Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Tweakers

Placentia, CA

As a general rule it's a good idea to keep your children poison free. Apparently, not everyone agrees with this sentiment.

Tammy Lynn Curtiss, 27, pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of child endangerment after her 15-month old daughter tested positive for meth.

Cops aren't quite sure how the kid got the meth, what happened before she was taken to the hospital, or who exactly was with her, though they're pretty clear that the mother, her boyfriend and a couple of neighbors were there. And Ms Curtis hasn't helped much as she's changed her story multiple times and admitted that the reason she didn't take the child to a closer hospital is that she was afraid they would suspect child endangerment since she's taken the child there on multiple occasions before.

Yeah, how's that for mad parenting skills? Good luck, kid. Hope you make it to two without a habit.

Hell, I hope you make it to two period.

Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover: This Isn't One Of Them

Los Angeles, CA

How does that song go? "Slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan. Tell your psycho husband you're leaving so he can bludgeon and stab you to death..."

Ronald Leroy Berg, 72, was arrested Sunday morning on suspicion of beating and stabbing to death his wife of twenty years, Violeta Alonte Monlion Berg, 69, after she threatened to leave him. He's currently being held on $1 million bail.

Who says old age and wisdom go together?

 

Not Legal Tender

Ventura, CA

I don't know if you can call what Yanira Camargo, 22, and Gerardo Rodriguez, 24, did at a Ventura Kohl's on Sunday shoplifting. After all, it's not like they didn't leave something behind. I'm just not sure the store can make change for a 4 year old girl.

The couple stuck their kid in a shopping cart which they then proceeded to fill up. When they left the store without paying they were approached by store employees. They bailed, leaving the cart. And the kid.

If you know where the parents might be, or presumably if you're in the market for a 4 year old, call the Ventura police at 805-339-4394.

Laugh Clown, Laugh

Fontana, CA

Trim-Trim The Clown, AKA David Albert Lemus, 51, does parties, magic tricks, sings songs. Oh, and the occasional child molestation.

Trim-Trim. That's an... unusual clown name. No more odd than Bozo, Mister Bingles or John Wayne Gacy, I suppose. Anyway, he was arrested in 2005 after two girls told police that he had molested them. Now, three years later, he's done a deal where he pleads guilty to charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child and oral copulation by threat and in return he gets 12 years.

Have fun, Trim. I hear they really dig balloon animals in the can.

One Less Thing To Fight Over

Covina, CA

Let's clear one thing up right now. Men are stupid. Period. For example, when faced with the prospect of, say, divorce a man will naturally attempt some empty, asinine, stupid gesture. Ranting, screaming, blowing up the house in a misguided attempt at suicide.

Police got a call from Charter Oak Hospital yesterday morning saying that one Daniel Banuelos, 38, who has been residing in a sober living facility after his wife got a restraining order against him, was suicidal and planning on blowing up their house.

Seems he'd already turned the gas on. So when police and fire got there they evacced the surrounding houses, shut off the gas and tried to contact him by phone.

He didn't answer, but the house did. With a 20 foot fireball.

Banuelos was found in the detached garage with second degree burns and promptly arrested on charges of arson. Thankfully, he called his wife earlier and told her not to bring the kids home and no one besides him was hurt.

On the plus side that restraining order will be a lot easier to enforce when he's in jail.

So How Was Your Weekend?

Los Angeles, CA

Rough night in the Southland. Eight murders, one suicide, two non-fatal shootings. If I read the numbers right, that should bump us just over the 500 mark for LA County this year.

Now, that might seem like a lot. And, well, it is. But contrast that to 1991 where, in the City of Los Angeles alone, we had 323 for the summer. This summer, in fact, we have had the lowest number of homicides since 1967.

I've always wondered about reduced numbers like this. What are the causes? Is it that the police are reducing the number of attacks, or are more victims getting medical care quickly enough to not bleed out in a back alley somewhere? Are the police doing a better job, or is the community? I suspect that the answer's somewhere in the middle there and I'm sure encompasses factors that haven't even occurred to me.

Anyone know of any recent studies on this?