With the arrival of summer nearing, lower downs in the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are complying with orders from higher ups to get aggressive with the county’s homeless population in an effort to induce them to leave for places elsewhere.
Around the county, the destitute tend to congregate and set up living quarters on sidewalks, in parks, alleyways, in the Mojave River, Santa Ana River or Lytle Creek riverbeds or around them, under railroad trestles or freeway overpasses, hidden in the spreads of chaparral that are a feature of much of the undeveloped land locally or within the landscaping along freeways or state highways.
Since late May, the sheriff’s department, which serves as the contract police department in Rancho Cucamonga, has vectored its deputies, working in conjunction with the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, to remove homeless individuals subsisting in encampments. Over the past several weeks, the department received information regarding two such makeshift living arrangements located near the Interstate 15 Freeway’s intersection with Foothill Boulevard and Arrow Route. Continue reading →

On June 12, the Yucaipa City Council signed off on its 57,766-population city’s 2024-25 spending plan, which is to entail $7.3 million less in revenue than expenditures in its two operating budgets.
This is the second year in a row that the city is engaging in deficit spending. The revenue shortfall is to be made up by drawing funds out of the city’s reserves.
According to Phil White, Yucaipa’s director of finance, it is anticipated that approximately $35.7 million will flow into the city’s general fund from all external sources in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024 and ending June 30, 2025. Over the same 12 months, there will be $40.1 million in expenditures from the general fund. “The net of these budgetary flows is a general fund deficit of $4.4 million,” White stated.
The other category contained in Yucaipa’s operations budget is its public safety fund. This coming year, the public safety fund is projected to make total outlays of $23.5 million. Of that, $13.6 million is to be consumed by making good on the city’s contract with San Bernardino County for the law enforcement services of the sheriff’s department, which serves as the city police department in Yucaipa, as is the case with 13 other county municipalities, those being Adelanto, Apple Valley, Big Bear Lake, Chino Hills, Grand Terrace, Hesperia, Highland, Loma Linda, Needles, Rancho Cucamonga, Twentynine Palms, Victorville and Yucca Valley. The city contracts with the California Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, known by its acronym, CalFire, for both fire protection and paramedic services. Yucaipa is due to pay CalFire $5.3 million for fire protection services and $2.1 million for paramedic services. Included in the inflows to the public safety fund is a transfer from the city’s fire fund. While by set arrangment, the public safety fund is balance by the same amount of money being put into it on a yearly basis as it taken out, to do that this year requires a transfer of $2.9 million from the city’s fire fund. That $2.9 transfer is logged as an unfunded payment. Continue reading →

Corie Smith, the former sheriff’s deputy who was presented with two lifesaving awards in 2020 but whose law enforcement career ended in ignominy the following year when he was caught on video kicking a prone and surrendering suspect in the head, this week successfully concluded his and his legal team’s three-year battle to keep him from being labeled a felon.
Smith’s trial on the charge begun on April 29 before Judge Ingrid Uhler with Deputy District Attorney Melissa Emperatriz-Rivera prosecuting the matter and Smith represented by attorneys Michael Selyem and Kasey Castillo. Evidence was presented and testimony heard on April 30, May 1, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, with deliberations beginning on May 30 and continuing on June 3 and 4.
At three junctures the panel took a vote as to where it stood. The first time, jurors were evenly split, 6-to-6 for acquittal and conviction; the second time 7-to-5 for acquittal and, on June 4, 7-to-5 for conviction.
At that point, Judge Uhler declared a mistrial and scheduled a hearing on June 7 in order to begin preparations for a retrial.
During the trial, on May 14, Selyem and Castillo brought a PC1118.1 motion, based on the presentation of testimony and evidence to that point which they said clearly demonstrated there was insufficient evidence before the court to sustain a conviction, such that the case should not be submitted to the jury for a decision and an acquittal should be entered. Judge Uhler denied the motion. On June 7, Emperatriz-Rivera came to court, prepared to request the court’s permission to retry the case. At that point, however, Judge Uhler, apparently on the basis of the jury’s failure to reach a verdict and the May 14 PC1118.1 motion, over Emperatriz Rivera’s objection dismissed the case against Smith. Continue reading →

Less than a month after the California Political Fair Practices Commission put in place what it represented as final preparations to impose on Adelanto City Councilman Daniel Ramos one of the largest penalty assessments ever made against a local officeholder, the councilman has apparently begun negotiations with the state’s official political watchdog agency over how to cure the reporting violations he has amassed over the last six years.
According to the May 16, 2024 agenda for the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), Ramos, who is currently Adelanto’s mayor pro tem, despite numerous notifications and posted requests that he do so, had not submitted campaign fund accounting paperwork for his unsuccessful 2018 campaign for the Victorville City Council and he had further repeatedly failed to provide an accounting of his victorious 2020 campaign for the Adelanto City Council.
All told, it is estimated that Ramos collected and then spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $57,000 on both of those electoral efforts. An exact figure is not available because he has not filed the State Form 460 documents used to itemized donations to, expenditures from, loans to and from and nonmonetary contribution or in-kind payments relating to, his electioneering efforts. Continue reading →

A Devore man has been arrested on suspicion of having planted a bomb in a Rancho Cucamonga residential neighborhood.
On June 3, 2024, at 4:36 PM, deputies from the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department responded the 9300 block of Lomita Drive regarding reports of a suspicious device near the roadway. Residents nearby were evacuated as a precaution. The San Bernardino Sheriff’s arson/bomb detail responded and the explosive device was disarmed and removed.
Residents in the evacuated area were allowed back into their homes at about 10:20 p.m.
Through investigation, Detective Derek Brandt identified the suspect responsible for having planted the device as Brian Carreon, a convicted felon, and believes Carreon is responsible for placing the explosive device at the location.
On June 7, 2024, Carreon, 52 of Devore, was arrested for Penal Code 18715, possession of explosives in public. A search warrant at Carreon’s residence in Devore revealed chemicals and materials consistent with making explosive devices. Chemicals known to manufacture methamphetamine, a stolen firearm, and ammunition were also found. Additional felony charges have been recommended to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.