FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2005
Volume 4, Issue 102
FR EE
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
Suspects in SM Pier shoot-out await jury verdict
DAILY LOTTERY SUPER LOTTO 1 12 30 38 40 Meganumber: 2 Jackpot: $22 Million
FANTASY 5 4 10 14 16 31
DAILY 3 Daytime: Evening:
112 058
One suspect took 15 hostages at pier arcade on busy summer holiday, shot five people
DAILY DERBY 1st: 2nd: 3rd:
09 Winning Spirit 06 Whirl Win 11 Money Bags
RACE TIME:
1:41.24
BY JOHN WOOD
NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY
CHUCK
Dummy luck
Daily Press Staff Writer
SHEPARD
A St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter, interviewing neighbors of the people who shared a St. Croix Falls, Wis., home that was condemned after being overrun with 450 cats, found that most neighbors had failed to notice the house’s putrid smell. Several said that the awful odor from the neighborhood’s fish hatchery and the awful odor of the neighborhood’s sewage treatment plant probably overrode the awful odor of the house.
TODAY IN HISTORY
DOWNTOWN LA — A jury began deliberating Thursday in the case against two gang members charged with shooting five people and taking 15 hostages on the Santa Monica Pier nearly five years ago. The five-hour standoff began after midnight on July 4, 2000, and ended in the early morning dawn with the surrender of Oswaldo Amezcua, a convicted felon want-
ed in connection with five other slayings. Three Santa Monica police officers and two civilians were injured in the gunfire. Lawyers on Thursday delivered closing arguments in the trial against Amezcua, 29, and his accomplice, Joseph Flores, 24, both of whom face laundry lists of felony charges for a string of murders and attempted murders that spanned from their hometown of Baldwin Park to Victorville, See SHOOT-OUT, page 8
In 1965, “I Lost It at the Movies,” a collection of film criticism by Pauline Kael, was first published by Little, Brown and Co. In 1977, more than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined the negotiations. In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko. In 1861, the Confederate convention in Montgomery, Ala., adopted a constitution.
Nicky Five Aces/Five Aces Photo Mat Wesner (left), a three-year veteran of the Santa Monica Fire Department, and Stan Klopfenstein (right), a captain in the Santa Fe Springs Fire Department, on Thursday pull a mannequin out of a dirt ditch during a drill designed to simulate the rescue of victims buried alive. The drill was part of a four-day trench rescue course at the Santa Monica Airport. The SMFD’s Urban Search and Rescue Team and the Santa Monica water/wastewater division practiced the techniques required to remove trapped or injured workers from trench emergencies and collapses.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Death destroys a man; the idea of Death saves him.”
Santa Monica citizens hedge policy at workshop
E.M. FORSTER
ENGLISH AUTHOR (1879-1970)
INDEX Horoscopes Let others have control, Libra
BY RYAN HYATT 2
Daily Press Staff Writer
3
CITY HALL — Santa Monica residents outraged over a $25,000 fine for having high hedges were given the chance to do their own landscaping last night. More than 40 Santa Monicans concerned over hedges, fences and walls that separate them from neighbors showed up at Ken Edward’s Center Wednesday for a city-sponsored workshop to voice their views on how their barriers should be regulated. One participant said the “Hedge Wars” began more than a year ago after City Hall began enforcing a 1948 law that directed
Surf Report Water temperature: 63°
Opinion Bush coalition crumbling
4
Commentary ’Tis the tax season
5
Entertainment The other festival
9
Comics Laugh it up
12
Classifieds Ad space odyssey
13-15
Service Directory Work it out
15
People in the News Morrison film restored
16
Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Times SWAT officers work the scene while a crowd looks on after a five-hour hostage standoff on the Santa Monica Pier on July 4, 2000. The suspects, who are accused of killing five people in the greater Los Angeles area before shooting three Santa Monica police officers on the pier, are awaiting a jury verdict on their fate.
Jacquie Banks
hundreds of residents to cut their hedges or face fines of as much as $25,000 a day — up to a maximum of $500,000. Among those targeted was a group of residents who live in multi-million-dollar homes along Adelaide Drive in northern Santa Monica — including now City Councilman Bobby Shriver, as well as Alvin Sargent, an accomplished film writer. Both had questioned the impetus for the enforcement and City Hall’s priorities. Shriver decided to run for City Council last year after he grew frustrated with City Hall’s initial handling of the hedge issue. He See HEDGES, page 7
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