This article deals with issues in the mountains

SUMMONS – (FAMILY LAW)
NOTICE TO RESPONDENT (AVISO AL DEMANDADO): ERNESTO GODOY
YOU HAVE BEEN SUED.
Read the information below and on the next page. Lo han demandado. Lea la informacion a continuacion y en la pagina siguiente.
PETITIONER’S NAME IS (Nombre del demandante): MADAI ROMERO
CASE NUMBER FAMMB2500070
You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (Form FL-120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter or phone call will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnership, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs. For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.cagov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services Website (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), or by contacting your local county bar association.
Tiene 30 DIAS DE CALENDARIO después de haber recibido la entrega legal de esta Citacion y Peticion para presentar una Respuesta (formulario FL-120) ante la corte y efectuar la entrega legal de una copia al demandante. Una carta o liamada telefonica o una audiencia de la corte no basta para protegerio. Si no presenta su Respuesta a tiemp, la corte puede dar ordenes que afecten su matrimonio o pareja de heco, sus bienes y la custodia de sus hijos. La corte tambien le puede ordenar que pague manutencion, y honorarios y costos legales. Para asesoramiento legal, pongase en contacto de inmediato con un abogado. Puede obtener informacion para encontrar un abogado en el Contro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California (www.sucorte.ca.gov), en el sitio web de los Servicios Legales de California (www.lahelpca.org) o poniendose en contacto con el colegio de abodgados de su condado.
NOTICE – Restraining orders on page 2: These restraining orders are effective against both spouses or domestic partners until the petition is dismissed, a judgment is entered, or the court makes further orders. They are enforceable anywhere in California by any law enforcement office who has received or seen a copy of them.
AVISO – Las ordenes de restriction se encuentran en la pagina 2 : Las ordenes de restriccion estan en vigencia en cuanto a ambos conyuges o miembros de la pareja de hecho hasta que se despida la peticion, se emita un fallo o la corte de otras ordenes. Cualquier agencia del orden publico que haya rocibido o visto una copia de estas ordenes puede hacerlas acatar en cualquier lugar de California.
FEE WAIVER : If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party.
Exencion de cuotas : Si no puede pagar la cuota de presentacion, pida al secretario un formulario de execion de cuotas. La corte puede ordenar que ested pague, ya sea en parte o por completo, las cuotas y costos de la corte previamente exentos a peticion de usted o de la otra parte.
FL-100 PETITION FOR Dissolution (Divorce) of: Marriage
1. LEGAL RELATIONSHIP: We are married.
2. RESIDENCE REQUIREMENTS: a. Petitioner [and] Respondent has [have] been a resident of this state for at least six months and of this country for at least three months immediately preceding the filing of this petition. (For divorce, at least one person in the legal relationship described in items 1a and 1c must comply with this requirement.)
3. STATISTICAL FACTS
(1) Date of marriage: April 16, 2001
(2) Date of Separation: May 1, 2002
(3) Time from date of marriage until time of separation: 1 years and months
4. MINOR CHILDREN: There are no minor children.
5. LEGAL GROUNDS: (1) irreconcilable differences
8. SPOUSAL OR DOMESTIC PARTNER SUPPORT: Terminate (end) the court’s ability to award support to Petitioner [and] Respondent.
SEPARATE PROPERTY: Confirm as separate property the assets and debts in
2004 BMW X-5 as to the PETITIONER
WELLS FARGO CHECKING ACCT NO. 5611 as to the PETITIONER
WELLS FARGO SAVINGS ACCT NO 8754 as to the PETITIONER
WELLS FARGO CREDIT CARD NO. 5032 as to the PETITIONER
COMMUNITY AND QUASI-COMMUNITY PROPERTY: There are no such assets or debts that I know of to be divided by the court.
Signed: Madai Romero 2-24-25
The name and address of the court is: (El nombre y dirrecion de la corte son):
SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN BERNARDINO
JOSHUA TREE DISTRICT
6527 WHITE FEATHER ROAD
JOSHUA TREE, CA 92252
The name, address and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or petitioner without an attorney, are: (El nombre, direccion y numero de telefono del abogado del demandante, o del demendante si no tiene abogado, son):
STACY ALBELAIS ESQUIRE STATE BAR # 256154
LAW OFFICES OF STACY ALBELAIS
4505 ALL STATE DR. SUITE 204
RIVERSIDE, CA 92501
(951) 686-8662
stacy@familylawforyou.com
Filed: FEBRUARY 24, 2025 by Anabel Z. Romero, Deputy clerk (Asistente) for Aimee Eubanks, Clerk of the Court (Secretario)
Published in The San Bernardino County Sentinel on May 30, and June 6, 13 & 20, 2025.

Continue reading →

By Carlos Avalos

A former teacher is alleging that the Etiwanda School District’s administration in recent years compromised its educational mission in favor of maximizing funding it receives from the state, destroying the district’s once cutting-edge preschool program in the process, and is now disadvantaging the district’s youngest and most vulnerable students.
Antoinette Jensen taught for seven years in the Creating Learning Opportunities Utilizing Diverse Strategies (CLOUDS ) program within the Etiwanda School District. Initially, she taught as a permitted early child education preschool teacher at Grapeland Elementary, then at Golden Elementary for the 2022-2023 school year, followed by a position at Terra Vista Elementary for the 2023-2024 school year.
The district’s administrators spent more than a decade of building the CLOUDS program into what many considered to be a model program for integrating preschool students into a learning environment and bringing them up to speed with regard to basic academic skills so they take full advantage of the educational opportunities awaiting them in first grade, second grade and beyond, thoroughly familiarizing with how the State of California funds its public school system. Having learned how to tap into that generosity to be able to run legitimate programs aimed at targeting students of varying socioeconomic means and across the entire cognitive spectrum, those running the district eventually fell to manipulating the funding protocols to prioritize not furthering the education of the students the district was entrusted with but to bring substantial amounts of money into the district by enrolling more and more students into programs for which the state would provide augmentation funding whether or not the amalgam of students placed into those classes resulted in a beneficial learning environment or not, Jensen alleges.
In the case of the district’s CLOUDS program, according to Jensen, the teachers found themselves being overburdened with students across too wide of an age spectrum being intermixed in the classes, resulting in their focus and span of control being tested beyond the breaking point. This, Jensen says, resulted in the once successful educational atmosphere within the classes being ruined and student academic achievement plummeting.
As a consequence, according to Jensen, the Etiwanda School District disserves the special education students in its preschool program, exploits their special-needs status, and even tolerates the abuse of special education students in its pre-kindergarten programs. Continue reading →

Those manning crucial posts within San Bernardino County government have been thrown into a tizzy over reports, none of which could be confirmed at press time, that County Counsel Tom Bunton is on his way out as the county’s top in-house lawyer.
The office of county counsel is the county’s stable of staff attorneys. Bunton, who was formerly assistant county counsel with the County of San Diego, assumed the role of county counsel in San Bernardino county in January 2022.
In recent days and weeks there have been mixed signals emanating out of floors four and five of the county administrative building located at 385 North Arrowhead Avenue in downtown San Bernardino.
One indication was that Laura Feingold, who was elevated by Bunton to the position of chief assistant county counsel 16 months ago, will be sliding into the post which is yet officially held by Bunton.
Undergirding that were a series of developments this week relating to the board of supervisors and the office of county counsel.
The board this week, on Tuesday June 10, held its regularly scheduled meeting. It was next scheduled to meet on June 24. The board customarily holds its regularly scheduled meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month or, more rarely, the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Abruptly, however, after the close of normal business hours today, Friday, June 13, the June 24 meeting was canceled. Instead, announcement was given that the board would hold a specially called meeting next week, not on Tuesday but Wednesday June 18. Based upon the contents of the agenda, it appeared that the matters that would have been discussed and potentially voted upon at the June 24 meeting were going to be taken up at the June 18 meeting.
Of note is that the board of supervisors has no meetings scheduled for July, such that there will be a 48-day gap between the June 24 meeting and its next regularly scheduled meeting on August 5.
Placed on the agenda for a closed door executive session of the board to take place prior to the public portion of the June 18 meeting was an item worded thusly: Public Employee Appointment (Government Code section 54957) Title: County Counsel
That seemed to imply that a change in who will hold the position of county counsel is in the offing.
At a meeting of the board on April 1, the supervisors, in a closed session engaged in evaluations of the job performance of both Bunton and County Chief Executive Officer Luther Snoke. When the board emerged from that closed session, there was no report of any action taken. If an elected body takes action during a closed session, under the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open public meeting law, a report of that action is supposed to be made. In most jurisdictions in California, as is the case in San Bernardino County, the primary counsel for the agency – in this case, Bunton – makes that announcement. Since Bunton and Snoke were the subject of the evaluations, they were most likely not present during the April 1 closed session as is normally the case, although that is not publicly known to absolutely be the case. As there was no report out from the meeting, it is unknown, precisely whether Bunton was given a positive evaluation.
He has remained as county counsel in the intervening time. Nevertheless, rumors are extant within county governmental circles that Feingold’s stock is on the rise.
Bunton, at least until recently, was believed to have rock solid job security, given the amount of inside information – much of it potentially and actually damaging to the members of the board of supervisors – he is privy to.
From the outset of his time as county counsel, Bunton has been entrusted with a compendium of exceedingly sensitive information pertaining to how the county is run, places and occasions where its employees and both low and high officials have made mistakes, engaged in wrongdoing and/or misfeasance and malfeasance. Bunton has been present during virtually all closed door executive meetings of the board. In those sessions, in addition to Bunton providing the board with briefings relating to pending or ongoing litigation, real estate purchases or sales were discussed, negotiations for the sale or purchase of real estate took place, the job performance of key county staff members was evaluated, discussion of staff hirings, discipline and firings occurred and board members disclosed information or details with regard to action in which they were involved. The disclosures and information brought forth during these closed sessions are supposed to be held in the strictest confidence.
Very early in his tenure as county counsel, Bunton became aware that the district attorney’s office under District Attorney Jason Anderson had neglected to monitor the county’s real estate fraud prosecution program funding in violation of California Government Code § 27388. Around the same time, Bunton learned of a extortion scheme then-County Chief Executive Officer Leonard Hernandez was engaging in which he was withholding from disclosure information about bribe money being filtered to members of the board of supervisors. When press efforts to obtain documentation that would unmask the nature of the blackmailing that was ongoing, including Hernandez’s meeting calendar, through the California Public Records Act, Bunton choreographed county officials through the crisis by instructing them to simply brass it out and refuse to hand over the requested documentation.
When the county botched its emergency response to the 2023 arctic storm that blanketed the county’s mountain communities, which included the deaths of several individuals who were snowed in and isolated, Bunton shepherded the county out of harm’s way. When Russian mobsters hacked into the sheriff’s department’s computer and communication system, with the entire system rendered unusable and at risk, not to mention gigabytes of information relating to highly questionable actions by law enforcement officers now potentially at risk of discovery by the public at large, Bunton advised the county to accede to paying a $1.1 million ransom so the sheriff’s department could recover control of its database. When the county board of supervisors at last resolved to be rid of Hernandez as county chief executive officer, Bunton assisted in formulating a strategy to freeze him out of the county administrative suite while he was on vacation and then negotiated a $650,000 payout to keep him silent about the damaging information pertaining to the members of the board he had accumulated while he was running the county.
Bunton attended and graduated from Indiana State University Kelley School of Business with a four-year degree in 1988 and thereafter attended Georgetown University’s School of Law graduating in 1993. He practiced law in Indiana and passed the California Bar in 1997. He thereafter worked for the law firms of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and then Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in its San Diego Office before working as a litigator with Baker McKenzie for a short spell. He began as a senior deputy county counsel with San Diego County in September 2001, remaining in that post until 2016, when he promoted to chief deputy county counsel. In March 2019, he reached the number two position in that office as assistant county counsel.
As of right now, Bunton is being provided with an annual salary of $346,497.76, in addition to which he is provided with $27,354.34 in perquisites and pay add-ons and $150,505.54 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $524,357.64.
While Bunton’s departure from the graft encrusted San Bernardino County government has not been confirmed, those in the know say that by virtue of his having demonstrated skill in purchasing the silence of so many top tier county employees when they have made their exodus from the county, he should be able to wring from the taxpayers’ stewards no less for himself and can look forward to a payout of approaching $1 million to go quietly into the good night.

By Richard Hernandez
The diametric polarity of current American politics went manifest late last week and all of this week as the Donald Trump Administration’s promised policy of immigration enforcement began in earnest in Southern California, following a three-month abeyance.
As first reported previously in the Sentinel, the Trump Administration’s intention had been to initiate strict immigration enforcement in California as early as March by massive round-ups of undocumented aliens in both San Bernardino and Riverside counties with the cooperation of local authorities before having the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Homeland Security turn their attention to the far denser concentration of illegal aliens in Los Angeles County. The administration, however, at the last minute abandoned that plan when both San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco signaled they would not countenance having their respective departments assist federal officers in any action that would leave local residents distrustful of or uncooperative with law enforcement.
Accordingly, federal authorities instead regeared, making preparations, which were massive in scope, to undertake the removal, within the next two years, of an estimated 2.2 million illegal aliens from California. As a matter of practicality and simple math, that effort most logically would be centered in Los Angeles County, immediately adjacent to San Bernardino County.
The final brick in the edifice of “Operation Alta California,” scheduled to begin June 2, was put in place with the installation of Bill Essayli, temporarily pending confirmation by the Senate, as U.S. Attorney for Central California.
That schedule was met, with more than a dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency sweeps across Los Angeles on June 2, more than a score in Los Angeles County on June 3 and hundreds completed by June 6. Consequently, immigration enforcement was given a lesser emphasis in San Bernardino County in the same timeframe, though U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency agents were notably present in the cities of San Bernardino, Colton, Rialto and Ontario at that time.
Predictably the immigration sweeps quickly sparked national outrage from Democratic leaders in California and outside the state, the advocates for illegal immigrants and those who in general tout themselves as liberals and progressives. Many of those question the constitutionally and applicability of immigration law altogether. They believe the nation should have open borders. They believe the Trump Administration’s conception of law and order does not match their own. There are outspoken elements among them who consider Donald Trump to be a criminal and a racist and celebrate those in his administration as criminal and racist, as well.
The California legislature passed the California Values Act into law in 2017 with the approval of Senate Bill 54, asserting the enforcement of federal immigration law is contrary to the ethos of the Golden State. Together with the specific declarations by a multitude of California cities and a general declaration by the State of California that they are sanctuaries from federal immigration law, those in the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature and string of governors going back for more than a decade have demonstrated themselves to be of a mindset consider the enforcement of federal immigration law to be both immoral and impermissible. Among the minority of Democrats who support securing the borders and following immigration law, ones who acknowledge that the previous Joseph Biden Administration had not been aggressively enforcing immigration law, there is yet a belief that the Trump Administration is breaking the law and endangering the safety of people by the manner in which it is conducting the raids, most particularly when they are putting people into custody who are, in fact, legally registered, in the country legally or are citizens. They have emphasized that many or even most of those caught up in the Trump Administration’s immigration dragnet are hardworking people arrested while they were at work and trying to support their families through what the vast majority of Americans consider to be honest employment. The Trump Administration should reserve its enforcement firepower for concentrating on “true criminals,” in their view.
This clashes directly with the way those in the Trump Administration see it. They point out that federal law, which existed well prior to the advent of even the first Trump Administration, holds that for foreign nationals to enter into and remain in the United States, they must not only register their presence but be granted a visa or other form of permission to be in the country. Those failing to do so, or those who have snuck into the country, are in violation of the law, they maintain, and are criminals. As illegal aliens, they are subject to arrest and deportation, those in favor of the current enforcement effort believe. They point out that the raids are not targeting those immigrants who came into the U.S. through the legal process and complied with the word and spirit of the law, at what was for them tremendous expense and bother. Those migrants coming into the country illegally or overstaying the time limits on their visas are criminals, straight out and simple, they say, and those who are maintain that the enforcement of the law is wrong or racist or illegal are intellectually dishonest, plain stupid or criminals themselves.
By June 4, there were massive shows of public resistance to the raids. Massive protests seemed to be materializing in the areas where workplace arrests were taking place or near federal buildings. The mystery about how this was taking place was cleared up when it was revealed that community groups advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants were using their own self-styled Rapid Response Network, which employs a succession of hotline via phone numbers those in Southern California are able to call to report sightings of federal officers, primarily ICE officers. Those managing the hotline then relay word to hundreds, indeed thousands, of activists with whom they are affiliated through cell phone contact, giving precise instructions and directions to where ICE is setting up or involved in actions.
Crowds got in the way of several ICE operations. In some instances, riot conditions took place or were on the brink of manifesting. Looting of some businesses in those areas occurred. Cars and then a fleet of delivery vans owned by one company were overturned and/or set afire.
On June 6, David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California. was arrested during a demonstration against ICE action at a workplace in downtown Los Angeles when he reported became physical, assaulting a law enforcement officer while smashing a gate screaming profanities in the direction of officers.
U.S. Attorney Essayli charged Huerta with conspiracy to impede an officer, a felony under federal law with a potential punishment of up to six years in prison.
Simultaneously, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, having learned of the Rapid Response Network, began exploring the possibilities that its use constituted a violation of the federal wire fraud statute and represented a device used in an act of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Essayli’s office made clear that if protesters are brought to the scene of an ICE raid where a legally-issued search warrant is being served and activists swarming around the agents or their vehicles in an effort to impede them, the FBI and federal marshals on hand are authorized to arrest them and the U.S. Attorney’s Office intends to pursue charges against them.
While the Democrats and advocates for the illegal aliens maintained that the Trump Administration was overreacting and taking the enforcement of immigration law too seriously, there were plenty of others who believe the protesters had overreacted to the Trump Administration initiative in California. That overreaction resulted in what may prove to be a critical defection, indeed set of defections, from the illegal alien support network in California.
Previously, there was a strong and seemingly unbridgeable divide between, on one hand, the federal government and its employees and agents looking to enforce immigration law and, on the other hand, California State and local officials ready to defy federal law. The California Values Act and the declarations by California cities that they were sanctuaries from federal law, along with the statements of law enforcement stalwarts such as Dicus and Bianco that they would side with Sacramento rather than Washington, D.C. when it came to rounding up illegal aliens left little prospect that the federal agents could count on support in their mission. As early as June 4, however, LAPD officers were reporting that people in the crowds at the protests where they had come to ensure peaceful demonstrations could take place were throwing bricks, rocks, flaming projectiles, Molotov cocktails, concrete, M-80s and quarter sticks of dynamite their way.
The 101 Freeway was twice shut down Sunday, June 8, when protesters on an overpass threw rocks, debris, and M-80 explosives at California Highway Patrol officers and vehicles below them.
By June 5 Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, was promulgating that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were conducting operations at schools, hospital emergency rooms and homeless shelters.
The Department of Homeland Security immediately responded, calling what Bass had said, “blatantly false,” and challenging the mayor to provide proof to support her assertion and identify the source of her information. When Bass was unable to identify any schools, hospitals or homeless shelter where either the Department of Homeland Security or ICE had carried out operations, Bass retracted her statement and a member of her staff said she had relied on information pertaining to the illegal alien roundups posed through the Rapid Response Network. This intensified Essayli’s scrutiny of the Rapid Response Network.
True to precedent, other California Democrat politicians were inserting themselves into the controversy, lodging protests against the enforcement of the law in ways that skirted lesser laws relating to maintaining the public peace. Once again, depending on which side of the political divide the observer is on, those politicians came across as noble crusaders on behalf of illegal immigration or scofflaws themselves.
Congresswoman Norma Torres, who represents California’s 35th Congressional District, which includes the southwestern extension of San Bernardino County, was among, she said, a four-member “peaceful Congressional delegation oversight visit to the Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on June 7, 2025… to observe and bear witness to the conditions and treatment of individuals in federal immigration custody. The visit was prompted by reports of violent encounters involving ICE agents and unidentified bystanders during raids at multiple locations in Los Angeles County, as well as reports of dangerous overcrowding at the facility.”
According to Torres, she and the other three members of Congress arrived at the Roybal Building at 8:30 am and “requested an invitation to enter and be given a briefing. At no point did we request entry for anyone other than members, and we clearly displayed our Congressional Member identification. Rather than accommodating the request, as required under law, we were denied access to the facility under a false pretext. Contrary to ICE’s public claim that over 1,000 protesters were present, this was a small, peaceful delegation.”
Torres maintains that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a “false characterization” of the circumstances surrounding the visit “designed to justify the dangerous and unjustified deployment of chemical agents against elected officials and other non-violent participants. We were a delegation of approximately fifteen individuals, including Members of Congress, legal counsel, congressional staff, media, and representatives from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN).”
As a consequence of being subjected to the use of tear gas that was employed to get the crowd to back off, Torres maintains, “I was admitted to the emergency room for respiratory treatment, observation, and now must take medication.”
During the course of the delegation’s visit to the Roybal Building, Torres said, she learned that the federal officials responsible for the incarceration of the illegal aliens at the Roybal building spurned the efforts by some of those arrestees family members to provide them with medication and that ICE has not updated the database charting those prisoners in federal custody with the names of those arrested during the Los Angeles immigration raids.
She further asserted that ICE denying the Congressional delegation’s access to the Roybal facility was a violation of federal law granting members of Congress access to federal detention facilities.
It was, however, the position of Todd Lyon, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Essayli, that Torres, the other Congress members and their entire party, by showing up unannounced at the Roybal Building, were in potential violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)) 18 U.S.C. § 1512(d)) and 18 U.S.C. § 371. Essayli is weighing the filing of charges against all 15, depending upon the identification of the 11 individuals accompanying the Congress members and what action the Congress members are to take in their official capacity with regard to the immigration enforcement effort and the events of June 7.
Similarly, five days later, on June 12, as the Trump Administration’s Director of Home Security Kristi Noem was addressing members of the media in a restricted, by-invitation only press conference at the Westwood Federal Building in Los Angeles, the senior Democratic U.S. Senator from California Alex Padilla, an indefatigable advocate for illegal aliens, attempted to interrupt her presentation, triggering a response from Noem’s security detail, which included FBI agents, ICE agents, agents with the Department of Homeland Security, at least two members of the Secret Service and a U.S. Marshal.
The Sentinel has learned that Padilla, in his capacity as a senator, was meeting that morning at the Westwood Federal Building with General Gregory M. Guillot the head of the United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Known by its acronym USNORTHCOM, which conducts homeland defense, civil support and security cooperation with elements outside the federal government, including U.S. state officials and foreign governments and entities. While engaged with Guillot, one of Padilla’s staff members learned that Noem was giving a presentation in the building. Padilla, who with members of his staff had already gone through a security check including a metal detector to get into the Westwood Federal Building, cut short his exchange with Guillot and was led by an FBI agent to the room where Noem was engaged with several members of the media and local government agents in a presentation relating to the goals of the current immigration enforcement efforts in California. He was allowed into the presentation despite not having an invitation, on the basis of his being escorted into the conference by an FBI agent.
Padilla took up a place along a wall with others there. Noem, in providing a description of the rationale and parameters of the California operation, which at that point was centered in Los Angeles, was making the point that the enforcement activity was being handled unilaterally by federal employees and over the passive resistance of state and local officials. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE were attempting, Noem said to “liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that the governor and the mayor have placed on this country.”
That was too much for Padilla, who moved away from next to the wall, stepping past a photographer positioned to have an unobstructed angle on the secretary, and interrupted Noem, speaking over her to say, “I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary.”
As two Secret Service agents reacted to rush toward him, Padilla paused and continued, “The fact of the matter is that…”
The first of the Secret Service agents reached the Senator, commanding, “Sir, hands up.”
Padilla continued, saying, “…half a dozen violent criminals that you’re rotating on your…”
The second Secret Agent joined the first in restraining Padilla. Padilla sought to continue with his statement, uttering merely “…on your…” At that point, the agents, joined by a federal marshal, forced Padilla toward the hallway.
It was unclear whether Padilla’s reference to the half dozen violent criminals was to those arrested by ICE or members of the Trump Administration with whom Padilla has philosophical and political differences.
A member of Padilla’s staff, armed with a cellphone camera, caught Noem’s statements from the time they had come into the room on video and continued to video his boss in his effort to engage Noem and the aftermath, as he was moved out into the hallway, where he was first forced his knees, then to his chest, while his arms were handcuffed behind him.
Upon Padilla’s removal from the room, Noem continued with the theme of here presentation, stating that the Trump Administration had continued with its game plan. Despite political and media resistance and that the federal agents conducting the raids had been “doxxed from doing their duty… have been targeted and their families have been put in jeopardy.”
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Democrats, liberals and advocates for illegal immigrants lionized Padilla, while Republicans and supporters of the Trump Administration’s immigration policy demonized him.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung characterized Padilla as “a complete lunatic,” which he said was documented in the video of Padilla’s “freakout.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom said Padilla’s arrest was “outrageous, dictatorial and shameful,” while offering his opinion that “Trump and his shock troops are out of control.”
Padilla was disturbed by Newsom using the term “arrest” in reference to him. Fearing the governor’s citation of his criminal or arrest record might prove difficult in future campaigns, he hastened to point out that he had not been arrested but rather “detained.”
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Security Secretary, second only to Noem in the department, today said, “Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem,” Even if Padilla did not represented an actual threat to Noem, McLaughlin said, the Secret Service and FBI agents and U.S. Marshals in the room had no way of knowing that and Padilla exacerbated the situation after he “was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said federal agents had “shoved and cuffed a sitting U.S. senator… and he is not just any senator. He is the first Latino citizen senator to ever represent our state. How do you not recognize one of two senators in our state?”
Bass suggested that Padilla’s status as a sitting U.S. Senator gave him license to interrupt Noem’s press conference.
Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican, disputed that, saying that Padilla’s action merited arrest.
California’s junior senator, Adam Schiff, a Democrat, said the manner in which the federal agents in the Westwood Building reacted to Padilla was “disgraceful and disrespectful.” According to Schiff, Padilla “represents the best of the Senate.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson pointed out that Padilla was looking to provoke a reaction and perhaps even get arrested, doing so with one of his staff members videotaping what occurred so it could become a major media event.
“Padilla stormed a press conference without wearing his Senate pin or previously identifying himself to security, yelled and lunged toward Secretary Noem,” Jackson said. “Padilla didn’t want answers; he wanted attention. Padilla embarrassed himself and his constituents with this immature, theater-kid stunt, but it’s telling that Democrats are more riled up about Padilla than they are about the violent riots and assaults on law enforcement in LA.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called the treatment Padilla received “despicable. It’s disgusting, It is so un-American. We need answers immediately.”
The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said that Congress should consider censuring Padilla over the way he conducted himself at the Los Angeles press conference.
Senator Ben Ray Lujan a Democrat from New Mexico, saw Padilla as a man of virtue and the hero in what had unfolded on Thursday and Noem as the villain. Noem, Lujan said, “should step down.”
Meanwhile, the border between Alta California and Baja California is more secure than it has been since General Patton departed California for Operation Torch in North Africa in 1942.
Meanwhile the left is orchestrating protests in the streets of Los Angeles that are virtually indistinguishable from riots. Simultaneously, Democrats are gearing up to prevent the confirmation of Essayli as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.

A cross section of Southern California’s leading Democrats are spearheading an effort to prevent the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Bill Essayli as the U.S. attorney for Central California.
Essayli, a former California Assemblyman and the one-time chief of staff to former San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia, while establishing himself as a rock solid conservative Republican committed to tough ideological struggles in the face of overwhelming liberal opposition, is vehemently at odds with California’s predominant Democrats.
He was twice, in 2022 and 2024, chosen by the voters in the 63rd Assembly District to represent them, but was thwarted throughout his more than 25 months in office by the Democrats, who hold supermajorities in both of California’s legislative houses, from getting any of the bills he authored out of committee. In April, when President Donald Trump nominated him to be the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California incorporating Orange, Riverside Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, Essayli resigned from the Assembly to accept the post.
Essayli went instantaneously from being an outcast in California’s lower legislative house to one of the most prestigious posts within the U.S. Justice System. California’s Central District is the most populous such judicial jurisdiction in the country, with almost 20 million people living within its confines. As U.S. Attorney, he supervises 263 lawyers and the complete support staff the offices entail in their work at the four federal courthouses located in Los Angeles along with the courthouses in Riverside, Santa Ana, Pasadena, Woodland Hills, and Santa Barbara.
While Essayli has been temporarily installed under 28 U.S.C. § 546, he is subject to being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The Democratic Party enjoys dominance in California and in a handful of states, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and Oregon. Nevertheless, following the 2024 election it lost the White House and is the minority party in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Elements within the Democratic Party, however, remain determined to use whatever power remains to them to hold the Trump Administration in check.
Essayli served as an intern in the White House Counsel’s Office during the George W. Bush Administration and during the Obama Administration was hired as a deputy prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. While Obama was yet president, he became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, remaining in that capacity while working out of both the Los Angeles and Riverside offices from October 2014 to February 2018. In that role, he was part of the team of prosecutors who prosecuted or pursued action with regard to Enrique Marquez Jr., Raheel Farook, Tatiana Farook, and Mariya Chernykh for the assistance they rendered Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in carrying out the 2015 terrorist attack in San Berardino.
Essayli ran unsuccessfully for the California Assembly in 2018 against incumbent Democrat Sabrina Cervantes, who has since moved on to the California Senate, prior to his 2022 political comeback. He has long been perceived by the Democrats as an acerbic mouthpiece of the Republican opposition. Very early on in his tenure in the Assembly, the Democrats united in an effort to block virtually all of his legislation, using various means of preventing the bills he had authored from reaching the Assembly floor for a vote. By 2024, when he was seeking reelection, the Democrats, having thwarted all of his legislative attempts, then utilized their undercutting of him to caricaturize him as a lawmaker who had never authored a law. Despite that, he was reelected.
Shortly after Essayli was nominated to the U.S. attorney’s slot, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, acutely conscious of the hostility his party had exhibited toward Essayli in the past and concerned about the hostility his party might have engendered in Essayli going forward remarked that the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California “was powerless in the Assembly, and is using his Trump-bestowed job to settle scores.”
The campaign to defang Essayli has now evolved into an effort to prevent him from remaining for a full term as U.S. Attorney.
A website put together by Democratic Party activists, stopessayli.org, is the cornerstone of the effort to prevent Essayli’s confirmation in the U.S. Senate.
The website calls upon those who have reached it to “Stop Essayli. Protect Children. Defend Democracy.”
It states “Bill Essayli poses a clear and present danger to LGBTQ+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer plus] youth, immigrant communities, our environment, labor leaders, and the impartial administration of justice. Since being appointed interim U.S. Attorney, Essayli has weaponized the office for political gain—overturning a jury conviction of a sheriff’s deputy found guilty of excessive force, targeting SEIU [Service Employees International Union] California President David Huerta for standing with workers, politicizing the horrific Palm Springs bombings, and threatening local officials in Santa Ana with criminal prosecution for protecting immigrant communities. As Speaker Rivas put it, his “abuse of position is the mark of a small and petty man. Join us in mobilizing Californians to block his nomination.”
Claiming to be “backed by Californians who believe in real justice,” the website’s creators further maintain they are “supported by immigrant rights advocates, parents of LGBTQ+ youth, military veterans, legal experts, and thousands of concerned citizens. This growing coalition is united around a simple belief: people like Bill Essayli have no business occupying the US Attorney’s office.”
In addition to appealing to those advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants, those embracing alternative lifestyles; unionists, Democrats in general, those in favor of Essayli’s removal as the temporary U.S. Attorney and preventing his confirmation as permanent U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California also called upon environmentalists to join with them, maintaining he is “blocking regulators from reducing pollution in our environment on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.”
The website’s organizers call for those sharing their distaste for Essayli to email both of California’s U.S. Senators – senior senator, Alex Padilla, and junior senator, Adam Schiff – to ask them to oppose Essayli’s permanent appointment as U.S. attorney; to phone Padilla and Schiff in seeking the same outcome; to submit letters to newspapers advocating the U.S. Senate reject his appointment; to sign a petition being circulated that opposes Essayli’s appointment; to donate money to the effort to prevent his appointment; and to, on their own, get the word out that Essayli is a general no-goodnik.
Those seeking to block Essayli’s appointment have lambasted him as “a right-wing extremist.”
An examination of those militating against him, however, demonstrates that the “extremist” label is as applicable to them as to him, albeit from the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Two of Essayli’s positions with regard to issues that are featured in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and liberals along with Republican and Democrats – transsexual rights and illegal immigration – while hewing to the conservative/Republican side of the polemic, appear nonetheless less radical than what is being advocated by his avowed opponents.
Essayli appears to have gotten the goat of transsexual right advocates by his efforts, while in the Assembly, to bring forward two pieces of legislation, one, Assembly Bill 89, that would have required the California Interscholastic Federation to change its policies and prohibit an athlete who was male at birth from participating in a girls’ interscholastic sports team, and Assembly Bill 1314, which would give schools three days to notify parents in writing once a school employee learns a student is identifying as a gender that doesn’t align with their birth certificate or other official records. Both efforts came to naught in the Assembly, but he managed to raise awareness about the widespread acceptance of transgenderism in school districts throughout California, which in turn spawned policy changes within a number of school districts relating to parental notification when students have assumed a gender identity different than the one assigned them at birth. This resulted in legal challenges which were, in essence ultimately turned back and legislation giving students leeway to hide their gender reidentification from their parents, which is now being subject to legal challenge.
The degree to which Essayli is identified by the transsexual rights camp as an effective bulwark against their advocacy is evident in the website seeking his rejection as U.S. Attorney. In seeking to illustrate that Essayli represents “a clear and present danger to LGBTQ+ youth,” the website cites the somewhat dubious statistic that at present nearly 800,000 of the roughly 5.8 million kindergarten to 12th grade students enrolled in California’s public schools at present are transsexuals.
The website openly declared that there were “796,000+ Californian schoolchildren that Essayli would have ‘outed’ if his bill succeeded in the state legislature.”

Similarly, advocates for undocumented immigrants have an especial loathing for Essayli because of his family history.
In 1981, Essayli’s Lebanese parents were living in their native country in 1981, when fighting between Lebanese Christian militias and Palestinian insurgents intensified. The following year, the skirmishing erupted into a full-blown war, with forces that included the Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims, pan-Arabists, and leftists, backed by Syria and Iran, taking on the Christians, who had formed an alliance with Israel.
In 1983 the war moved on into the county’s mountain region and became general throughout the country. In October 1983, 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French military personnel along with six civilians were killed when two Islamic militants drove an explosive filled truck into the Marine compound in Beirut and detonated it.
At that time, despite the general circumstance in Lebanon, Essayli’s parents were able to leave the county and emigrate – legally – to the United States. This came despite their Islamic religious affiliation. That they, despite the circumstances pertaining to their status and the general atmosphere in the country at that time adhered to U.S. immigration law, in the minds of many, including Essayli’s opponents, confers on him a degree of moral authority in the enforcement of immigration law. For that reason, advocates of open borders, laissez faire immigration law enforcement, liberals and Democrats in general are seeking to prevent Essayli from becoming the permanent U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, where the enforcement of immigration law is a major engagement.
In his short time as U.S. Attorney, he has facilitated the Trump Administration’s “Operation Alta California” immigration law enforcement campaign, which was initiated in earnest on June 2. That has included obtaining search and operation warrants for those suspected of being in the country illegally or workplaces and other settings in which large numbers of undocumented aliens or illegal immigrants are or were believed to be congregating, as well as processing the deportation paperwork for thousands of foreign nationals living in Southern California who failed to comply with the requirement that they register as being present on U.S. soil and obtain visas or permission to remain as legal residents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office under Essayli has extended that support of Operation Alta California to include prosecuting those who have interfered with Immigration and Naturalization Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or Department of Homeland Security agents or obstructed the operations they were carrying out.
On June 6, David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, was arrested during a demonstration against Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency action at a workplace in downtown Los Angeles when he reportedly smashed a gate, assaulted a law enforcement officer while screaming profanities and using language likely to provoke violence.
Essayli, in his capacity as U.S. Attorney charged Huerta with conspiracy to impede an officer, a felony under federal law.
Though undoubtedly in Democratic-dominated California Essayli’s support of the Trump Administration with regard to immigration enforcement is decidedly unpopular, there are yet huge swathes of the population in California who look upon the enforcement of immigration law in a favorable light. Simultaneously, those people view the courage being exhibited by those, such as Essayli, in making that enforcement effort in a positive light. As one major landowner in San Bernardino County, who had witnessed the chaos and destructive riots that grew out of the anti-immigration enforcement protests last week in Los Angeles County put it, “You can’t take issue with holding goons who enjoy the benefit of city improvements destroying those improvements accountable.”
More pointedly, it does not appear that those trying to block Essayli’s permanent nomination, even if they can get Padilla and Schiff to go along with them, have the overall political muscle needed in the forum – the U.S. Senate – to achieve their goal.

The death of three people killed on Tuesday morning, June 10, when a motorcycle being pursued by sheriff’s deputies slammed into a vehicle in Redlands has reinitiated discussion on what limits should be imposed on law enforcement officers seeking to chase down fleeing suspects.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies attempted a traffic stop on a motorcycle being driven by a man later identified as Justin Sutton. The 26-year-old Sutton was, according to the department, operating the motorcycle in a reckless manner.
Sutton failed to yield, accelerating away from the sheriff’s patrol car. Blasting into the Redlands Boulevard/Tennessee Street intersection at an estimated 80 miles per hour, Sutton’s motorcycle collided with Toyota Prius being driven by 56-year-old Kenneth Stein. The force of the collision caused the Prius to roll over.
Sutton was killed instantly, while Stein died at the scene. Severely injured was the passenger in the Prius, 86-year-old Lorettaa Frug Stein. She was transferred to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where she, too, expired.
There has been a rash of either traffic collisions or vehicles leaving the roadway and/or hitting poles or structures as a result of police pursuits. On March 17, San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff Hector Cuevas Jr. was killed when his patrol car clipped another vehicle while he was in pursuit of a stolen vehicle in Victorville and then careened into a pole at the side the road.
On March 27, Clarissa Cano of Chino was killed in the intersection of Mountain and Walnut avenues when a suspect being pursued by officers with the Ontario Police Department crashed into her car.
A handful of San Bernardino County residents and public officials have approached state officials in Sacramento with proposals that cut two ways, one of which is to enhance the penalties and punishment for anyone fleeing from law enforcement and the other calling for tightening regulations with regard to when officers light out in their vehicles after suspects who are driving a motor vehicle.
At present, law enforcement officers have wide discretion with regard to whether to initiate and continue a vehicular pursuit, and they enjoy freed from liability for engaging in a chase, no matter the outcome, as long as certain criteria and conditions are met. Under Penal Code § 13519.8 and Vehicle Code § 17004.7 peace officers qualify for immunity with regard to any untoward outcomes of a vehicle pursuit if they have received, on an annual basis, training, consisting of a class of at least one hour’s durations with regard to vehicle safety, operation, and tactics; their particular agency’s vehicle pursuit policy; assessing risk, dangers, and conditions relating to chases; public safety; officer safety; the importance of balancing the known offense and need for apprehension against the risks to officers and the public; consideration of law enforcement vehicle pursuit issues; when to initiate a pursuit; the number of involved law enforcement units permitted; responsibilities of primary and secondary law enforcement; driving tactics; helicopter assistance; communications; capture of suspects; termination of a pursuit; supervisory responsibilities; blocking, ramming, boxing, and roadblock procedures; speed limits; inter-jurisdictional considerations; conditions of the vehicle, driver, roadway, weather, and traffic; hazards to uninvolved bystanders or motorists; and reporting and post pursuit analysis.
The state of California requires law enforcement agencies to provide all peace officers employed by them with a copy of the agency pursuit policy.
According to the California Law Enforcement Vehicle Pursuit Guidelines put out by the Commission Peace Officers Standards and Training, “If the threat to public or officer safety is greater than the need for immediately apprehending the suspect, then the pursuit should not be initiated or it should be terminated.”
Officers are instructed to take into consideration the “the apparent need for immediate capture balanced against the risks to peace officers, innocent motorists, and others to protect the public; [whether there are] passenger[s] in the officer’s vehicle (e.g., citizen, witness, prisoner); [whether there are] other persons in or on pursued vehicle (e.g., passengers, minors, co-offenders, hostages); vehicular or pedestrian traffic safety and volume; the location of the pursuit (e.g., school zone, playground, residential, downtown, jurisdiction, interstate, divided highway, work zone); dangerous driving of the suspect that creates an unreasonable risk to the public; known or suspected impairment (if any) of the suspect; the time of day, weather, lighting, visibility, and environmental conditions; the road conditions and configuration (e.g., interstate, divided highway, work zone, etc.); [whether the ] suspect may be safely apprehended at a later time (e.g., suspect has been identified); the performance capabilities of law enforcement vehicle(s) and the vehicle being pursued; and the availability (time and distance) of additional resources (e.g., air support, ground units, tagging/tracking capability).”
In the year 2024, police chases and other activity orchestrated by law enforcement throughout the United States led to 692 fatalities across various categories. Among those killed were 303 drivers pursued by police; 59 motorcyclists being pursued by police; 173 uninvolved bystanders, who were struck and killed in crashes caused by police pursuits; 105 passengers riding in the vehicles being pursued by police; 60 pedestrians fatally hit by either police vehicles or vehicles fleeing from law enforcement; and 25 motorists killed in collisions with police vehicles.
The Redlands Police Department by press time was unable to account for the number o police pursuits in its jurisdiction in 2024. No such data regarding sheriff’s department pursuits in San Bernardino County in 2024 is currently available.
According to the Chino Police Department, it has a policy of restricting police chases to situations in which the need to apprehend a suspect clearly outweighs the danger posed to the public and the officers involved. Chino PD engaged in 23 nonfatal police chases in 2024.
Statewide in California From 2006 to 2020, 476 persons died in the state during pursuits, including 281 drivers fleeing from officers and 94 passengers. During the same period, chases resulted in the deaths of 91 innocent bystanders and 10 officers. In 2020, the deadliest year for chases involving law enforcement in the Golden State since 2006, 41 people died in police pursuits.