Rather than banging the defendant in the Justin Halstenberg arson prosecution, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office opted to end the case it put on against him with the whimper of one of his alleged victims.
Brooke Palenchar, who lived with her family and ten children in a home in Running Springs until September 8, 2024, tearfully recounted how her family had to hurriedly gather up their most precious heirlooms and make an exodus down from the San Bernardino Mountain community they called home for nearly 20 years as the fourth most destructive fire in San Bernardino County history was rapidly advancing on their neighborhood. She and her family came through the ordeal intact, she testified, but the house and all of the possessions in it that were left behind were lost, as the home, which was actually owned by her mother, burned to the ground. The only item remaining, she said, was the chimney, which was visible amidst the charred rubble in a photo that Deputy District Attorney Andrew Peppler projected onto the courtroom’s three visual display screens as part of an effort to leave an indelible image in each juror’s optic cortex .
That photo was contrasted with one showing the resplendent mountain home from a similar angle while it was still standing and another of the view from the house’s backyard at night and the majestic panorama of the colorfully lit San Bernardino Valley in the background.
Palenchar was the 27th and last witnessed called by the prosecution. Her telling of what had happened to her and her family, the pain of their loss, was intended by Peppler and Deputy District Attorney Justin Crocker as the crowning illustration of the destruction they say was wrought by Halstenberg.
The Palenchar home was one of several structures overrun by what the prosecution teams alleges was the third fire Halstenberg ignited in Highland on September 5. The first two of those fires, prosecutors maintain, were snuffed out when an alert nearby resident alerted firefighter to the first one and they arrived in time to douse it completely and a passerby acted quickly when he spotted a burning tumbleweed by the side of the road which he stomped out. Halstenberg, prosecutors say, touched those fires off by fashioning crude but effective ignition devices consisting of a sheet of paper wrapped and then twisted around pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters which he lit and then tossed out of the window of his moving pickup truck into the extremely dry vegetation by the side of the road. The third of these fires, prosecutors say, spread through a field beside Baseline Road, reached a slope and then rapidly advanced up the hillside, growing to a size and intensity responding firefighters were unable to control. That fire expanded upward and in an east-northeast direction for more than a month through the communities of East Highland Ranch and Running Springs, as well as approaching and threatening or partially entering into Green Valley Lake, Cedar Glen, Lake Arrowhead, Crestline, Valley of Enchantment, Arrowbear Lake, Big Bear Valley, Angelus Oaks, Seven Oaks, Forest Falls, and Mountain Home Village, stabilizing by October 23 but yet comprising hot spots that were not fully eradicated, charring 43,978 acres in total by the time it reached 100 percent containment after 110 days on December 23, 2024.

In what was for those on both sides of San Bernardino’s thin blue line cultural divide a shocking development, the city council on May 7 voted to settle the federal wrongful death lawsuit brought against it by the family of Robert Brown for $4,875,000.
In doing so, the city acknowledged that Brown’s death on December 27, 2023 typified a pattern of deliberate, pervasive and widespread violations of the constitutional rights of citizens in encounters with the police department, extending to the use of excessive force including the unjustifiable application of lethal force that has resulted in what city officials have privately characterized as “unnecessary” killings.
The council’s unanimous vote to settle with the family of Robert Brown was made for multiple reasons, the Sentinel was informed, including that Brown’s shooting by Police Officer Jackson Tubb’s lacked justification and that several of his department colleagues, up to and including the police chief, had knowingly engaged in a “cover-up” of what had occurred, including falsifying evidence that was intended to serve as a justification of Brown’s shooting but which, ultimately, damaged the credibility of the department with the city council when its members learned the true facts after having been taken in by false representations made by the department in its public statements.
The events at the root of the matter began when Tubbs, a motorcycle officer, took sight of Brown’s SUV at 6:56 a.m. on December 27, 2023. Tubbs moved up behind the SUV, driven by Brown, 27 of Rialto, and attempted to pull it over near 7th Street and Sierra Way. Brown continued west on 7th Street and turned left, i.e., north onto the grounds of Pioneer Memorial Cemetery. Brown, continued driving through the lanes of the cemetery, with the Tubbs, who had who had engaged his motorcycle’s flashing blue and red lights, following him, then flashing his lights.
Brown then exited the cemetery, continuing east, then north, then east out Baseline Avenue to the area of the 1200 block of Pepper Tree Lane, which is less than 1,500 feet from the intersection of Baseline and Waterman Avenue, behind the Stater Brothers market.
There, Brown ditched his vehicle, and ran onto the driveway of a home, as Tubbs parked his motorcycle and gave chase on foot, vaulting over a low iron wrought iron fence that enclosed the home’s grass-filled front yard in an effort to try to catch up with Brown.
In May, after the lawyers representing the Brown Family – Bradley gage and Milad Sadr – obtained the unexpurgated video from Tubbs’ bodyworn camera, an accurate picture of how Brown ended up dead began to emerge. With the officer fifty to sixty feet behind him, Brown headed around to the side of the house, temporarily disappearing from view, that video showed. When Tubbs and the accompanying video get to the side yard, bringing Brown back into the video’s field of perspective, it can be seen that Brown encountered an apparently unlocked gate to a chainlink fence which surrounded the backyard of the home and that he had just made his way through it.
As the video shows Tubbs making his way into the backyard, Brown is seen running away from him, and a dark object that has the rough shape of a handgun in his right hand which he holds to his side as he is moving rapidly across the backyard can be discerned when the video is slowed down to half speed. At that point in the video, Brown’s back is turned to Tubbs. Tubbs attempted to close the distance between him but Brown, upon reaching the roughly five-and-one-half-to-six-foot-high chain link fence, which is backed by a dilapidated five-foot-to-five-and-a-half-foot wood picket fence, does not hesitate in jumping it, his jacket temporarily becoming snagged on one of the chain peaks as he clears the obstacle. Tubbs bodyworn video shows him approaching very close to the fence as Brown comes down on the opposite side into the backyard of another residence, located at 1232 Crestview Avenue.
The department maintains that Brown threw the gun he was carrying over the fence before he surmounted it himself. At both full- and half-speed, however, it is difficult to discern a weapon being thrown on the video captured by Tubbs’ bodyworn camera.
Tubb’s bodyworn device, which on December 27, 2023 was mounted somewhere on Tubb’s uniform in the chest area, provides a perspective roughly 12 inches below the officer’s actual line of sight. Nevertheless, based on the video, it appears that Tubbs’ eye-level perspective of what lay before him was obscured by the wood fence. Roughly four seconds after Brown’s feet were planted on the ground on the other side of the fence, Tubbs can be heard on the video’s audio opening fire through a gap in the fence’s wood panels, taking what sounds like five shots within the span of roughly a second-and-a-quarter.
After Tubbs went over the fence and came up on Brown, Tubbs’ bodyworn video shows Brown bleeding profusely from his mouth. Brown, his footing unsteady, stumbled into the front of a shed. Tubbs aimed his gun at Brown as he falters, his back against the shed.
“You need to get on the ground right now, boss,” Tubbs told Brown, who at that point was on his knees, attempting to hold his hands up, blood dripping down the front of his body. Brown, his head shaking, seemed to be trying to speak, but is unable to form any words.
“I’m serious, bro,” Tubbs said. “I can help you.”
Shortly thereafter three other officers arrived on the scene, having themselves climbed over the fence, at which point they piled onto Brown, handcuffing him.
Brown was transported to a hospital, but died later that day.
The full video of what occurred, which went public some five months after the event as a consequence of Gage’s and Sadr’s efforts, provided a significantly different version of events than that which had been had propounded.
In February, the department sought to put its best foot forward, having released an edited version of the crucial portion of the final less-than-a-minute of the chase and shooting, which featured both video and stills from the video as well as a narrative put together by the department’s spokeswoman, Lieutenant Jennifer Kohler. According to Kohler’s narrative, after Brown led Tubbs to the 1200 block of Pepper Tree Lane and fled on foot onto a residential property, “He continued to run through a side fence, however, lost his footing and a handgun he was carrying fell to the ground. Instead of just fleeing, the suspect scrambled to arm himself again.”
The edited video contains a still shot, taken from Tubbs’ bodyworn video as he is running though the side yard of the house, of Brown, at that point in the backyard on the other side of the gate, bending down, perhaps to pick up something on the other side of the gate. Given the manner in which the video is edited, however, it is difficult to determine whether Brown was actually retrieving something and, if he was, what it was.
The edited video thereafter picks up at the point where Tubbs had made his way into the backyard and Brown is running away from him.
The department maintains that Brown threw the gun he was carrying over the fence before he surmounted it himself. Kohler’s video narrative states, “Through the slats of the fence, the officer saw the suspect kneel down to the ground, next to the firearm. He stood back up and turned towards him. The officer believed the suspect had rearmed himself and the officer-involved shooting occurred.”
The department’s effort to demonize Brown went beyond the video. The department released a photo of a gun it said officers found at the scene of the officer-involved shooting near Pepper Tree Lane, identifying it as a 9-millimeter handgun stolen in Las Vegas.
The department also, without specifying specifics, said Brown had a no-bail warrant for his arrest, implying but not stating that Tubbs knew as much when he was seeking to effectuate Brown’s arrest. A no-bail warrant indicates Brown was wanted on a felony.
In common law, the use of force, including deadly force, against an individual who is suspected of a felony and is in clear flight is permissible, although a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Tennessee vs. Garner requires that the suspect against whom such force is used be armed and dangerous.
An autopsy concluded that Brown had been shot in the back.
In their lawsuit brought in federal court on behalf of Brown’s family, Gage and Sadr maintained that Brown “used both hands to hop a fence. At no time, did the decedent show or point a weapon towards Tubbs or anyone else. Nevertheless, Tubbs shot the decedent multiple times through a fence,”
Thereafter, according to the lawsuit, three other officers “arrived and engaged in excessive force by tackling the decedent to the ground when he posed no threat to the officers, raised both hands in surrender, could not walk, could barely talk, and [was] bleeding out.” Gage and Sadr contend that Brown “was forced to lay face down on the ground, which further encumbered his breathing. Tubbs shot and killed Robert Brown without provocation, good cause, or any legal justification. Tubbs was attempting to arrest the decedent for an infraction. The decedent was unarmed. The decedent did not pose a danger to Tubbs or anyone else. Deadly force was completely unnecessary. But police officers failed to utilize alternative measures readily available to them. There was no probable cause for a reasonable officer to believe that the decedent had committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm or any crime. It was more than practical for the officers to give warning of the imminent use of force, but no such warnings were given. Instead, the officers decided to ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’ As such, they acted as the ‘judge, jury and executioner.’”
According to Gage and Sadr, the police officers on the scene, including Tubbs, engaged in “the use of force upon [the] decedent after he was shot” were guilty of a “failure to provide prompt medical care to Decedent” and thus acted in a way to “delay medical treatment so that the decedent would die.”
The suit further alleges that public officials in crime-ridden San Bernardino have given the police department and Police Chief Darren Goodman license to act aggressively in an effort to reinstituted law and order in the city, which resulted in noncriminals being subjected to arrest, beatings and in some cases death.
As police chief, Goodman promulgated policies wherein police officers were ordered and encouraged to stop, detain, arrest, forcefully seize, and/or prosecute members of our community. Defendants implemented policies, procedures and practices that deprived the decedent of his rights under the laws of the United States and the United States Constitution.
Together with Goodman, according to Gage and Sadr, city officials “implemented an express policy, custom, or widespread practice of targeting people for excessive force, rather than engaging in constitutional policing. The defendants had deliberate indifference to the violations of constitutional rights for people. Defendants had a policy to violate federal law and the US Constitution by deprivation of equal protection, substantive and procedural due process rights and illegal searches and seizures.”
According to the suit, “Chief Goodman ratified the unconstitutional actions of subordinates by continually rewarding officers for unconstitutional conduct through awards, positive evaluations, better assignments, promotions, and increased income/overtime.”
In pursuing the case, Gage and Sadr alleged, the police department has established a policy of “coverup” and “falsification of evidence and police reports.” According to the suit, this served to “to encourage an atmosphere of lawlessness within the police department and to encourage their police officers to believe that engaging in illegal searches, seizures, due process violations and violations of equal protection was permissible, and that such conduct would be overlooked or would not result in any discipline for defendants.”
Police supporters’ vitriol toward the San Bernardino mayor and city council for folding in the face of wrongful death and excessive force allegations involving what some said was a “wholly defensible” shooting of a criminal and the conferring of a massive settlement on his family without taking the matter to trial in short order gave way to reality.
It was the course toward wider exposition of the alluded to “falsification of evidence and police reports,” the Sentinel learned, that has unnerved the city.
There is evidence, including the several-hour gap between the time when the shooting took place and the department producing the 9-millimeter handgun it formerly claimed was in Brown’s possession, which lends credibility to Gage’s accusation that the department “planted” the gun. Equally suspicious is that the department has removed from its website the statement it initially posted with regard to the incident that asserted Brown “jumped over a fence into a residential yard with a firearm in his hand,” which the footage from Tubbs’ bodyworn video camera clearly demonstrates is not the case and which is contradicted in the department’s later version of events maintaining Brown threw the gun over the fence.
Based on evidence Gage and Sadr already possessed, taken together with information they were in the course of receiving as the consequence of further discovery efforts, the city, the city council, Goodman and the police department could not risk the case going to trail. City officials at multiple levels, as well as virtually every member of the department’s command echelon from Goodman to the assistant chief, all captains and virtually every lieutenant in the department has knowledge, one city official told the Sentinel, about specific falsifications in multiple police reports, extending to the fabrication of evidence and forgery. The case involving Brown is merely one of dozens of such cases, the official said. Documenting one specific instance of evidence planting in the forum of a federal court would potentially open the floodgates with regard to revelations of such abuses of the department’s authority, according to the official.
An indication of how bad the situation is, the Sentinel was told, was that during the closed session in which the decision to provide the Brown Family with $4.875 million was arrived at, the motion to make the payout was made by City Councilman Ted Sanchez, the most passionate defender of the San Bernardino Police Department among elected San Bernardino city officials over the last 40 years.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Lawrence has his work cut out for him in his representation of Derick Laija, a now 35-year-old Ontario man who has been in custody since his arrest in the Desert Heights area north of Twentynine Palms on September 17, 2024 in the aftermath of what no one disputes was Laija’s bludgeoning murder, using a baseball bat, of 63-year-old Hadgu Abraham on Abraham’s property.
Lawrence, a San Bernardino-based attorney who has garnered a reputation as a lawyer of last resort for defendants in particularly gruesome murder cases in which convictions seemed fore-ordained, has achieved, unexpectedly favorable, or at least relatively favorable, in at least a few notable instances, for some of his clients.
The case the district attorney’s office is mounting against Laija is no less intense and shocking in its nature, circumstance and seeming brutality than any of the other cases Lawrence has been involved with.
Laija, except for having a horrific hallucinogenic experience rather than the meaningful mind manifestation he had hoped to achieve by ingesting psilocybin mushrooms in a remote setting where the tranquility of the desert and intensity of the night’s star-filled sky near the end of summer, might have returned to Ontario by last September 19 or 20 and resumed the relatively normal life he had led up to that point.
Instead, he faces a murder charge and two attempted murder charges, taken together with five charging enhancements which, upon his conviction, will result in him spending all or certainly much of the rest of his life in prison.
Derick Laija, at that time 34, had come from Ontario with a friend to Desert Heights, where they had secured what was supposed to be temporary lodging at a short term rental in the 3000 block of Bluegrass Avenue. Sometime on September 17, he had ingested psilocybin. In is believed that at some point after the 6:57 p.m. sunset that night and perhaps after the 7:21 end of twilight, Laija made his way off the property where he was staying and began roaming around the neighborhood, eventually surmounting a 6-foot-high fence to trespass onto the property at 3333 Bluegrass Avenue, where Hadgu Abraham and his wife, Freweiny Abraham, 61, had established a residence some 20 years earlier, in 2004, eight years after they had  moved with their children to the United States from Eritrea in 1996.
Upon hearing some commotion outside, Hadgu armed himself with a pellet gun and picked up a baseball bat, then went outside into the night to see what was happening.
What he saw was Laija in the Abraham family’s Suburu, which he was apparently, in his addled state, attempting to start. Hadgu confronted Laija, who emerged from the vehicle. A physical struggle ensued, according to sheriff’s department investigators, during which Laija and Abraham grappled for the bat, with its possession changing more than once.
Both Freweiny Abraham and the couple’s son, Asmerom Abraham, 31, came out of the house and Laija, who had already felled Hadgu, wielded the bat on both of them, smashing each of them in the head with it and Asmerom on his torso and legs.
As a consequence of the beating Laija had inflicted on all three, Hadgu Abraham succumbed on the spot. Asmerom and Freweiny, though injured, survived. One of them summoned the sheriff’s department at 7:49 p.m.
Arriving deputies included Christopher Jones and Jonathan Cordova.
According to Jones, while he was yet standing outside the property, he saw Laija in the Abraham home’s driveway. A moment later, he heard the metal bat being dropped.
Jones was able to gain entrance to the Abraham property by kicking the gate to the fence around the compound open. Inside, he commanded Laija to lie down on the ground, at which point the suspect, Jones said, “complied” without resisting.
Lying close by on his back, Jones said, was Hadgu Abraham, with multiple injuries to his face and head immediately apparent. Jones believed Hadgu was probably dead. Sitting on the ground next to him was Freweiny Abraham, who was unable to speak and was breathing with difficulty.
Cordova engaged with Laija, who told him that his friend had drowned in a Jacuzzi, which was apparently located at the short term rental on Bluegrass Avenue where Laija was staying. He said that he had come to the Abraham residence intending to get help, and that after jumping over the fence onto the property, he got into the Subaru, trying to start it. Laija stated that he had taken psychedelic mushrooms.
The deputies summoned ambulances for Freweimy, whose life was in danger as a result of her head injuries, and for Asmerom.
Laija was detained, and thereafter transported to the Morongo Station for further questioning.
The bat Laija used in the fatal and near fatal assaults was recovered on the Abraham property, as was a pellet gun, which was found wrapped in a gray sweatshirt near Hadgu’s feet.
Deputies held Laija long enough for the psilocybin effects to diminish, at which point detectives obtained multiple statements from him. At 6 a.m. on September 18, he was transferred to West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga where he was booked on one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder. He has been held without bail ever since.
According to one of the homicide detective assigned to the case, Nicholas Pasolak, the baseball bat was dented on the business end where it had been used hit Hadgu, Frewiny and Asmerom in the head, and the dent was coated with blood.
Freweimy was subjected to a long-term hospitalization during which she was sedated, intubated and on a ventilator within the intensive care unit, with three skull fractures, an intracerebral hemorrhage, a jaw fracture and severe damage to one of her eyes. She sustained permanent brain damage.
Asmerom was hospitalized but released relatively quickly, but was discharged with cerebral contusions, a broken arm and a dislocated knee.
Laija is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Joseph Walsh and has been charged with the murder of Hadgu Abraham, which carries with it a sentencing enhancement for having used a deadly weapon in the attack. He is charged with attempted murder in the attack on Freweiny Abraham, and that charge carries with it an enhancement of having used a deadly weapon in the attack and another enhancement that the attack resulted in brain damage or paralysis in the victim. He charged with attempted murder in the attack on Asmerom Abraham, which carries with it an enhancement for using a deadly weapon in the attack as long with another enhancement for having inflicted great bodily injury on the victim.
Laija’s family retained for him Lawrence out of a belief that he will be able to work some magic in his favor.
Previously, Lawrence has scored a few victories where the circumstances seemed dire.
In a case involving charges of murder with special circumstances and three counts of robbery and three counts of carjacking; kidnapping; and torture in which the defendant was looking at a life sentence without the possiblity of parole, Lawrence obtained not guilty verdicts on all counts.
In another murder case with additional attempted murder charges, together with ; felony shooting at an inhabited dwelling; felony second degree auto burglary with a gun use allegation and felony evading arrest charges in which the accused was looking at a sentence of 44 years to life, Lawrence obtained for his client not guilty verdicts on the murder and attempted murder charges, with guilty verdicts on a misdemeanor negligent discharge of a firearm, felony auto burglary while armed and felony evading arrest charges, resulting in a sentence of 5 years 8 months.
In another case in which his client was charged with murder with a knife in which the victim was stabbed 31 times, robbery, two counts of criminal threats, plus one “strike” prior, and a 5-year prison prior entailing a possible sentence of 58 years to life in prison, Lawrence obtained a not guilty verdict on the murder rap and a substituted conviction on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter alongside a guilty verdict on felony auto theft; with priors found true after a jury trial. With the defendant yet facing over 28 years in prison, Lawrence succeeded in having the trial verdict overturned for judicial error. After he lodged a motion for a new trial, Lawrence was able to negotiated a plea bargain that resulted in the judge sentencing his client to 11 years in prison.
In a murder with a knife and attempted murder in which the defendant stabbed one victim 22 times and was looking at a 41 years to life sentence, Lawrence obtained not guilty verdicts on the murder and attempted murder charges with a guilty finding on the lesser included charge of voluntary manslaughter, which resulted in a sentence of 12 years.
In a murder, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, elder abuse case in which the defendant had one “strike” prior for robbery, Lawrence prevented his client from getting a sentence of  52 years to life, by obtaining a verdict of guilty on the lesser included charge of involuntary manslaughter. With the accompanying assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and elder abuse convictions and the prior “strike” found true, the doubled sentence his client received totaled 15 years.
In another murder with a knife case in which the defendant’s exposure was 26 years to life, Lawrence managed to have the murder charges dismissed in accordance with a plea bargain for 3 years in prison on a lesser included charge of voluntary manslaughter.
In the case involving Laija, however, the district attorney’s office does not seem inclined toward anything less than a long, long sentence following what it believes will be a sure conviction on all three charges – murder, attempted murder and attempted murder with all special circumstances enhancements being sustained.
At a preliminary hearing held April 23 before Judge Melissa Rodriguez, Lawrence sought to propound that there were extenuating circumstances in the matter of Laija’s deadly attack on Hadgu Abraham and the violence perpetrated on Hadgu’s wife and son in that his client was under the influence of psilocybin at the time, and that Hadgu Abraham had himself triggered the violence by arming himself and then using the baseball bat on Laija. The Abrahams, Lawrence suggested, should have called the sheriff’s department and allowed the deputies who responded to deal with the situation.
Judge Rodriguez, however, did not buy that reasoning, and she bound Laija over for trial before Judge Sarah Oliver, ruling he would have to answer the murder and attempted murder charges lodged against him.
Yesterday, May 8, Laija was arraigned before Judge Oliver. Lawrence had him enter not guilty pleas on the murder and attempted murder charges and deny all of the special circumstances that would result in sentence enhancement.
In addition to the spectacular nature of the case, its circumstance and the seriousness of the charges, Lawrence and Laija are at a serious disadvantage in other respects.
In general in San Bernardino County, verdicts tend to be lopsidedly in favor of the prosecution in matters that go to trial. In Morongo Valley, at the courthouse in Joshua Tree, the prosecution has an even better won-lost ratio than it does elsewhere in the 20,105-square mile county jurisdiction. Moreover, sentences are harsh in that courthouse, where judges who were former prosecutors have traditionally held sway.
That Judge Oliver was not a prosecutor before she was elevated to the bench, however, is of no advantage to Laija, As an attorney who was involved in civil law and issues pertaining to the government code rather than criminal law when she was a deputy county counsel with the San Bernardino County Counsel’s Office from 2018 until 2023 and a trial attorney at the Children’s Law Center in Los Angeles from 2006 to 2018, she may very well feel that she has to step up and prove herself to be as rock-ribbed and hard-nosed as those on the bench in the Morongo Basin have been traditionally, such that she will be in no position to give Laija or Lawrence any quarter.

The Mountain View School District Board of Trustees next week is due to take up a closed session discussion with regard to allegations of repeated alcohol use by the principal of the district’s only junior high school during working hours.
After months of recurrent reports relating to Grace Yokely Junior High School Principal Kelly Reyes leaving the 2947 South Turner Avenue campus prior to the traditional 4 p.m. close of the academic working day to frequent eating establishments featuring bars where she has indulged her fondness for beer and, on occasion it was reported, stronger beverages, a group of parents in conjunction with some district teachers undertook to trail her and make video and photographic documentation of her activities while she was yet on the district clock.
That evidence has been presented to Superintendent Dr. Douglass Moss, Assistant Superintendent Jeremy Currier and the district’s head of human resources, Sydney Kallal.
The Sentinel is reliably informed that Moss, Currier and Kallal are purposed to meet with Board President Ronald Newton and board members Michelle Imperial, Randall Ceniceros Dr. James Willingham and Chris Taylor during the closed session scheduled for the end of the Monday, May 12 board meeting.
It is not clear whether Reyes will be brought into that meeting to offer her version of events or if she has been invited to provide a written statement to the board ahead of the hearing.
One of the two items listed on the closed session agenda for next Monday evening is “Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release Government Code section 54957, Education Code section 44942.” Because of the confidentiality imposed on public agencies with regard to matters pertaining to personnel, the district was not able to disclose the name of the public employee referenced on the closed session agenda nor confirm Reyes as that employee upon a direct inquiry as to whether she was the employee in question.
Several exhibits in the form of time stamped photographs or video stills that have been presented to Moss, Currier and Kallal have also been provided to the Sentinel. That documentation, along with statements from several individuals, the Sentinel has been told, comprise the primary evidence that has been marshaled against Reyes.
One such item is a statement from an investigator who said Reyes drove from the Grace Yokely Junior High campus on May 7 to the El Torito restaurant located at 3680 Inland Empire Blvd. In Ontario. Accompanying that statement was a photo taken of Reyes White Jeep with license plate of #8YSV107 parked in the restaurant’s adjoining parking lot. A member of the investigation team got into the El Torito before Reyes, with one securing a place at the bar “approximately six to seven feet away” from where Reyes, wearing a black “Grace Yokely” shirt and black pants seated herself at a table in the El Torito at 2:44 p.m..
“The surveillance team observed her drinking multiple beers during this time,” according to the investigator. At 4 p.m. when Reyes “contracted time” in her role as a principal with the district ended, the surveillance team ended its assignment.
The Sentinel was provided with two photos of Reyes drinking beer while she was seated inside the El Torito taken by the investigative on May 7.
Reyes remained at the El Torito until 4:44 p.m. that day, according to one individual with information about the matter.
Some of those expressing concern about Reyes’ weekday use of alcohol corresponding to the time she is contracted to be functioning as the principal of Grace Yokely Junior High said some district officials had earlier been dismissive of the complaints regarding Reyes because no one was able to establish that she was drinking on the school grounds nor could offer convincing evidence or even indication that she had consumed any alcohol prior to showing up for work at approximately 7 a.m. every morning. Reyes had carried out her duties as principal without incident on those days, staying in place on the campus until approximately 2:30 p.m. every day. District officials last year expressed the view that Reyes’ activity in the hours after she left work were of no concern to the district, which had no authority with regard to how Reyes comported herself on her own time, the Sentinel was told.
Some parents and educators contended, nonetheless, that Reyes’ consumption of alcoholic beverages between the time she left the Grace Yokely campus and 4 p.m. has been inappropriate not only because she is supposed to remain in place on the Grace Yokely campus until 4 p.m. daily but that she potentially represents a liability to the district if she were to become intoxicated or exceed the legal 0.08 percent blood alcohol content and become involved in a collision or incident in which she injured or killed someone.
Moreover, it was pointed out, on more than one occasion last year and this year, Reyes consumed a significant quantity of beer after leaving the campus on those second Mondays of the month when the district generally holds its board meetings before she returned to the district office at 2585 South Archibald Avenue in Ontario and attended board meetings at the Newton Educational Center co-located there in what was at least a partially impaired state.
On one occasion, Reyes was seen drinking Heineken on the Grace Yokely campus. It was pointed out, however, that the beverage Reyes on that occasion was actually drinking was Heineken’s non-alcoholic beer, Heineken 0.0, which contains only a minute amount of alcohol, gauged at less than 0.03 percent. Nevertheless, Heineken 0.0 bottles, with their distinctive green glass are virtually indistinguishable from Heineken’s genuine beer bottles. This prompted, the Sentinel is told, one of the school board members to remark that Reyes had exhibited poor judgment in that it was improper for her to give students the impression that the school principal was drinking beer while at work.
At present, Reyes, in her capacity as the district’s only junior high school principal, is provided with an annual salary of $148,799.71, roughly $2,444 in perquisites and pay add-ons and $42,524.05 in benefits for a total yearly compensation of $193,767.76.
The Mountain View School District is one of the oldest school districts in San Bernardino County yet remains as one of the smallest, serving, primarily, that section of southeast Ontario in what was the formerly agricultural land where a good portion of the Chino Agricultural Preserve was located. Existing as a small one room school house at Collins Station along the Southern Pacific Railroad until 1942, it moved into larger quarters at that time, but remained a one school district until 1982, though its single school was rebuilt into a larger facility in 1962. It now consists of four elementary schools and one junior high, Grace Yokely, which is overseen by Reyes. The district’s total current student count is 3,390. Those who attend schools in the Mountain View District graduate into Colony High School within the Chaffey Unified High School District.
Efforts by the Sentinel to obtain Reyes’ input for this article were unsuccessful.

By Phill Courtney
Now, after we’ve heard so many, I’d like to add a few more words of tribute for Pope Francis. I had said a few words about him two days before he’d left us, and while, of course, he had no way of knowing I had, just the same, I’m glad I did because he certainly deserved them
These words were heard at the Redlands Center for the Realization of Spirit on Saturday, April 19th, during one of my Inland Empire Almanac variety talent shows I do there, at a time when he was out of the hospital and many of us thought he might be rallying, and we’d have him for at least a little while longer.
So, it came as somewhat of a surprise when my wife told me of his passing that following Monday, the day after Easter. Appropriately enough, he’d “gone out” almost with his booties on after we’d seen him just the day before on both the Vatican’s balcony, and then during a spin through the square in the “Popemobile.”
In my show, I mentioned a newspaper report I’d seen which explained how the Pope, decrying, as I have, the increasing use of robot answering machines whenever you call somewhere, for instance a hospital; a government office; or to pay your bills, and wanting to counter this increasing dehumanization of our culture, Francis issued a decree that actual humans—what a concept—answer the phones at the Vatican by putting numerous nuns on the job, and for this I gave the Pope a two thumbs up.
“Hello. Yes, this is the Vatican and thank you for asking. The Pope is doing much better.”
Now, sadly, they’re saying: “Thank you for the kind words about our late beloved Father.”
Francis was both humane and simply human and consistently recognized the humanity in us all.
For instance, there was the famous and much remarked upon moment when Francis was asked early in his papacy about his stance when it came to the LGBTQ community and was quoted as saying: “Who am I to judge?” which was heard by many as a breath of fresh air. Of course, when it came to matters involving the actual empowerment of the gay community and, yes, women, for many, the Pope didn’t go far enough, while for some he’d gone too far.
As for me, while I’ve never been a big fan of Catholicism and its stands on several social issues I could name, many of which you could too, like birth control, there’s some important exceptions, like their official opposition to executions and many illegal and immoral wars, especially when they’ve opposed ours, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which many American Christians did support.
Francis was also a recent and outspoken opponent to what’s happening in Gaza, and today I would like to focus on yet another issue that came up between him and our current vice president, who converted to Catholicism in 2019. This happened a few months ago, shortly before Francis entered the hospital for his final stay.
In a nutshell, it came down to this: during a TV interview, the VP cited what he regarded as the correct interpretation of the Catholic doctrine of, in its Latin term, ordo amoris—in English: correctly ordered love, as it relates to the “hot potato” issue of immigration—an issue, many could argue, helped put him and his boss in the White House.
For the VP this interpretation holds that the focus of Christian concern for those around us should begin first with ourselves; then our own immediate family; then expand to include our neighbors; then our neighborhood; our country; and finally, those in other countries. In other words, our own families come first, and not, as they’re always referred to in certain circles: “the illegal immigrants.”
After these comments, Francis was prompted to school the VP on what he and many others within the Catholic church and other spiritual traditions see as the real meaning of ordo amoris, which focuses on welcoming the stranger and the parable told by Jesus called The Good Samaritan, which Jesus used to express his conviction that love should be all-inclusive, and embrace not just those we personally love and are “just like us,” but everyone, regardless of their beliefs or where they came from. Just another of his radical ideas.
And for this comment Francis was vilified by some in those circles, as was the Episcopalian minister Mariann Budde, who dared to ask our new president to show mercy for immigrants and others who need our love and was roundly condemned by some politicians who consider themselves Christians and even moved to pass a house resolution denouncing her words.
So this, too, was the “radical” position of Francis, who also asked for mercy and an on-going awareness, as I’ve always felt, that we’re all members of the same family and when the predator drone missiles fly and accidentally kill an entire wedding party of 32 in a foreign country, they are not just collateral damage and the price they have to pay in order to win the war on terror, but members of our own family.
Our son has died in Gaza. Our daughter in Israel. Our cousins are lying in pools of blood in Yemen and Ukraine, while other members of our family stand beyond the border’s barriers, clinging not just to the bloody barbed wire, but to the hope that they simply might live.
Yes, the issues of immigration; international conflicts; and the solutions are complex, but for the example he set with his inclusive love for all and by keeping just this one sensibility in mind, and despite the naysayers, I salute Francis and the light he brought to the world when he repeatedly urged us to remember that the world needs bridges not walls.
No applause needed, just some quiet contemplation for a moment.
Phill Courtney has been a high school English teacher and twice a candidate for Congress with the Green party. His opinion pieces have appeared in many local newspapers and today we welcome him to The Sentinal. His email is: pjcourtney1311@gmail.com