San Bernardino Councilwoman Treasure Ortiz on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the City of San Bernardino, the union representing its police officers and five former city employees in Riverside Federal Court, alleging members of the San Bernardino Police Department used federal, state and local databases that are restricted to law enforcement activity for political purposes in an effort to prevent her 2024 election.
Ortiz was elected to represent San Bernardino’s 7th Ward on the city council in 2024, capturing the top spot but less than a majority of the vote in that year’s March primary when she outpolled the incumbent, Damon Alexander, and former City Attorney Jim Penman. Ortiz then prevailed in the November 2024 run-off against Penman, capturing 3,929 votes of 55.78 percent to Penman’s 3,115 votes or 44.22 percent.
Ortiz previously competed, unsuccessfully, for mayor in 2022, finishing fourth in a field of &,7, and came up short in 2019 when she ran to represent the city’s 3rd Ward. Those followed her unsuccessful bid in 2018 to obtain appointment to replace James Ramos as San Bernardino County Third District supervisor following his election to the California Assembly.
Ortiz’s long-recognized political ambition has gone hand-in-hand with her criticism of the governmental and political establishment, characterized by her acerbic observations about the integrity and wisdom of various officeholders and high-ranking governmental staff.
Ortiz’s approach has had the effect of uniting sitting politicians and certain interest groups against her, in some cases consisting of unlikely coalitions of incumbent politicians who were not previously aligned or affiliated and in some cases rivals themselves, based primarily upon their common enmity toward her.
In some cases, these malleable alliances have engaged in pointed efforts to neutralize or discredit her.
According to Ortiz, there was a showing of determination to keep her out of office during the 2024 election season that crossed the legal line, which involved the accessing and public dissemination of confidential and sequestered information from government files that are maintained for identification and specified investigative purposes.
Ortiz maintains that in 2023 her intention to seek election in the 7th Ward was generally known in San Bernardino and that a consensus had formed among the members of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association and the San Bernardino Police Officers Management Association to support Jim Penman in his run for the 7th Ward post. In an effort to derail her candidacy, Ortiz maintains, the union utilized the a data base at the police department’s disposal – the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System – to retrieve information pertaining to a 9-1-1 call for assistance reporting domestic abuse in progress she had made in 2006, when she was 23 years old. The San Bernardino Police Officers Association, the union representing police officers below the command level, on October 25, 2023 sent a survey to 7th Ward residents seeking to determine if the consideration that Ortiz “has been arrested for domestic violence and was terminated from employment” would impact whom they would support in the 7th Ward race.
It is Ortiz’s contention that neither insinuation contained in the survey – that she had been fired or that she had been arrested for domestic violence – was true. The disingenuous implying that she had been arrested for domestic violence, according to Ortiz, was based on the 2006 distress phone call, which was illegally obtained by the police union.
The California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known by its acronym, CLETS, and JDIC, the Justice Data Interface Controller maintained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Central Name Index, maintained by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, NCIC, the National Crime Information Center maintained by the FBI and NLETS, theNational Law Enforcement Telecommunications System maintained by a consortium of law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. terretories are database and information retrieval systems available to law enforcement agencies that are interlinked and intended to provide information relating to actual or suspected criminal activities, crime reports, incident reports, suspects, arrestees, those convicted of crimes, victims and witnesses. Use of and access to the system is supposed to be limited to law enforcement agencies and their officers who are engaged in legitimate law enforcement activity and investigations.
It is Ortiz’s contention that the police union acted improperly and illicitly in accessing the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System and applying that information in a falsified context to derive the October 2023 “survey,” which was a poorly-disguised political attack piece targeting her.
She met with Penmen on November 8, 2023, at which time, she maintains, Penman endeavored to persuade her to drop out of the contest against Alexander, telling her that the San Bernardino Police Officers Association was planning to carry out a relentless attack on her if she remained as a candidate.
In 2024, after Alexander had finished in third in the primary election and while she and Penmen were vying against one another in the November run-off, according to Ortiz, she addressed her concerns that the department was engaging in impermissible political activity to Police Chief Darren Goodman, who initially was unable to find any indication of the department conducting a CLETS search relating to Ortiz. In August 2024, less than three months before the election, according to Ortiz, Goodman found evidence that the department/police union had indeed run a search on Ortiz through the CLETS system, having done so earlier than previously thought, that being in 2020. Goodman told Ortiz and one of her political supporters, Scott Beard, that his examination of the department’s CLETS access history indicated that Detective Steve Desrochers, who had been the president of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association from 2016 until 2018 and had also served in the capacity of union vice president, had been the individual officer with the department who had accessed the CLETS file relating to Ortiz. Goodman told Ortiz and Beard that there was no conceivable legitimate law enforcement operational justification for the department accessing Ortiz’s file.
Ortiz was elected in November and on on March 28, 2025, more than three months after having been sworn in to office, she filed a $2 million claim against the city over the police department’s access if the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to obtain information relating to her and the application of that data in the campaign against her. The San Bernardino City Council rejected that claim on May 5, 2025.
In making that rejection, the city claimed Desrochers had done nothing untoward, wrong or illegal.
“The city’s review of this matter determined that the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, also known as CLETS, was lawfully accessed by authorized law enforcement personnel in March of 2020,” Mayor Helen Tran said on May 5. “The city’s investigation finds the claim to be frivolous, filed in bad faith, dishonest and an attempt to swindle the city of San Bernardino out of $2 million.”
According to Mayor Tran, “In her initial report of the matter to Chief Goodman, and in numerous social-media posts and recorded videos, she [Ortiz] stated that she has never been arrested. Following a thorough review of facts and circumstances surrounding the original report to Mr. Goodman and the claim that she filed, the city finds the information in the claim to be false and dishonest. For the reasons uncovered during the investigation into her allegations and a review of this claim, the city denies the claim.”
Under California law, those seeking redress against a governmental entity alleging to have been wronged, damaged or injured by the governmental entity or its employees have six months from
from the date of the injury or the date of the discovery of the injury to file a claim, where upon the governmental entity has 45 days to acknowledge or reject the claim. A citizen then has six months from the time of the rejection of the claim to file suit in state court or, if a denial is not registered within 45 days, two years to file suit.
In making its denial of Ortiz’s claim, the city when beyond its usual protocol of simply rejecting the claim to asserting that not only was there no substance to Ortiz’s allegations, but accusing her of dishonesty and daring her to proceed further in the legal process. Tran stated that if Ortiz were to file suit within the six month window then open to her to do so, “the city is putting her and her attorney on notice it will seek to recover all attorney’s fees in cause and accordance with California Code of Civil Procedure Furthermore, given that the false claims were filed under the penalty of perjury and it is a crime to make a knowingly false claim against a police officer, the potential criminal conduct associated with the claim is being reviewed.”
Tran, who suggested that Ortiz’s credibility in general and as a public official was already shot, said that Ortiz was further playing with fire and risking even greater damage to her reputation in that the city was not going to observe the normal rules of confidentiality applied when public officials have embroiled themselves in controversy.
“Given that the filing of a $2 million claim by a sitting council member is highly unusual and has been the subject of news and social media reports, the city will release information related to the investigation that was conducted and reviewed in connection with the claim,” Tran said.
In the ensuing five-plus months, the city made good on its threat, doing so in a series of statement made both on and off the record, the upshot of which was that Ortiz, whose stock-in-trade consists of vituperative, incendiary and deprecating comments against and regard to all order of public officials, is capable of dishing it out but cannot take it. Ortiz’s accusations were mired in self-serving truths, half-truths, quarter-truths, misleading assertions and outright falsehoods, the city propounded. No illegal or improper running of her name through law enforcement databases had taken place, it was asserted, and when she had been the subject of those searches, those queries grew out of a legitimate investigation or law enforcement operation. Most pointedly, it was hammered home, Chief Goodman had not said many of the things Ortiz attributed to him and she was misrepresenting the substance and meaning of other things that he had in fact said.
The reality was, city employees and officials said, there was much information in law enforcement databases that did not paint Ortiz in a pleasing light, and it would be just fine with them if Ortiz did file suit so that those salacious and uncomplimentary tidbits could be exposed in open court or in discovery documents as part of the litigative process.
As the November 5 deadline for Ortiz to file her suit grew closer and closer, day-by-day, week-by-week and month-by-month, the pronouncements from San Bernardino officials grew ever more definite, cocky and rude in predicting that Ortiz would not file suit.
With a dramatic flourish, Grand Terrace-based attorney Peter Schlueter,  at what would have been the final day to file a lawsuit in state court, filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of Ortiz, not ins San Bernardino County Superior Court but in federal court. Named in the suit are the City of San Bernardino, the San Bernardino Police Officers Association, former acting San Bernardino Police Chief Eric McBride, Desrochers, Police Officers Association President Jose Loera, Penman and Goodman along with ten unnamed John Does.

The city was caught somewhat flatfooted by the filing of the suit, so much so that it turned to an attorney, Stephen Larson, who had previously represented a plaintiff in his and his company’s successful lawsuit against the City of San Bernardino.
Whereas in 2024, Ortiz, who had yet to be elected to the city council, had what was, or appeared to be, the assistance and close support of Chief Goodman in her effort to stand off the political attacks utilizing information extrapolated from law enforcement databases, the police chief’s readiness to back Ortiz after she was in office and on the losing side of a 7-to-1 divide between her and her six council colleagues and the mayor had been greatly attenuated by early 2025. Ortiz, after being sworn into office in December 2024, had worked quietly behind the scenes and in the back halls of San Bernardino’s municipal offices to have the city come to terms with the police department’s use of its facilities and assets for political purposes and hold those she believed had used confidential law enforcement data to account. When that did not occur, she filed her claim on March 28.
At that point, Goodman clearly sided with Tran, six of the members of the council, the city, the police department and the union. Statements were circulated that did not quote Goodman verbatim, but which disavowed the statements which Ortiz had attributed to him during their interaction in August and September of 2024, one in which she said Goodman said that it was Derochers who in 2020 had accessed the CLETS database relating to her and the 2006 9-1-1 call for assistance during a domestic disturbance, that Desrochers had no legitimate basis to make the 2020 CLETS inquiry with regard to Ortiz, that if Desrochers had still been employed with the department he would have terminated him and that he was going to make a criminal case referral with regard to Desrochers’ unauthorized use of the department’s electronic database.
Highly disconcerting for the city is that both Ortiz and Schlueter have released portions of a transcript of the August 30, 2024 meeting between Goodman, Ortiz and Beard. Those transcripts provide what is purported to be verbatim statements during the back-and-forth dialogue between Ortiz and Goodman. This implies that the entire conversation was audio-recorded.
Several of the statements in the transcript attributed to Goodman essentially verify that element of Ortiz’s overall narrative, which is that Desrochers violated not only department policy but the law in accessing the CLETS database in an effort to find information that would prove politically damaging to Ortiz, that Goodman considered Desrochers’ action to be illegal and to constitute misconduct for which he should have been fired.
The City of San Bernardino, which is no stranger to civil suits filed against it by residents, citizens, individuals and occasionally its own employees, finds itself in the forum of state court defending itself with regard to those cases, as that is the most common venue for such matters filed against it. It has a number of go-to lawyers to work on its behalf in fighting these suits, including ones with the law firm of Best Best & Krieger, with which City Attorney Sonia Carvalho is a partner, as well as other attorneys specializing is specific areas of the law. In this case, however, Ortiz and Schlueter have hauled the city into federal court. One of the reasons the city turned to Larson is that he was formerly a a federal judge. The city’s hope is that Larson will be able to map an exit from the imbroglio with Ortiz in an expeditious manner that will not entail adverse publicity or extensive expense.
In the immediate aftermath of the filing of the suit, observers were quick to point out that despite whatever skill and familiarity with the federal court system that Larson might be able to bring to bear, even if he is somehow able to succeed in preventing the recording of the August contents from the August 30, 2024 meeting between Goodman, Ortiz and Beard from being introduced as evidence at trial on the basis that it is illegal to make such recordings in California without the consent of all parties so recorded, he will not be able to ameliorate the damage to the city’s reputation from its having claimed that Goodman never made the statements he can presumably be heard making on that recording.
For their part, Ortiz and Schlueter maintain that “This conversation was not meant to be confidential; it discussed evidence of a crime by a third party, statements made to law enforcement can be used in a criminal case, and the participants knew that Plaintiff [Ortiz] was recording the conversation.”

Jake Haro, who on October 16 abruptly pleaded guilty to killing his 7-month-old son, was given a 25-years-to-life prison term for that crime at his sentencing hearing on Monday, November 3.
Tacked on to that time will be 180 days for filing a false police report, which occurred when he and his wife initially contacted authorities about their child’s “disappearance” in August. The long arm of the law having at last caught up with him, he will also be required to serve the entirety of a 6-year sentence for having severely physically abused Emmanuel’s now 7-year-old half sister, as a result of his having violated the conditional parole he was granted when that earlier sentence was suspended. As a consequence, barring some unforeseen eventuality, Haro, 32, will remain imprisoned for the next 31 years.
Despite the criminal case against Haro having drawn to a close, the public – and perhaps even court, prosecutorial and law enforcement authorities – remain in the dark over what, precisely, or even inexactly, happened to Baby Emmanuel.
The case involved, paradoxically, a remarkable set of investigative efficiencies and obtuse acts on the part of the detectives assigned to what is now officially determined to have been a murder, as well as both the helpful and obstructive efforts of the newfangled class of social media “influencers.”
The extraordinarily twisted and not-yet-fully-resolved case lurched into public consciousness on August 14, when Rebecca Haro, Jake’s 41-year-old wife, came forward with a harrowing report of Emmanuel’s kidnapping. According to Rebecca, whose story was verified in most of its particulars by Jake, the couple, who lived in the Riverside County community of Cabazon, had come to Yucaipa late that afternoon with Emmanuel, Emmanuel’s three-year-old sibling and Emmanuel’s ten-year-old half brother so the ten-year-old could participate in a youth football scrimmage/practice at the outdoor sports complex in the city. She left the complex to go to the nearby Big 5 sporting goods store to purchase a mouthguard for her stepson. When she paused to change Emmanuel’s diaper with the child laid out in on the family vehicle’s backseat while the park was parked in the Big 5 parking lot, she claimed, a man came up behind her, greater her in Spanish and then bashed her over the head. When she came to, she said, Emmanuel was gone.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which serves as the contract police department in Yucaipa, swung into immediate action upon receiving the report.
An examination of video footage taken from security cameras in the parking lot, nearby stores and the surrounding area did not confirm but did not rule out the veracity of Rebecca’s version of events. Her story was in some measure supported by a black left eye she appeared to have sustained in the incident.
An all points bulletin went out for Emmanuel and anyone seen or with a child who resembled him, which led within the first 24 hours to a believed sighting of Emmanuel in Kern County near Bakersfield.
While there was instantaneous sympathy and a showing of support for the parents, as the Haros were subjected to further and repeated questioning by investigators, what came across as inconsistencies or implausibilities in Rebecca’s story emerged, and a statement to that effect was made by an investigators to a member of the press. When that statement widely circulated on August 18, social media influencers, which to that point had seemed so sympathetic toward and upportive of the Haros, turned on them. From that point forward, the new age journalists began staking out their home, trailing them wherever they went and even began using means previously unheard-of among civilians, extending to accessing cell phone emanations and geoposition data recorded at cellphone towers to track their whereabouts on the day of the disappearance and the days and weeks proceeding the report of the disappearance. Within days, the amateur sleuths working in the new media were churning up evidence of both questionable and significant value, including that Rebecca Haro was already bearing a black eye as early as August 4 or 5 and that the family had disposed of Baby Emmanuel’s clothing and bed clothes.
Word slipped out, either deliberately or inadvertently, that investigators were looking into the possibility that the child was already dead and his body had been disposed of in the trash, such that by that point his tiny corpse was buried in the East Valley Remediation Facility landfill or the Lamb Canyon Landfill near Beaumont.
With the social media and traditional press subjecting the Haros to constant pressure, investigators continued probing, questioning the Haros, in particular focusing on Jake. It is believed that Jake during one of these exchanges made an admission that he had killed his son. Circulating on social media shortly thereafter was that he had killed his son by rolling over on him in bed while they were asleep one night.
On August 22, at 6:59 a.m., San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies in combat gear came onto the Haro’s property in Cabazon, where they arrested and cuffed the couple upon serving an arrest warrant, marching them off of the property in the full view of media photographers and videographers for transport to the Robert Presley Detention Center in downtown Riverside, where they were entrusted to the custody of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Based upon the theory that the Haros were responsible for the death of their son and that the report of his kidnapping had been a deliberate falsehood they cooked up to mislead authorities, they were arrested and booked on suspicion of murder and filing a false police report.
There were conflicting reports, the provenance of which were unknown, given as they appeared on various social media outlets without any specific attribution to any authorities or officials, that the child’s body had been found and ones that Baby Haro was yet missing.
Meanwhile, reports abounded that investigators with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department were acutely conscious that the case against the Haros had been largely assembled by their counterparts in San Bernardino County. The theory under which they had been arrested and were being prosecuted was that the murder had occurred in Riverside County. In an effort to strengthen the case against the couple, which was being prosecuted by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office in Riverside County Superior Court, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department undertook to obtain even stronger evidence than had been developed by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department detectives. In the case of Rebecca, deputies held her in a holding cell for nearly five hours before booking her and placing her into a cell on the seventh floor of the Presley Center. Jake was not booked for over ten hours, before he was ultimately moved into custody at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. During the time Jake and Rebecca were in the holding cells on August 22, the sheriff’s department took the opportunity to place into their immediate presence sheriff’s employees masquerading as arrestees whose assignments were to befriend them and win their confidence. Thereafter, the man comporting himself as an inmate would re-encounter Jake at the Larry Smith Correctional Facility and Rebecca would come across the female ersatz inmate she had met in the pre-booking holding facility after her booking when she was housed on the 7th floor of the Presley Detention Center. At some point, it was hoped, either Jake or Rebecca or both would convey to their newfound communicant details relating to the death of Emmanuel that would assist in obtaining convictions against them. On August 24,
On August 24, in a ploy to get Rebecca to talk, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Departeent took Jake Haro on a walking excursion around fire roads and chaparral covered ground near the turnoff to the Badlands bordering Gilman Springs just off the 60 Freeway east of Moreno Valley. .

Angelo Jose Saldivar, who on October 27 gunned down San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Nuñez, on November 5 entered not guilty pleas on ten criminal charges and denied seven felony enhancements filed against him by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office two days previously.
Nunez was killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call involving Saldivar and his wife. Saldivar then led Nuñez’s sheriff’s department colleagues and other law enforcement officers on a harrowing chase sometimes reaching 150 miles per hour across six jurisdictions as he fled on a motorcycle.
On November 3, 2025, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office charged Saldivar with one count of violating PC 187(a) – murder; one count of violating PC207(a) – attempted kidnapping; four counts of violating PC245(b) – assault with a semiautomatic firearm; one count of PC246.3(a) – discharge of a firearm; one count of violating PC236 – false imprisonment by violence; one count of violating PC243(e)(1) – battery on a spouse and one count of violating VC 2800.2(a) – evading an officer.
The district attorney’s office also included a PC12022.53 sentencing enhancement/special allegations with the murder charge, the attempted kidnapping charge, the four counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and the one count of discharge of a firearm pertaining to murder to avoid arrest, murder of a police officer, personal and intentional discharge of a firearm and the use of a firearm in commission of the assaults. The four assault charges relate to Saldivar’s alleged intimidation of those who on October 27 called the sheriff’s department to report what appeared to be a violent and escalating confrontation between Saldivar and his ex-wife.
Deputies responded at around12:30 pm on Monday, October 27 to reports of a disturbance, including what was believed to be the discharge of a firearm at 12346 Hollyhock Drive Unit 2 in Rancho Cucamonga, the residence of Saldivar’s ex-wife, Veronica Garcia Saldivar, also known as Veronica Garcia Zaragosa. Veronica had obtained a finalized divorce decree in July. Neighbors reported to the sheriff’s dispatch center that Saldivar was trying force Veronica into a car at gunpoint.
Nuñez, 27, a five-year veteran of the sheriff’s department who had been stationed in Rancho Cucamonga for four of those years, was either the first or the second deputy to arrive as members of the sheriff’s department converged on the Hollyhock Drive residence.
Both Angelo and Veronica are known to have owned numerous firearms, although it is not clear whether the sheriff’s department had institutional knowledge about their gun ownership or whether, if the department had that information, the responding deputies were warned.
Upon the arrival of the deputies, Angelo apparently retreated into the condominium he once shared with his wife and their teenage daughter. It is believed, but has not been confirmed, that he may have armed himself with at least one and perhaps two of his wife’s firearms at that point.
After remaining for a short time inside the condominium, Angelo Saldivar emerged, at which point Nuñez was the closest deputy to the condominium’s entrance. It is not clear whether Nuñez had oriented himself properly as to location or whether he knew that the domestic disturbance was centered at Unit 2 at the 12346 Hollyhock Drive address or an adjoining unit or property. To the nearby residents who were observing the goings-on, it did not appear that Nuñez, who was standing near his patrol unit with the driver’s side door open, saw Angelo Saldivar on the porch or, if he did, recognized he was the individual at the center of the incident he had been called to. Saldivar then raised the gun and fired a single shot at Nuñez, who was no more than 50 to 55 feet away, hitting him in the head.
There are conflicting reports as to whether Saldivar fired more shots at other deputies on the scene, or if the gun shots heard by some bystanders were ones fired by deputies positioned outside the bystanders’ line of sight. Saldivar apparently went back into the condominium, at some point either exiting the condominium from an alternate exit at the back of the building or finding his way into the enclosure of another unit, and from there making his way to his motorcycle. As he was heading away, wearing a backpack and dark helmet and visor, he was spotted by deputies, who gave chase up Day Creek Boulevard. Saldivar then made his way onto the 210 Freeway headed west. There ensued a chase, with the motorcycle far ahead of the pack, accelerating to a speed well in excess of 120 miles per hour and, at one point for a short distance, reaching nearly 150 miles per hour, as Saldivar, blasted past cars traveling at 55, 60, 65, and 70 miles per hour.
He continued west on the 210, but at Fruit Street, he exited from the freeway, turned south and then abruptly got back onto the freeway, heading east. He sped along, zooming to well above 100 miles per hour for a span, weaving through the slower traffic but then slowing to a more conventional speed in the 65-to-75-mile-per hour range, as if he were trying to blend in with the other vehicles on the freeway. At that point, however, such a tactic was virtually impossible, as the Highway Patrol, the Claremont Police Department, the La Verne Police Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department had joined the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in the pursuit, and his dangerous and erratic activity had resulted in at least two helicopters – one with a law enforcement agency and another with a television station following him from overhead.
At one point, a pursuing CHP motorcycle caught up with him while he was attempting to cruise along inconspicuously after having dropped into the range of 60-to-65 miles per hour, and he accelerated away once more. At what he took to be a comfortable distance in front of the CHP motorcycle, he slowed once more and took both hands off the handlebars as he armed himself with a handgun he pulled out of his backpack and appeared to be loading it with bullets. As he was nearing Campus Avenue in Upland, Saldivar and his motorcycle were about to pass on the left, as had been the case several hundred times over the previous fifteen minutes or so, another slower-moving vehicle in the Diamond Lane, a gray Toyota. Unbeknownst to Saldivar, at the wheel of the Toyota was an off-duty San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department narcotics division detective.
As the motorcycle closed the distance behind it, the Toyota made an at first subtle drift to its left followed by a somewhat sharper movement across the yellow line separating the Diamond Lane from the inner freeway shoulder. Saldiver reacted to adjust, but at the speed he was traveling at that point – about 68 miles per hour – not in time to avoid having the motorcycle’s front tire plunge into the Toyota’s driver’s side of the car. The impact launched Saldivar in an arc headed over the hood of the car as the driver deftly steered right, avoiding hitting Saldivar who flipped in mid-air and landed on his back on the inner shoulder of the road.
It appeared that two firearms that were in the backpack fell out onto the pavement, when Saldivar’s arms came out of the rucksack’s straps as he was tumbling before coming into contact with the ground.
The motorcycle, meanwhile, careened more sharply leftward than the rider it had now lost, hitting into the retaining while between the eastbound and westbound lanes of the freeway, then bouncing and flipping to come down, temporarily, on Salvidar, as both the bike’s and the man’s momentum carried them eastward.
Within three minutes, at least 21 law enforcement vehicles were parked across four of the lanes west and behind where Saldivar came to rest. Several officers swarmed him, and he was taken into custody. He was airlifted to a hospital after being tended to by paramedics.
He was deemed to be in condition to allow him to leave the hospital. He was transferred to the West Valley Detention Center, where he was placed on a no-bail hold and was booked into custody on suspicion of violating PC245(B) assault on a person with a semiautomatic firearm, violating PC422(A) willfully threatening to engage in criminal activity with the intention of terrorizing a victim or victims and
PC417(B) brandishing or exhibiting a loaded firearm at or near a day care center where youth programs are being conducted. He was not booked on a murder charge.
Saldivar was scheduled to appear for arraignment on November 4 before Judge Shannon Faherty but did not appear, at which point he was rescheduled to appear later before Judge Faherty, but had not yet been transported to court by 10 a.m., whereupon his hearing was rescheduled for 11 a.m. before Judge katrina West. He still had not been transported to court from where he was held.
On November 5, he appeared before Judge Shannon Faherty. Representing the People of California was San Bernardino County Deputy district Attorney Jonathan Robbins. Saldivar was represented by Deputy Public Defender Andrew Moll.
Saldivar pleaded not guilty to the murder, four assault with a semi-automatic fire on a person, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, evading a peace officer with wanton disregard for safety, false imprisonment and battery on a former spouse charges and denying the special allegations accompanying seven of those charges.
Judge Faherty confirmed the public defender’s office as his legal representative. She then set his pre-preliminary hearing and for confirmation of counsel for November 10 at 8:30 am in Department R18 at the Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse before Judge Maggie Yang. He is also scheduled to be denied bail at that hearing. Judge Faherty scheduled his preliminary hearing for November 12 at 8:30 am, also before Judge Maggie Yang.

James Tappon and Christopher Garcia are dead. They might still be alive if others had been more careful or a bit less hotheaded. Were they killed unnecessarily? Most certainly. Were they murdered? Should those critically involved be held accountable? What will society – in this case the Morongo community – decide? Or will it decide at all? With what moral authority can it speak?
On On October 31 at 3:01 p.m., Frank Stiffens, 68, of Yucca Valley was driving his 2009 Dodge Durango north and Tappon, 69. was driving a 2015 Fort Fiesta south on Yucca Mesa Road north of Sunflower Drive.
From what California Highway Patrol investigators can piece together, the Durango drifted across the solid double yellow line and the left front of Stiffens’ vehicle smashed into the left front ofTappon’s car, resulting in major damage to both vehicles. Stibbens was seriously injured. Tappon, into whom the driver compartment had folded, was killed.
Stibbens, who was hospitalized, has, based on investigators’ conclusions, been charged with murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and two counts of driving under the influence causing injury. Upon his release from the hospital, he was jailed at West Valley Detention Center, and is being held on $1 million bond.
Stibbens was arraigned before Judge Sarah Oliver on Wednesday morning November 5. Prosecutors presented a folder relating to Stibbens containing the CHP’s preliminary findings with regard to the October 31 collision and Stibbens driving/vehicle code/criminal history in San Bernardino County.
Inn 2007, he was charged and convicted of violating PC273.5(A)-M: inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, a misdemeanor, for which he was sentenced to 180 days in jail.
In 2011 he was charged with VC23152(A)-M: driving under the influence, a misdemeanor, and pleaded no contest to the charge in 2012.
In 2011, he was charged and convicted with driving under the influence and convicted.
In 2012, he was charged with driving while intoxicated and driving without a license and with driving while his license was suspended for driving while intoxicated. In 2013 the driving while intoxicated and driving with a license that was suspended for driving while intoxicated charges were dismissed and he was convicted of driving a vehicle without a license.
In 2020 he was charged with driving under the influence and driving while his license was suspended for having driven under the influence. He entered a guilty plea to VC23103(a)-M: wet reckless driving, a misdemeanor. Wet reckless driving is a plea reduction provided by the court in driving under the influence cases. Stibbens obtained this disposition by agreeing to attend and complete the Senate Bill 38 alcohol rehabilitation program.
In 2024 he was charged with driving while his license was suspended for driving under the influence and with speeding. In 2015, both of those charges were dismissed.
During the November 5 arraignment hearing, Judge Oliver heard his not guilty pleas to PC187: murder; PC191.5(A)-F,: gross vehicular manslaughter; VC23153(A)-F, driving under the influence and causing bodily injury, as well as his denials of the sentencing enhancements/special allegations of having been previously convicted of driving under the influence, and a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury while driving intoxicated. She confirmed continuing his bail at $1 million and appointed the public defender’s office to represent him.
He is to appear before Judge Oliver on November 12 for a pre-preliminary hearing before Judge James Taylor for a preliminary hearing on November 13.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIV SB 2529637
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner JOSE ANTHONIO RUIZ/MELITON CRISTOBAL BETANCOURT filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
JOSE ANTHONIO RUIZ to JOSE ANTHONIO CRISTOBAL RUIZ
THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.
Notice of Hearing:
Date: December 1, 2025, Time: 08:30 AM, Department: S 26
The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino District-Civil Division, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 10/17/2025
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G. Ochoa
Abrianna Rodriguez, Deputy Clerk of the Court
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on October 17, 24 & 31 and November 7, 2025.

FBN20250009652
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
LANDCARE PRO 525 EAST RALSTON AVENUE SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92404: HECTOR RAMIREZ
Business Mailing Address: 525 EAST RALSTON AVENUE SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92404
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: N/A.
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ HECTOR RAMIREZ, Owner
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 10/09/2025
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J9965
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on October 17, 24 & 31 and November 7, 2025.

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Little more than a fortnight after Big Bear Lake officials blindsided those living within one of the city’s residential districts by undertaking the construction of a garbage dump in their neighborhood, residents have struck back, hitting the city manager and senior city administrators with a series of moves they did not anticipate.
Over the weekend of October 11/12, word was spreading among a handful of residents in Big Bear Lake that the city was closing out its Clean Bear Site #2, located at 39690 Big Bear Boulevard, and was going to replace it with one to be sited on two lots owned by the city near the corner of Lark and Cienega roads, adjacent to an existing residential neighborhood.
The Clean Bear program in the City of Big Bear Lake provides drop-off locations for residents and tourists – that is tenants and guests of owners of residential properties within the city – who cannot use curbside trash service. The sites accept household refuse, recycling, green/yard waste, pine needles, E-waste and ashes.
That the city properties adjoining Lark and Cienega roads was jarring to those who lived in the neighborhood, which included the aforementioned Lark Road and Cienega Road, as well as Cienega Court, Moab Lane and the area around the Sacred Heart Camp and Retreat. Residents of the area had not been alerted to any items on the city’s planning commission and city council agendas referencing development projects in the area or mention of an alteration of the city’s zoning maps or codes that would have presaged development in the general or specific area. As their had been no hint of any development proposal, including those in compliance with the area’s residential zoning or proposals of any other type, dismay and panic ensued. Continue reading →