They only just finished cleaning up after the May Day riots, but yesterday downtown businesses had to contend with a new episode of vandalism.
Articles by Danny Wool
Watsonville Stabbing Not Gang-Related
The stabbing of a 15-year-old girl in Watsonville High School was boy-related, not gang-related.
Cyclists Whiz by a Quiet UCSC
What was Mike Rotkin so worried about? This isn’t the ’60s. The protest wasn’t for our troops overseas, and money, not lives, were at stake. And yet Rotkin was nervous about having the Amgen Tour pass by the UCSC campus, where students were holding a walk-out to protest rising tuition.
Gang Sweep in Santa Cruz Nabs Eight Suspects
A coalition of city and county police forces from across Santa Cruz launched a new crackdown against gangs this weekend, arresting eight suspects and contacting fifteen. The arrests were made for narcotics violations, outstanding warrants, and parole violations. Deputy Police Chief Rick Martinez said that, “We periodically do these types of gang suppression operations to address increases in gang crime in our community.
Amgen and UCSC’s Angry Students
The Amgen Tour will be stopping in Santa Cruz today, and the city is expecting thousands of people to show up to greet some of the best cyclists in the world. The crowd may be even bigger than anticipated because students at UCSC have the day off—sort of. Today is scheduled to be a “Day of Protest,” arranged by the students opposed to the University of California’s proposed tuition hike. Though it is officially a walk-out, in the past, Days of Protest got ugly. The question today is whether some of that ugliness will spill over into the bike lanes being used by the Amgen racers.
City Preps for Amgen
Santa Cruz is getting ready to host the end of Stage 3 of the Amgen Tour of California tomorrow. Thousands of people are expected to attend the event, which is bringing together some of the world’s leading cyclists in a race for the finish line at Beach Street and Riverside Avenue. Nevertheless, the city is still looking for 100 additional volunteers to serve as race marshals.
“Gangs Suck” Message of March
Dozens of friends of Carl Reimer and other concerned citizens gathered in Mission Garden Park on Friday night to remember Carl Reimer, the 19-year-old who was shot to death by suspected gang members.
It Isn’t All Baywatch in Santa Cruz
If only Baywatch was still on the air… A plot line for the new episodes could describe how the lifeguards struggle to keep their jobs and save lives despite state budget cuts. There are dozens of local beaches in Santa Cruz County alone, but this spring there has only been enough money to fund four year-round employees to keep an eye on the beaches.
SCPD Launches Another Partnership with Feds
While the SCPD’s partnership with ICE to combat gang violence may be coming under fire from the Latino community, the police department hopes that a new partnership with the partnership with the Drug Enforcement Agency will be embraced by the entire community.
Where Have All the Lizards Gone?
When Elizabeth Bastians of UCSC went to Mexico this year, she expected to find hordes of lizards there. There weren’t, and Bastians claims that this is an indication of things to come. In a paper released yesterday, she and her coathours argue that some 20 percent of the world’s 5,000 lizard species could go extinct by 2080 as a result of global warming. “The sites where there had been the greatest change in temperature were the ones where the lizard had gone extinct,” she says.
