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| Amber Alert: Abduction - 3 yr old HMJ Posted: 04 May 2009 05:12 PM PDT
 Missing Child Missing From: San Bernardino, CA Contact: If you have information, please contact San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, 866-346-7632 Circumstances: Missing Child Name: Briant Rodriquez
Suspect Name: Unknown Unknown Vehicle Information Make: Unknown
Suspect Name: Unknown Unknown Source: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Abducted 3-year-old San Bernardino boy feared to be taken to Mexico Investigators and the mother of a 3-year-old boy snatched from his San Bernardino home on Sunday fear Briant Rodriguez may have been taken to Mexico. The FBI and sheriff's detectives, who have issued an Amber Alert for the abducted child, said there is no information yet on why this family was targeted. Rosa Millana, who was tied up inside the house with four of her children when Briant was taken, said she just wants her youngest son back. She dissolved into tears several times this afternoon while speaking about the ordeal, which unfolded in her Pedley Street home about 2:30 p.m. Sunday. "They said they were going to take the baby to Mexico and they were going to kill him," said family friend Nancy Vargas, who translated for Millana. Two armed men walked into the family's small, white, one-story home through the front door, which had been left open because Millana was about to take the kids to the park. They tied the family up with tape while they ransacked the home for about 20 minutes, officials said. Although the men took Millana's cell phone and cash from her jacket pocket, they did not take a flat screen television. The men then left, taking Briant with them. Millana heard a car door slam but there were no witnesses outside the describe their vehicle. Briant's 8-year-old brother managed to free himself within minutes and untied the family. Millana immediately ran to Shop-Rite Market & Liquor, about two blocks away, to call 9-1-1. The boy's father was at work when his son was taken. "My mom's very tired thinking of my little brother, where he's at," said 16-year-old Jose Barraza, who left for a friend's birthday party shortly before the intruders broke in. "I ask whoever has him to come back." Sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said the kidnappers have not contacted the family for ransom and "we are concerned the child has been taken across the border." Border patrol has been notified of the abduction. Even though an Amber Alert was sent out late Sunday, electronic freeway signs do not carry information because there is no vehicle description. A sheriff's deputy has spent the day parked next to the family's home. Children have briefly come out of the house, riding bicycles in the front yard. Briant's father, Raul Rodriguez, sat on a stoop in the backyard with his head dropped to his chest. His eyes were red-rimmed when he declined to comment. The boy is 3-feet tall, weighs 40 pounds and has brown eyes and brown curly hair. He was last seen wearing a yellow shirt with blue sleeves, blue striped shorts and black sandals. Family member said Briant loves Sponge Bob Squarepants. The suspects are both said to be skinny, Spanish-speaking Hispanic men. One is said to be 18-years-old, 5'8 tall and wearing a black ball cap, blue jeans and a green T-shirt. The second suspect was about 24-years-old, 5'10 tall and was wearing a black shirt, black pants, black boots and a white bandana. Anyone with information is asked to call the Amber Alert hotline at (866) 346-7632 or sheriff's Sgt. Doug Hubbard and Det. Jon Minard at (909) 387-3589. Source: The San Bernardino Sun  |
| L.A. firefighter, shot in 1992 riots, makes remarkable recovery Posted: 04 May 2009 12:36 PM PDT
Scott Miller wasn't expected to walk, let alone go back to work. But he has done both. By Robert J. Lopez (L.A. Times) May 4, 2009 The scar on his neck will never go away. Nor will the memories of that spring evening 17 years ago as South Los Angeles exploded into rioting. Scott Miller, an apparatus operator with the Los Angeles Fire Department, maneuvered his hook-and-ladder truck along Western Avenue as mobs took control of the streets after a jury acquitted four police officers of beating Rodney G. King. The crew raced toward a huge column of smoke in the distance. A vehicle pulled next to the truck and Miller felt something. "The sensation was a flash of light and a loud bang in my head," he recalled. The driver had fired a single shot from a handgun. (He was later sentenced to 16 years in state prison for the shooting.) The bullet ripped through Miller's cheek, angled down and severed a carotid artery in his neck. It lodged behind his windpipe. Doctors said it was doubtful that he would ever walk again. It was the type of injury that might have understandably broken a lesser man. But Miller's passion was firefighting, and he was determined to live and return to the firehouse. "Scott has a special kind of courage that not everyone has," said Fire Chief Douglas Barry, who worked with Miller in the department's Fire Prevention Bureau. "Not everyone would come back from something like that." Paul Jordan, a veteran firefighter who now works as a fire inspector in Van Nuys, thought that Miller wouldn't make it back. Jordan was riding directly behind Miller as Truck Company 35 navigated through the smoke and mayhem of Western Avenue. He saw the handgun, then the flash. "Geez, they're shooting at us," Jordan recalled thinking. Craning his neck, Jordan saw Miller slumped on the wheel. The captain pulled an emergency brake and the 55-foot-long vehicle lumbered to a stop. Blood was squirting from Miller's neck. Jordan, a wiry firefighter who had worked at some of the city's busiest stations, had seen his share of gunshot wounds. This one wasn't good. "I thought he was going to die," he said. Another firefighter pressed his hand against Miller's neck to stem the bleeding as the crew loaded him into the back of the truck. Jordan jumped behind the wheel and took off for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Miller was conscious. He tried to relax his breathing. He thought about his wife, 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old boy. "I had to do what I needed to do to stay alive so I could raise my kids," he said. The last thing he remembered that evening was the nurses cutting off his clothes as he lay on a gurney in the emergency room. The doctors made a six-inch incision below his jaw line to remove the bullet. They delivered the bad news to Miller and his wife the next morning: A blood clot had formed in his brain. He was paralyzed on the left side of his body, and he couldn't speak. For nine weeks, Miller was in the hospital, where he was fed liquids from a tube because of damage to his throat. His 6-foot-2 frame, toned from working, weakened as he lost 20 pounds. It was a trying time filled with continuous therapy. Miller slowly regained feeling and some motion on his left side. "It was always my goal to go back to full duty," he said. But reality hit a year later when a fast-moving apartment fire killed 10 people in Westlake. Miller watched the tragedy on the evening news as firefighters pulled heavy hoses and carried victims into ambulances. With his left hand unable to do fine motor skills, Miller realized that he would never be able to again do the backbreaking work required at a fire. "It's time to look at it and face the reality that you're not going to fight fire," he recalled thinking. "You're going to have to do something else." He ended up in the Fire Prevention Bureau, where he's now a captain supervising a crew that inspects commercial buildings in the San Fernando Valley. Last week, Miller sat behind a desk in his Van Nuys office helping two customers seeking information about fire permits needed for convalescent homes. "For him to be back on the job, I think it's a miracle," said Jordan. Miller said he's come to realize that he can still make a difference as an inspector and do the public service that attracted him to firefighting nearly 29 years ago. "It's an area of work that I've come to respect," he said. "I realized that I had to move on and refocus on the more important things of life, that I can't drag my dream with me until it becomes a nightmare ruining other positive things in my life." Source: LA Times robert.lopez@latimes.com  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| May 2-9, 2009 as "Wildfire Awareness Week Posted: 04 May 2009 11:42 AM PDT
Our Golden State is privileged to be home to more than eighty-five million acres of wildland, which enhance our natural beauty, provide recreation opportunities to visitors and contribute $452 million to our economy. Wildfires create a disastrous impact on this land by releasing dangerous greenhouse gasses and destroying forests and habitats, as well as potentially burning homes and harming our citizens. Ninety-four percent of fires in our state are caused by humans, and by encouraging education and action among our residents, we can prevent many of them. One important step is to establish the required 100 feet of defensible space. We can also reduce our risk by understanding building code regulations and actively promoting fire safety in our communities. This year, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection will introduce new equipment that will help us to better defend our state as we enter into fire season. I am grateful for their hard work and the efforts of everyone else who courageously protects our Golden State from fires. NOW, THEREFORE, I, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim May 2-9, 2009 as "Wildfire Awareness Week." 
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER Wildfire Awareness Week schedule: Tuesday, May 5: Kick-off for Wildfire Awareness Week, CAL FIRE Mobile Equipment Facility, Davis at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, May 5: CAL FIRE Day at the Sacramento Rivercats baseball game, Raley Field, West Sacramento at 7 p.m.  |
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