The unlicensed gun pretext for the arrest of San Bernardino County Deputy Christopher Bingham, whom prosecutors are alleging led a double life as an outlaw biker, appeared to fall apart this week during his preliminary hearing, as it was demonstrated the firearm was indeed licensed.
It now remains to be seen whether Judge Alexander Martinez will rule that all of the evidence against Bigham that was collected on his premises – extending to what detectives say was an arsenal – as a consequence of a search warrant based upon his arrest and possession of the pistol will now be excluded from the proceedings, ending any viability of the case against him.
Christopher Bingham, who enlisted in the U.S. Marines at the age of 19 in 1998, serving with distinction until he was honorably discharged one day less than four years later in 2002, hired on with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in 2005.
In 2015, just around the time of his son’s first birthday, Bingham registered O’Three Tactical, a limited liability company in which he was the sole owner with California Secretary of State. Located at 73749 29 Palms Highway in Twentynine Palms,
O’Three Tactical was a gun shop, one that dealt in standard firearm sales as well as obtaining for its customers specialized equipment and hardware prized by gun aficionados, particularly ones looking to replicate the actuality or mystique of military firepower.
The gun shop was contained within a shop next to a Mexican restaurant east of Adobe Road in the downtown section of Twentynine Palms on Highway 62, also known at that point as 29 Palms Highway.
As a consequence of Bingham’s military experience and his immersion in the macho world of motoring in the desert on both dirt bikes and dunebuggies, together with his affinity for guns and weaponry, O’Three Tactical found a niche in a place where both current and former military personnel lived and congregated.
O’Three Tactical, was normally manned by one of four different employees, all of whom were current or former military personnel or law enforcment officers. On some normal business days after he had finished his daytime shift with the sheriff’s department patrolling the Morongo Valley and occasionally on his days off, Bingham was behind the counter at O’Three Tactical.
Bingham and O’Three Tactical became known for the ability to track down and deliver specialized firearms, as well as for providing servicing and augmenting equipment to those products, along with, as the shop’s name implied, all order of tactical gear, including knives, bulletproof wear and helmets, ammunition, magazines, cartridges, powders, primers, sights and scopes and all order of other accessories.

O’Three Tactical dealt, legally insofar as the sheriff’s department certified, in some weaponry and equipment that was banned or outlawed in California, such as certain types of firearms and silencers, devices that in some other states can be purchased or possessed legally.
Bingham maintained, however, and the sheriff’s department’s standoffishness seemed to confirm, that such items were being sold, as Bingham stated more than once, to “individual California law enforcement officers properly licensed and permitted to carry them or out of state buyers.” His shop also engaged in gunsmithing, making firearms to order, and legal firearm adaptations.
His second job as a gun shop owner brought him into contact with a subset of the not just the Morongo Basin’s population, but many people from outside the area who traveled hundreds of miles and occasionally from outside of California to look at, examine and buy the oftentimes exotic models of firearms he had obtained.
Bingham fastidiously adhered to the law with regard to regulations about whom guns can be sold to. One report held that he had a policy of asking anyone who came into O’Three Tactical smelling of marijuana to leave. At one point, in 2019, the sheriff’s department’s internal affairs division, referred to as professional standards, initiated an investigation into Bingham when it was alleged that he was improperly using the CLETS – California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System – the data base available to California law enforcement agencies that, among other things, catalogs the arrest histories and criminal convictions of the state’s residents. That investigation came to nothing, however, when it was determined that Bingham was merely delving into whether he could make gun sales to certain individuals seeking to purchase firearms whom he had legitimate grounds to believe might actually be felons who could not legally purchase, own or possess firearms as a consequence of their convictions. The department ended that investigation without taking any action against him.

The woman Republicans are seeking to bounce off their county central committee for her efforts in support of Democrats is now seeking appointment to the Grand Terrace City Council.
The city council in San Bernardino County’s smallest geographical city normally entails five members. Sylvia Robles, who had been on the council since 2012, previously intended to remain in that post until the end of her current term in December. As she and her husband are now retired, they intended to move to a coastal city to live out their golden years. They would effectuate that shift, Robles figured sometime in 2025. An opportunity to sell their Grand Terrace home and net enough money in doing so to be able to get into what she described as a “very nice” residence in San Clemente earlier this year. To not let that chance get away, she and her husband sold their place in Grand Terrace, obligating her to resign before she had intended.
The four-man strength city council’s effort to fill the vacancy with former City Councilman Jim Miller failed last month when Miller, for health considerations, declined the offer. He council opened the field up for applicants. Continue reading →

The City of Fontana and its city council in particular were blasted for their use of Orwellian language recently as they sought to avoid the negative connotations associated with the intensive warehouse development that has occurred in the city over the past decade-and-a-half.

In the time since Acquanetta Warren was elected Fontana mayor in 2010, the city has been so aggressive in building warehouses that she has come to be known by those who both oppose and favor warehouse development as “Warehouse Warren.” Fontana’s favoring of that land use has occurred in the larger context of a general accommodation of logistics facilities within the Inland Empire and San Bernardino County, located as they are along the 10, 210 and 215 freeways and the Union Pacific/Santa Fe/Burlington Northern railroad line. Indeed, Southern California involves large port facilities in San Pedro and Long Beach that land massive amounts of merchandise from manufacturers in Asia brought across the Pacific Ocean by ship.
There is more than 940 million square feet of warehousing in San Bernardino and Riverside counties at present, with more being built. That includes 3,034 warehouses in San Bernardino County. In Ontario alone, there are 289 warehouses larger than 100,000 square feet. Reportedly, there are 142 warehouses in Fontana larger than 100,000 square feet. In Chino there are 118 warehouses larger than 100,000 square feet, 109 larger than 100,000 square feet in Rancho Cucamonga and 75 larger than 100,000 square feet in San Bernardino. Since 2015, 26 warehouse project applications have been processed and approved by the City of San Bernardino, entailing acreage under roof of 9,598,255 square feet, or more than one-third of a square mile, translating into 220.34 acres. At present among cities in San Bernardino County, Fontana stands behind only Ontario in terms of warehouse space. Fontana is followed by Chino, Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, Redlands and Rialto.

Fontana, led by Warren, is gunning to surpass Ontario in this regard. Citing Fontana’s location, she says her city is a logical host for warehouses and distribution centers. She has argued that given the largely blue collar populace of Fontana and the consideration that approaching 30 percent of the parents of children attending Fontana schools either do not speak, or lack proficiency in, the English language, the best that can be done for a significant percentage of those who graduate from or drop out of Fontana’s high schools is to provide them with jobs such as those available in warehouses, which do not demand skilled laborers. Between 2016 and 2021, Fontana approved more than 30 warehouses totaling approximately 16 million square feet in southern Fontana alone.
Increasingly, some elected officials, local residents and futurists are questioning whether warehouses constitute the highest and best use of the property available for development in the region. The glut of logistics facilities in the Inland Empire has some thinking their numbers are out of balance. In refuting the assertions of the proponents of warehouses that they constitute positive economic development, their detractors cite the relatively poor pay and benefits provided to those who work in distribution facilities, the large diesel-powered semi-trucks that are part of those operations with their unhealthy exhaust emissions, together with the bane of traffic gridlock they create.
In Fontana in particular, an increasingly vocal element of the community has decried the relatively poor pay and benefits provided to those who work in the logistics facilities, and the degree to which warehouse operators not only exploit those who work there but victimize nearby residents with their use of large diesel-powered semi-trucks that are part of those operations with their unhealthy exhaust emissions, together with the bane of traffic gridlock they create.
In the face of that, Warren maintained that the building of warehouses constitutes easy “economic advancement” for the Fontana community, which allows those with capital to acquire or tie up property and quickly convert the land into warehouses consisting of tilt-up buildings, thereby generating fast money and investment in the local economy.
In 2021, with the city council composed exactly as it is now, the city council voted 4-1, with Sandoval being the lone dissenting vote, in favor of placing a 206,000-square-foot warehouse on the north side of Jurupa Hills High School at the corner of Slover and Oleander avenues. After word reached California Attorney General Rob Bonta about that action, he sued Fontana over its affinity for warehouses.
As part of an effort to appease those objecting to the proliferation of warehousing in the city, Warren and her council allies adopted the so-called Industrial Commerce Center Sustainability Standards Ordinance, which city officials said offered an assurance logistics facilities to be built in the city in the future would meet or exceed “all federal and state environmental standards for warehouses and freight operations.” The city settled the suit brought by Bonta with an agreement that it would apply greater regulation of the construction of logistics facilities in the city of 214,307.
Environmentalists and community activists, however, saw what Warren and her cohorts were doing as merely engaging in lip service and a cynical manipulation of their governmental authority to continue to cater to the real estate industry, land speculators and developers that were heavily investing in Warren’s political career and her political machine. They decried the fashion in which she and the ruling council coalition she controlled nonchalantly imposed more warehouses on the neighborhoods at the city’s south end.

In an effort to silence her critics or at least reduce their volume and stridency, Warren and the city she heads have sought to avoid the use of the term warehouse.

This became evident on April 9, when the city council took up consideration of what previously were referred to as warehouses. On the council’s agenda were three general plan amendments, two of which pertained to the construction of what the city euphemistically referred to as two separate “industrial commerce center buildings.” The other general plan amendment involved a residential project.

One of the proposals, by the applicant MIG, Inc.,  was for to construct a 355,995-square-foot warehouse building the Citrus and Boyle Industrial Commerce Center on 15.8 gross acres located north of Slover Avenue, south of Boyle Avenue, and east of Citrus Avenue at the southern end of the city.

MIG sought a general plan amendment, zone change, tentative parcel map and design review to proceed with the proposal.

Labor unions representing construction workers supported the proposal. They made sure to refer to it as a commerce center.

Two local residents residing near the project site complained about not being provided with timely notification of the proposal.

The council supported the project, which its supporters said would replace existing hazards and blight in the area, including abandoned buildings and boarded-up homes, which are beset with homeless squatters and crime.

Further approval was given to Chase Partners’ proposed Fontana Business Center 3, located on the east side of Juniper Avenue and south of Santa Ana Avenue, also in southern Fontana.

The project required the granting of a general plan amendment, zone change, specific plan amendment, tentative parcel map, and administrative site plan to construct a 33,585-square-foot industrial commerce building on a 1.6 acre-site.

There was no opposition to the project.

With Councilman Jesse Sandoval absent, the council voted 4-to-0 to approve both of the warehouse projects and the residential undertaking, the Monte Vista subdivision, which will entail 53 single-family residential units between Poplar Avenue and Catawba Avenue, south of Orchid Avenue.

During the evening’s discussion of the “industrial commerce center buildings,” the term warehouse was not used.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIVSB2404955
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: Gaven Daniel Martin filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
Gaven Daniel Martin to Gaven Daniel De La Fosse, 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: 05/03/2024
Time: 08:30 AM
Department: S27
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 SBCS Upland in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 03/08/2024
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G. Ochoa
Published in the SBCS Upland on 03/28/2024, 04/04/2024, 04/11/2024, 04/18/2024

FBN 20240002503
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
SUNSHINE CLEANING SOLUTION 8529 SIERRA MADRE AVE RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91730: AMANDA M LANTER
Business Mailing Address: 8529 SIERRA MADRE AVE RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91730
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/ AMANDA M LANTER
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 3/13/2024
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 D9865
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 March 29 and April 5, 12 & 19, 2024.

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By Mark Gutglueck
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department by arresting one of its own deputies on somewhat nebulous charges relating to his ties with what has been termed “an outlaw motorcycle gang” appears to have opened a can of worms that now cannot be untangled short of the involvement of federal investigators and prosecutors, if at all.
At issue is whether the guilt by association implied with some of the department’s actions and statements together with that of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office can pass constitutional muster, taken together with a test of the accuracy of the assumptions the department and prosecutors have made with regard to the case’s underlying facts, a circumstance complicated further still by whatever investigative role the deputy was serving in which may not have been known by all or even most of his colleagues within the department.
Even assuming the deputy was, as is alleged, a criminal who had insinuated himself into the county’s primary law enforcement agency and was in possession of illegal weaponry he was not allowed to possess in his off-duty capacity, questions attend the admissibility of the materials seized in the effort to adduce his guilt thus far, given the dubious grounds cited in obtaining the warrant used in conducting the search of his premises that yielded that evidence.
In analyzing the case against Deputy Christopher Bingham, the most important determination may not turn on whether what the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office is at this point disclosing about him is true, which it might very well be, but rather what information about him is not being provided or deliberately withheld. Continue reading →