that the child – “the most happiest boy” – is to be buried on Wednesday.

Kirby has yet to be released from UC Davis Medical Center, where she was flown for care after the shooting. The rest of the surviving victims were released last week.

On Friday hospital spokesman Charles Casey said Kirby remained in fair condition.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews.

OAKLAND, Calif. – Last week a six-month-old court case that began last year after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a child care program for working families was settled and funding restored.


The state of California agreed that the CalWORKS Stage 3 program will continue to offer child care services for parents who have successfully transitioned off welfare but whose wages are still too low to cover child care.


The settlement affects the families of more than 56,000 California children who had been told they would lose their child care last October, as Lake County News has reported.


The suit was brought by the Public Interest Law Project, the Child Care Law Center, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Public Counsel Law Center and Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.


The settlement agreement, signed by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Wynne Carvill, provides an opportunity for parents who lost Stage 3 child care to come back onto the program now.


“This settlement gives California working families everything they sought in court,” said Patti Prunhuber, an attorney at the Public Interest Law Project, the lead counsel for Parent Voices Oakland, the group that filed the case. “We are grateful that the havoc unleashed by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s veto can finally be corrected with fairness and consistency.”


The plaintiffs in the case issued a statement in which they said the state's guarantee in the settlement that the child care assistance would be maintained was all the more significant considering that the 2011-12 state budget has not yet been passed, and so no one knows at what level funds for CalWORKs Stage 3 child care will be restored.


The groups said that the budgets proposed by both Gov. Jerry Brown and the state Legislature earlier this year included funding for the program.


On Oct. 29, 2010, the Alameda County Superior Court issued an emergency injunction temporarily halting the veto.


The plaintiffs said the uncertainty already caused by written state notices telling parents that their funding would soon end destabilized the child care system. “Thousands of families were left confused as to whether they would still have affordable care for their children,” said Melissa Rodgers, an attorney with the Child Care Law Center, a co-counsel in the case.


She added, “We know for a fact that many families who lost their Stage 3 child care have never come back. We want them to know that they have the right to come back to Stage 3 now.”


The Department of Education and child care agencies are now required to conduct meaningful outreach efforts to find and restore child care services to former Stage 3 families who fell out of the system, according to the settlement.


Families who have already moved to other child care programs will be able to choose whether or not to come back to Stage 3. If families are already receiving such alternate funding, then that assistance cannot be cut off.


“We have achieved success in saving thousands of jobs for working parents and child care providers, but most importantly, we have assured that our number one priority, child care for children, has been upheld,” said Corean Todd, a member of Parent Voices Oakland.


“We hope that our efforts help parents nationwide to understand how important, integral, and powerful their voices are to the planning and implementation of change,” Todd said. “This court case not only helped our Parent Voices Oakland chapter but all parents on a state wide level. Child care keeps children learning and parents earning!”


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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol will conduct a boating under the influence (BUI) checkpoint on Clear Lake this weekend.

The checkpoint will take place on Saturday, June 25, according to Capt. James Bauman.

California State Parks and the California Department of Fish and Game will assist with the operation, which Bauman said is intended to reduce the number of alcohol-related accidents and injuries, and to enforce other California boating laws on the waters of Clear Lake.

He said boaters will be stopped briefly and questioned. Any boat operators showing signs of alcohol use, intoxication or impairment may be subject to further testing.

Anyone found to have a blood-alcohol (BA) content higher than .08 percent may be subject to arrest and incarceration, Bauman said.

Saturday’s checkpoint is being conducted in conjunction with “Operation Dry Water 2011.” Bauman said Operation Dry Water was launched in 2009 by the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA) in partnership with the United States Coast Guard and has been a highly successful effort to draw public attention to the hazards of Boating Under the Influence (BUI) of alcohol and drugs.

Held in June just prior to the Fourth of July holiday, Operation Dry Water is a national weekend of BUI detection and enforcement aimed at reducing the number of alcohol and drug-related accidents and fatalities and fostering a stronger and more visible deterrent to alcohol and drug use on the water, according to Bauman.

Operation Dry Water is coordinated by NASBLA, in partnership with the states, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies, he said.

In 2010, all 50 States and six U.S. Territories participated in Operation Dry Water. Over that three-day weekend there were 40,127 vessels and 66,472 boaters contacted by law enforcement, 322 BUI arrests made, and 4,171 citations and 7,522 warnings issued for safety violations, Bauman reported.

Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews.

Upcoming Calendar

21Sep
09.21.2024 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Farmers' Market at the Mercantile
21Sep
09.21.2024 4:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Passion Play fundraiser
21Sep
09.21.2024 4:30 pm - 10:00 pm
Lake County Wine Auction
23Sep
09.23.2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Lakeport City Council candidates' forum
24Sep
09.24.2024 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Farmers' Market at Library Park
28Sep
09.28.2024 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Farmers' Market at the Mercantile
5Oct
10.05.2024 7:00 am - 11:00 am
Sponsoring Survivorship
5Oct
10.05.2024 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Farmers' Market at the Mercantile
12Oct
10.12.2024 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Farmers' Market at the Mercantile
14Oct
10.14.2024
Columbus Day

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