Santa Ana police chief resigns amid controversy over rise in shootings, says he has new job

Santa Ana police chief resigns amid controversy over rise in shootings, says he has new job

Santa Ana Police Chief Carlos Rojas has announced his resignation, saying he has agreed to take a job with another undisclosed agency. In a letter dated Wednesday, April 19, to Acting City Manager City Manager Gerardo Mouet and obtained Thursday by the Register, Rojas noted he had served the city for more than 27 years. He called for the appointment of an acting police chief to “allow for a seamless transition as I separate from…

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Santa Ana woman killed in San Bernardino shootings ‘had a lot to give’

Santa Ana woman killed in San Bernardino shootings ‘had a lot to give’

Tin Nguyen spent Tuesday with her boyfriend Haisan Trinh celebrating his 32nd birthday. She had a surprise planned for him on Thursday. Together nearly six years, the couple had been talking marriage – Trinh had even been saving to buy an engagement ring – but the kind and generous Nguyen was already like part of the family, said Trinh’s brother Haian Trinh, 33. She was Haisan Trinh’s “first girlfriend, ever,” his brother said Friday as…

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Family members, national groups push to solve 1985 Santa Ana terrorist attack case

Family members, national groups push to solve 1985 Santa Ana terrorist attack case

SANTA ANA – Helena Odeh remembers going with her father Alex Odeh, then the West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, to his second-floor office on 17th Street in Santa Ana in the 1980s. “His work was his life,” she said. “That’s what he stood for. He wanted peace.” On Oct. 11, 1985, the morning after he appeared on local and national television praising Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat as “a man…

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Officers accused of crash cover-up

Officers accused of crash cover-up

A San Antonio police sergeant and six other members of the force are under investigation after the sergeant crashed a patrol car into a highway wall early Thursday and the others tried to cover up the incident, Police Chief William McManus said at a news conference Monday. The 20-year veteran of the Police Department, off-duty and possibly driving while intoxicated, sideswiped a wall near East Josephine Street around 5:30 a.m., McManus said. The sergeant then walked…

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Murder trial opens in robbery-related shooting

Murder trial opens in robbery-related shooting

A San Antonio police officer who had been on the force for a year and a half, William Karman was trained to shoot when he felt his life was threatened. He found himself in that position, he told a jury Tuesday, when he interrupted what appeared to be an armed robbery. A man had pinned another man to the ground with a gun, then pointed the gun at Karman and advanced, the officer testified. “‘San…

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Little-noticed killing snuffed out dream

Little-noticed killing snuffed out dream

It took Lorena Smith a decade working as a dancer at strip clubs to get to where she was, close to paying off her mortgage on a home in a gated community and only a couple of courses short of earning a nursing degree. The single mother had raised two sons and only recently started going out, rewarding herself after three years of strictly studying. As she celebrated this new chapter, a gunman took her…

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