Comments on: Attention Must Be Paid

By: Celeste Fremon

Celeste Fremon — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:13:32 +0000

Thanks, P. I appreciate that you have filled in the details. When people are upset and scared, they tend to want someone to blame. It somehow makes the awful thing seem more understandable.

By: PopLockerOne

PopLockerOne — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:49:43 +0000

Aside from what I stated above, we all want to find her asap – this can happen to anyone of us or to a close relative.
In what I was told about her – she was just an overall good person.

By: PopLockerOne

PopLockerOne — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:39:07 +0000

My friend works at lost hills and was there when they advised her over and over to feel free to take a nap in the lobby area until the early morning hours. They offered free local phone calls too… They even went beyond their scope of work and were bending station rules to help her out. She refused, and exited out the door….
There are so many cases of mental illness incidents similar to this which never make it on the frontpage newspaper…. … For some reason, everyone is up in arms, pointing blame and sucker punching the Sheriff Department on half ass reported facts. Certain people are ready to make this into a racial issue too – or police stereotyping brutality case.
I’ve seen cases where people have lost their mental capacity and became ill at the wrong place- at the wrong time. A close friend lost his mental capacity and memory while visiting downtown Santa Barbara in the mid-90s. Approximately four months later, Ventura County Sheriffs detained him for begging in downtown Ventura. Did they run a major news bulletin on his missing status? Not at all. Only close friends and relatives cared to actually find him. If Ms. Richardson would have lost her mental capacity and walked out of the Compton Station – would this still make the major headlines? Ask yourself that?

By: Celeste Fremon

Celeste Fremon — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:49:35 +0000

P. No, what I know is limited, which is why I’ve done little in the way of blog posting about it. I’ve read the existing news accounts and spoken to the family’s lawyer, but obviously he’s partisan. Also one of my students did a bit of reporting and turned up some interesting stuff.

Do you know things that are different than what has been reported?

By: PopLockerOne

PopLockerOne — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:27:06 +0000

Ms. Fremon?
why are you bothered? Do you really know the facts of the case? I do…

By: Celeste Fremon

Celeste Fremon — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:03:56 +0000

Reg, yeah, I noticed that too (the sentence). I don’t know what’s up with the 25 to life thing. She’s either missing a fact or has some part of it wrong.

WBC, my feelings precisely. I’ve not spoken to any law enforcement people on this so I’m reluctant to leap on LASD with both feet. But I too have been so bothered by this case from the get go.

By: WBC

WBC — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:54:13 +0000

The Mitrice disappearance struck me from the start as a case where if, as alleged, the Sheriff’s dept. was just following standard procedure, something’s very wrong with that procedure. They impounded her car, knew she had no money or cell phone, knew she was mentally unstable (at least, she’d been described as such at the dinner where she was arrested for non-payment), yet released her on foot virtually in the middle of nowhere at 2 a.m. Shouldn’t they have at least taken her to a bus stop with fare to get home, if in fact as reports claim, she didn’t want to wait for her mother, who was on her way? I can’t keep up with all the contradictions in the story and latest details, but if the LAPD had done this, I’m sure the right would have been all over Chief Bratton alleging some sort of “elitist” or PC plot behind it.

By: A Big Crime Story

A Big Crime Story — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:18:50 +0000

Mexican drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva’s body shown to reporters after wild shootout

December 17, 2009 | 11:37 am

The shootout that left drug cartel chief Arturo Beltran Leyva dead reportedly involved 200 Mexican marines who quietly evacuated residents of an apartment complex before storming the building in the city of Cuernavaca.

Beltran Leyva’s body, which remained at the scene early today, was briefly shown to reporters who were allowed inside the apartment complex.

Authorities said Beltran Leyva, known as the “boss of bosses” as the head of a Sinaloa-based gang, and six members of his cartel died in the shootout Wednesday night. Cartel operatives had tossed grenades and fired weapons during the battle, which left one marine dead and wounded at least two, officials said.

â€œFirst they were asked to surrender, but they didn’t yield and they opened fire,â€ said one of the ski-masked marines who participated in the raid, and who was not authorized to give his name, according to the Associated Press

By: reg

reg — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:39:05 +0000

Incidentally, while I realize the guy got the 25-life sentence because of a guilty plea, sparing the state, etc. etc. etc., that’s not – as the news article states – the maximum penalty for 1st degree murder. It’s third, after the death penalty and life without parole.

By: reg

reg — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:45:39 +0000

I’m sorry but I think that any “authorities” responsible for leaving this poor little kid in the custody of an abusive rapist – especially when the kid himself was blowing the whistle on the guy – deserve to be tried and convicted of manslaughter and spend at least 8 years in prison as much or more than the young woman who killed and injured the two drunk guys by reckleslly doing 80 in a 55 zone you wrote about the other day. I’m serious. I actually think this case is worse and less defensible. These “authorities” should be brought up on very serious charges. More important, the oversight and regs under which they operate need to be vastly improved.