Tag Archives: Sacramento

California’s Park Wildfire has grown to over 600 square miles: Fifth largest fire in California history

Park-Fire-REUTERS-Fred-Greaves

Important Takeaways:

  • The largest wildfire in the U.S. swelled to over 600 square miles (1,550 square kms) on Tuesday night, bigger than the city of Los Angeles, fire officials in California said, as thousands of firefighters battled the blaze in a wilderness area north of Sacramento.
  • More than 5,500 firefighters from across California and other states were working around the clock to douse the Park Fire, burning in the state’s Central Valley, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento, the capital.
  • The fire grew to 386,764 acres (156,517 hectares), becoming the fifth largest wildfire in Californian history, officials said.
  • The Park Fire on Tuesday surpassed the size of the 2020 Creek Fire in Fresno County, which burned almost 380,000 acres (153,780 hectares), fire officials said. But it is still smaller than the state’s largest fire on record, the August Complex fire of 2020, which burned more than 1 million acres (404,685 hectares) in seven counties in northern California.
  • The Park Fire – fueled by dry grass, brush and timber – is fast-moving, said Fire Capt. Dan Collins of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection or Cal Fire.
  • “This fire has lots of fuel that is receptive to burning, and it’s hard to get to,” he said. “Our fire line is 260 miles (673 kms) around, that’s the size of three Lake Tahoes. It can take two-three hours to get personnel in there over the terrain.”
  • The National weather service says no rain is in sight this week, and hot and extremely dry weather will prevail, he said.
  • Temperatures will reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8°C) on Wednesday and highs could hover at that level until next Monday, he said, with relative humidity dropping to as low as 7%.

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Sacramento mass shooting leaves 6 dead and 12 wounded

Romans 12:17-21 “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Important Takeaways:

  • Mass shooting blocks from state Capitol leaves Sacramento reeling and brokenhearted
  • Sunday morning outside downtown nightclubs just blocks from the state Capitol, a barrage of gunfire from at least two shooters killed six people and wounded 12 others in the worst mass shooting in the United States this year.
  • Police were searching for what they called “multiple shooters” Sunday evening, and offered few details

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California’s ‘Golden State Killer’ sentenced to life in prison

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – A former California police officer who lived a double life as the “Golden State Killer” was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for a string of 1970’s and ’80s murders and rapes that were solved through the use of public genealogy websites.

A Sacramento County judge granted prosecutors’ request that Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, serve life in prison without the possibility of parole following emotional statements from victims or their family members in open court.

A frail DeAngelo showed no emotion during the nearly two-hour sentencing, held in a makeshift courtroom inside a ballroom at Sacramento State University so that victims and family members could spread out amid the coronavirus pandemic.

When given the opportunity to speak, DeAngelo slowly rose from a wheelchair, took off a mask, looked around at surviving victims and family members of those he murdered and said: “I’ve listened to all your statements. Each one of them. And I’m truly sorry to everyone out there. Thank you, your honor.”

In June, DeAngelo confessed to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges for crimes carried out between 1975 and 1986 as part of a plea deal with prosecutors sparing him from a potential death sentence.

DeAngelo, whom a prosecutor on Friday called a bogeyman who haunted California for decades, also publicly admitted to dozens more rapes for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors said he invaded 120 homes across 11 counties during his crime spree.

The identity of the Golden State Killer remained a mystery, his crimes unsolved, for decades until DeAngelo’s arrest in Sacramento County on April 24, 2018.

Investigators tied DeAngelo to the crimes using a then-novel technique of tracing him through family DNA from commercial genealogy websites.

‘NO MERCY’

Prosecutors from counties where he carried out his crimes told Judge Michael Bowman that he deserved no mercy.

“Over four decades – that’s a long time to wait for justice,” said Diana Becton, the Contra Costa County District Attorney, where some of DeAngelo’s crimes occurred.

Bowman said that he had no power to determine what type of prison DeAngelo is sent to.

“But the survivors have spoken clearly – the defendant deserves no mercy,” he said, as those in the courtroom burst into loud applause.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Brad Brooks; Editing by Diane Craft, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)

California risks severe ‘whiplash’ from drought to flood: scientists

FILE PHOTO: Waves crash against a sea wall in San Francisco Bay beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith//File Photo

By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) – California will suffer more volatile weather this century with a “whiplash” from drought to rain and mounting risks a repeat of the devastating “Great Flood” of 1862, scientists said on Monday.

Climate change, driven by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, would drive more extreme shifts between hot and dry summers and wet winters in the most populous U.S. state, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Global warming is making California and other regions with similar Mediterranean-style climates, from southern Europe to parts of Australia, drier and warmer in summer, said lead author Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles.

In California in winter “an opposing trend toward a strong Pacific jet stream is projected to locally enhance precipitation during the core months of the ‘rainy season’,” he told Reuters.

“Natural precipitation variability in this region is already large, and projected future whiplash increases would amplify existing swings between dry and wet years,” the authors wrote.

They projected “a 25 percent to 100 percent increase in extreme dry-to-wet precipitation events” this century.

California had its worst drought in recorded history from 2010–2016, followed by severe rains and flooding that culminated with evacuation orders for almost 200,000 residents as a precaution near the Oroville Dam last year.

The study said that major urban centers, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, were “more likely than not” to suffer a freak series of storms by 2060 similar to ones in 1861-62 that led to the “Great Flood”.

The storms swamped the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, flooding an area 300 miles (500 km) long and 20 miles wide. Storms washed away bridges, inundated mines and wrecked farms.

FILE PHOTO: 65,000 cfs of water flow through a damaged spillway on the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California, U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Max Whittaker/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: 65,000 cfs of water flow through a damaged spillway on the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California, U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Max Whittaker/File Photo

A repeat “would probably lead to considerable loss of life and economic damages approaching a trillion dollars”, the study said.

As part of planning, Swain said the state should expand use of floodplains that can be deliberately flooded to soak up rains, such as the Yolo Bypass which protects the city of Sacramento.

The study assumes, however, that global greenhouse gas emissions will keep rising, at odds with the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement under which almost 200 nations agreed to cut emissions to net zero between 2050 and 2100.

“Such a future can be partially, but not completely, avoided” if the world takes tougher action, Swain said. He noted that existing government pledges to limit warming fall well short of the Paris goals.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who doubts mainstream findings that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of warming, plans to quit the deal, saying he wants to promote the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Alison Williams)

Autopsy results for Stephon Clark to be announced: lawyer

Mourners embrace before the funeral services for police shooting victim, Stephon Clark at Bayside Of South Sacramento Church, in Sacramento, California, March 29, 2018. Jeff Chiu/Pool via Reuters

(Reuters) – Autopsy results will be announced on Friday for Stephon Clark, a black man who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by police in Sacramento, California in his grandparent’s back yard, his family’s attorney said.

Clark’s death was the most recent of in a string of fatal shootings of black men by police that have triggered protests across the United States and renewed a national debate about bias in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Clark was shot on the night of March 18 in his grandparents’ backyard by police responding to a report that someone was breaking windows. Police said the officers who shot at Clark 20 times feared he was holding a firearm, but that he was later found to have been holding a cellphone.

The attorney representing Clark’s family Ben Crump and his legal team will announce on Friday morning the results of an independent autopsy that was conducted on the remains of the 22-year-old father of two, Crump said in a statement.

The shooting has sparked largely peaceful demonstrations in California’s capital city. On several occasions over the last two weeks, protesters have marched along city streets, held demonstrations and twice blocked fans from reaching games played by the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball team at the Golden 1 Center.

On Thursday, at least 60 protesters gathered outside the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, holding signs such as “Prosecute” and “Justice for Stephon Clark.”

At the funeral service for Clark earlier in the day, veteran civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton addressed a congregation of hundreds.

“We’re going to make (U.S. President) Donald Trump and the whole world deal with the issue of police misconduct,” he said.

The service at a church in California’s capital city came a day after White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters the shooting was a “local matter.” Sharpton criticized that comment and praised protesters who have blocked traffic in the city, saying they were non-violent.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has said state investigators will oversee the investigation and review the Police Department’s procedures and practices.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Trump administration demands documents from ‘sanctuary cities’

People visit the Liberty State Island as Lower Manhattan is seen at the background in New York, U.S., August 17, 2017.

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday escalated its battle with so-called sanctuary cities that protect illegal immigrants from deportation, demanding documents on whether local law enforcement agencies are illegally withholding information from U.S. immigration authorities.

The Justice Department said it was seeking records from 23 jurisdictions — including America’s three largest cities, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as three states, California, Illinois and Oregon — and will issue subpoenas if they do not comply fully and promptly.

The administration has accused sanctuary cities of violating a federal law that prohibits local governments from restricting information about the immigration status of people arrested from being shared with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Many of the jurisdictions have said they already are in full compliance with the law. Some sued the administration after the Justice Department threatened to cut off millions of dollars in federal public safety grants. The cities have won in lower courts, but the legal fight is ongoing.

The Republican president’s fight with the Democratic-governed sanctuary cities, an issue that appeals to his hard-line conservative supporters, began just days after he took office last year when he signed an executive order saying he would block certain funding to municipalities that failed to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The order has since been partially blocked by a federal court.

“Protecting criminal aliens from federal immigration authorities defies common sense and undermines the rule of law,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

Democratic mayors fired back, and some including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio decided to skip a previously planned meeting on Wednesday afternoon at the White House with Trump.

“The Trump Justice Department can try to intimidate us with legal threats, but we will never abandon our values as a welcoming city or the rights of Chicago residents,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “The Trump administration’s actions undermine public safety by jeopardizing our philosophy of community policing, as they attempt to drive a wedge between immigrant communities and the police who serve them.”

IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

The issue is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown. As a candidate, he threatened to deport all roughly 11 million of them. As president, he has sought to step up arrests of illegal immigrants, rescinded protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought into the country illegally as children and issued orders blocking entry of people from several Muslim-majority countries.

Other jurisdictions on the Justice Department’s list include: Denver; San Francisco; the Washington state county that includes Seattle; Louisville, Kentucky; California’s capital Sacramento; New York’s capital Albany, Mississippi’s capital Jackson; West Palm Beach, Florida; the county that includes Albuquerque, New Mexico; and others.

The Justice Department said certain sanctuary cities such as Philadelphia were not on its list due to pending litigation.

On Twitter on Wednesday, De Blasio objected to the Justice Department’s decision to, in his words, “renew their racist assault on our immigrant communities. It doesn’t make us safer and it violates America’s core values.”

“The White House has been very clear that we don’t support sanctuary cities,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, adding that mayors cannot “pick and choose what laws they want to follow.”

The Justice Department last year threatened to withhold certain public safety grants to sanctuary cities if they failed to adequately share information with ICE, prompting legal battles in Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

In the Chicago case, a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction barring the Justice Department from withholding this grant money on the grounds that its action was likely unconstitutional. This funding is typically used to help local police improve crime-fighting techniques, buy equipment and assist crime victims.

The Justice Department is appealing that ruling. It said that litigation has stalled the issuance of these grants for fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Makini Brice; Editing by Will Dunham)