Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr. pleaded guilty to a felony involuntary manslaughter count for the death of firefighter Charlie Morton and two felony counts of recklessly causing a fire to an inhabited structure. He has been sentenced to two years of felony probation, one year in county jail, and 200 hours of community service.

Morton, a Forest Service firefighter on a Big Bear hotshot team, died after he became trapped against a wall of flames in the El Dorado fire.

Angelina Jimenez pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of recklessly causing a fire on another person’s property. She was sentenced to a year of probation and 400 hours of community service.

The Jimenez’s also have been ordered to pay $1.7 million in restitution, according to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office.

The couple was charged in 2021. They both pleaded not guilty, and requested that all charges be dismissed. One charge was dismissed in January.

“Resolving the case was never going to be a win,” District Attorney Jason Anderson said in a press release. “The Defendants’ reckless conduct had tremendous impact on land, properties, emergency response resources, the displacement of  entire communities, and resulted in the tragic death of Forest Service Wildland Firefighter Charles Morton. All these factors were given an extraordinary amount of consideration throughout every step of investigation, the Grand Jury process, and court proceedings.”

Residents of Mountain Home Village, Forest Falls, Angelus Oaks, Seven Oaks, Barton Flats and Oak Glen were among those evacuated. The fire also burned in Cherry Valley in Riverside County. The fire burned 22,680 acres, destroyed five homes and damaged four others.

In addition to the criminal charges, the couple also faced a lawsuit from the U.S. Forest Service over the illegal fireworks that allegedly started the fire.

The Long Beach Police Department responded to the school at around 1:04 p.m. and found an 18-year-old boy who had a BB gun, and a 15-year-old boy who had a knife.

The boys had been detained by a school police officer, and were then arrested by LBPD. Both weapons were recovered.

The school district said that the weapons were confirmed by Poly High staff, and urged parents to be cautious.

“This incident is a reminder to speak to your child about the importance of making positive choices and that their actions and words have consequences,” said Poly High principal Bill Salas.

Police would not confirm how the boys acquired the weapons, if they knew each other, or why they brought them to the campus.

The investigation is ongoing.

The quake was centered nearly 8 miles west/northwest of Malibu, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was felt away as far as the Inland Empire and into south Orange County. There were more than 20 smaller aftershocks reported.

The earthquake happened two hours after a 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck just off Hawaii.

The temblor near Malibu was some 38 miles deep, according to the USGS. The initial quake was followed by a 3.0 aftershock.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department said that no injuries have been reported. The fire department said it is in “earthquake mode” and firefighters will be surveying the city for any potential damage.

According to the National Weather Service, there is no tsunami advisory, watch, or threat in effect.

There was a M4.6 #earthquake at 1:47Pm PST near #Malibu Make sure to let the scientists know if you felt it at the USGS DYFI page! https://t.co/O1aCkl5tV0 https://t.co/ktFKVXFECr

— Caltech Seismo Lab (@CaltechSeismo) February 9, 2024

The quake coincidentally fell on the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, which was recorded as a magnitude 6.6. The earthquake killed 64 people and caused over $500 million in damages.

How the 1971 Sylmar earthquake changed the lives of two first responders

This is breaking news. The story will be updated as more information becomes available. 

The National Weather Service in Los Angeles said the storm was expected to ease a bit Wednesday morning, but then precipitation will pick up again.

“An end is in sight, but not until Thursday or Friday. Do not let the break Wednesday morning misguide you – more rain and mountain snow (are) coming Wednesday afternoon and night,” the NWS said on social media.

Sunday and Monday totals amounted to the third-wettest two-day stretch for Los Angeles since records were kept starting in the 1870s, said Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, in a Tuesday update.

“We still have light to moderate rain ongoing across the greater L.A. area,” Cohen said. “Soils are so saturated it will take very little additional rain to increase already flooded areas with more flooding, landslides, mudslides and debris flow.”

The driver of a pickup was found dead after a three-car collision sent the truck into a flood-control channel in Moreno Valley on Monday night. The body of Isaac Piza, 25, of San Bernardino, was found in the channel about 6 miles to the south in Perris, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said. Another driver, Keiana Bridgeforth, 50, of Menifee, was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision.

On Tuesday, a car ran off the 15 Freeway near Nichols Road in Lake Elsinore and overturned in a channel. But everyone in that close call was able to get out safely, according to the California Highway Patrol.

In Anaheim, a pregnant woman was helped out of a tunnel along the Santa Ana riverbed and walked up by firefighters after she became trapped in rising water, said Sgt. Jon McClintock, a spokesman for Anaheim Fire & Rescue. Firefighters got the call around 9:15 a.m.

They believed the woman was homeless and living in the tunnel. She was taken to a hospital, McClintock said.

Areas including Bel Air and the Sepulveda Canyon saw 12.32 inches and 12 inches respectively, over a 48-hour period. Woodland Hills had 11.70 inches by noon Tuesday.

Forecasters projected the heaviest rainfall would hit Orange County before 6 a.m., but the county was getting walloped for hours after that on Tuesday.

Coto de Caza had received 7.17 inches of rainfall over three days as of 2:19 p.m. Tuesday.

Brea, at 5.95 inches, had the highest amount for North Orange County spots.

Lytle Creek, in the San Bernardino Mountains, was up to 13.60 inches of rainfall as of Tuesday morning, and in Riverside County valleys, North Elsinore had collected 4.29 inches.

The storm has caused mud and debris flows that forced evacuations and left some homes heavily damaged.

Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach remained closed Tuesday, Feb. 6, sending commuters and travelers to alternative routes due to flooding stemming from the wetlands area.

“We haven’t been able to reopen it for safety reasons,” said Christine Knadler, Caltrans public information officer for District 12.

It was the only major roadway in Orange County closed as of Tuesday morning, with some smaller closures elsewhere mostly from drainage issues, she said. “We’re working on those pretty quickly,” she added.

Voluntary evacuation warnings remain in place in Orange County, including in Silverado, Williams, Modjeska and Trabuco canyons, according to Shannon Widor, an Orange County Public Works spokesperson.

Another evacuation warning was issued Sunday for the El Dorado and Apple fire burn scars in San Bernardino County. That specifically was for Seven Oaks, Barton Flats, Forest Falls and Angelus Oaks.

But as conditions eased in Los Angeles County, three mandatory evacuation orders were downgraded to warning status. Those were for the La Tuna Canyon area, the  Agua fire burn area along Soledad Canyon Road east of Agua Dulce Canyon Road and the Owen fire burn area, on Santa Maria Road north of Topanga Canyon in the Topanga area.

On Tuesday, homeowners were reeling in Hacienda Heights after a mudslide damaged three homes and displaced seven residents. No injuries were reported..

The heavy rainfall knocked out a wall below an apartment complex in La Habra and led to flooding on residential streets in Fullerton.

In La Habra, an apartment building at the Las Lomas Gardens apartments was red-tagged and evacuated by the city after a wall collapsed and damaged three cars Sunday night, ABC Los Angeles reported.

Work was underway to secure the area around the building after heavy downpours caused the collapse, said Greg Raap with Las Lomas Gardens management.

“This is not something that we anticipated would have been a failure like that,” Raap told the station.

Among other rescues, firefighters conducted a daring one in the Pacoima Wash on Monday, where they used a helicopter to hoist a man and his dog to safety.

In Los Angeles County, Caltrans closed both directions of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu near Ventura County because of storm erosion Monday night. The closure from Las Posas Road to Sycamore Canyon Road came after a right lane shoulder was partially washed out, officials said, with concerns that incoming high tides could cause further shoulder damage on the dark roadway.

Caltrans officials recommended using the 101 Freeway as an alternative, but recommended against traversing the 23 and 27 freeways in the Santa Monica Mountains in light of the potential for mudslides and flooding.

Roads leading to and through the Sepulveda Basin were closed because of flooding, including Burbank Boulevard between the 405 Freeway and Balboa Boulevard and Woodley Avenue between Burbank and Victory Boulevards.

Flash flood warnings lit up cell phones, including for coastal Orange County, as well as Whittier, Norwalk, La Mirada, Santa Fe Springs and other inland areas.

Officials in Torrance were dealing with a water main break above Vista Largo, a residential street in the southern portion of the city, which also sent debris into the street.

Los Angeles city firefighters were busy, responding to 307 mudslides and 35 incidents of buildings requiring inspection due to mudslides or slope failures, Chief Kristen Crowley said Tuesday. Five buildings in the city were red-tagged and seven more were yellow-tagged.

In addition, Los Angeles’ Public Works department responded to 257 fallen trees or branches and 159 reports of potholes and have cleared 875 catch basins and stormwater conveyance systems, Crowley said.

Upwards of 7,000 customers were without power at one point on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, but since the storm started, more than 53,000 had seen their power restored.

Downtown Los Angeles’ rain total was around 8.13 inches, while Pasadena recorded just over 8 inches by noon.

Forecasters expected showery conditions Tuesday for L.A. County with the potential for an additional inch to inch and a half in eastern portions of the county, and upwards of three-quarters of an inch in others.

Snow accumulations were currently as low as 5,500 feet, but could reach as low as 4,500 feet through Friday, according to the NWS.

After just a dusting of snow accompanied by heavy rain in previous days, the snow was piling up in Big Bear on Tuesday.

Anna Maldonado, who works at Blauer Board Shop on Big Bear Boulevard, said that’s because temperatures have finally dropped below freezing.

“We’re all surprised how much we’ve gotten after all the rain. We’ve got like a foot of snow, which is a big difference, 100%,” she said.

Resort levels across the eastern San Gabriels could see a foot or more of new snow, while lower elevations above 5,500 feet could see 5 to 10 inches of new snow. There is a 25% chance for an inch of snow on the 5 Freeway Tejon Pass early Wednesday morning.

Storm conditions led to the closure of some college campuses, including Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach, which switched to online instruction. Those campuses were set to resume normal operations Tuesday.

Rainfall and road conditions led the Bear Valley School District to close schools Tuesday, Asst. Superintendent Sue Nunes said.

The rain is expected to stop in Los Angeles County on Wednesday for about 12 hours, but another storm is coming in Wednesday night. It should be clear Thursday morning. In Orange County and the Inland Empire, the rain is forecast to continue through Saturday, the NWS said.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Roads, beaches flood, while more coastal trail closes in San Clemente with falling debris

More than 11 inches of rain hits some Southern California areas; more coming Tuesday

The powerful, multiple-day storm could drop 3 to 6 inches of rain in coastal and valley areas, and 6 to 12 inches in the mountains, with much of that downpour occurring in a 24- to 36-hour period between Sunday into Monday, the National Weather Service said.

Historically, rainfall of that magnitude has created overwhelming problems.

“There’s the potential for flooding across the L.A. Metro area,” Meteorologist Robbie Munroe said Saturday. “We’re looking at 4 to 5 inches across the area, maybe even locally higher. With that amount of rainfall, expect widespread flooding and issues. The L.A. River will likely respond pretty rapidly to this amount of rainfall.”

To prepare, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has already positioned swift water rescue teams at both the Riverside Fire Department and the Orange County Fire Authority.

Additionally, CalOES will have five engines, two bulldozers, two additional swift water rescue teams and an overhead helicopter rescue swimmer ready to go to work in Orange County. The rescue swimmer would accompany an OCFA helicopter crew if needed, officials said.

The heavy rain will be accompanied by strong winds in many areas, blowing at 30 to 50 mph in parts of L.A. County, and reaching up to 60 to 90 mph in higher mountain areas and the 5 Freeway corridor.

Peak winds were expected in L.A. County between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, Munroe said.

Winds could blow upwards of 30 to 40 mph in parts of Orange County and the Inland Empire and as much as 60 mph in the San Bernardino Mountains.

HEAVY rain is still on the way to #SoCal.

Here are some graphics which depict timing and rainfall amounts.

– 3 to 6 inches for coasts/valleys
– 6 to 12 inches for foothills/mountains
– FLOOD WATCH remains in effect for the entire area thru Tue#TurnAroundDontDrown #CAwx pic.twitter.com/ufocPhoi9q

— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) February 3, 2024

On Friday, local residents were still drying out from this week’s less intense storm – or trying to.

Mandy Garrett’s white, Model S Tesla was destroyed in Seal Beach on Thursday, Feb. 1.

“The whole alleyway where I had left my car was flooded,” said Garrett, a 45-year-old resident of Rancho Santa Margarita who works at a floral shop in Long Beach. “It was such a sign of what Mother Nature can do.”

Even after losing her car, Garrett is confident that she’s undertaken enough preparations for the coming storm system.

“You have to go with the punches,” she said.

As the system moves slowly toward Southern California from the north, Saturday should be mostly dry, except for a slight chance of rain late in the day in the far western reaches of Los Angeles County.

Rain will fall across most of the region Sunday, arriving in the L.A. area by nighttime. Forecasters said there’s a chance much of the heaviest rain could remain over Santa Barbara and Ventura counties for most of Sunday.

In the Inland Empire, most of the rain will fall Monday through Tuesday. Heavy snow is expected from Sunday to Monday, initially only above 7,000 feet, then lowering to 6,000 feet.

Those levels could drop as low as 4,500 feet by Wednesday and as low as 4,000 feet for L.A. County mountains, meteorologists said Saturday, causing potential problems for the Grapevine from Wednesday through Friday.

(1/5) Heavy rain, strong winds, & high elevation snow this week. While there are still some details with timing that need to be worked out, confidence is growing the heaviest, most widespread precipitation will occur late Sun into Mon. Additional precipitation expected Tue-Fri. pic.twitter.com/ZmGytfzM53

— NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) February 3, 2024

In San Bernardino County’s mountain communities, some residents are still recovering from the destruction caused by last year’s blizzard.

Cherie Ndei, a 36-year-old homeschool teacher who lives in Twin Peaks, said that she has still not been able to repair her roof after it was damaged last year — and that this storm is putting her family on edge.

“My husband and others who were trapped here last year have PTSD,” Ndei said. “Even a little bit of snow makes him start freaking out.”

At a news conference Friday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass outlined preparations her administration is undertaking.

“There are indications that the coming storm could be as strong as Tropical Storm Hilary in August,” Bass said. “But we made it through Hilary.”

L.A. Street Services will have trucks on hand to assist with downed trees and blocked roads, and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has made more vouchers available for unhoused Angelenos who need shelter from the storm, Bass said. Shelters should be open by 5 p.m. Saturday.

In Long Beach, Mayor Rex Richardson said the city has rented high-capacity pumps to have on hand where needed and officials were constructing a berm on the city’s beaches. He recommended all residents get essential travel done by Saturday night.

In a previous storm Thursday, at least three motorists’ cars got stuck in flood waters on Willow Street near the Terminal Island Freeway.

The Long Beach Fire Department will have a swift water rescue team warning the city’s homeless living along the riverbed of the dangers of potential flooding, Richardson said.

Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he’s mobilizing more than 8,000 people to assist with storm preparation and recovery around the state. including swift water rescue teams and urban search and rescue crews. The California National Guard is on standby to deploy to communities needing their help.

Nancy Ward, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, on Saturday warned of walking, swimming or driving in flood waters, adding that 6 inches of water can drown an adult, 12 inches can sweep away a vehicle and 2 feet could move an SUV or truck.

She also urged folks to stay inside during high winds as dangerous debris could fall from high tree limbs and the winds could lead to downed power lines.

Sheltering supplies for 40,000 people, including cots, food and water, were at the ready should they be needed, Ward said.

Shane Reichardt, spokesman for the Riverside County Emergency Management Agency, said local agencies are doing what they can to help residents prepare, especially in areas where people are still recovering from last year’s storms.

“It’s important to look at what people experienced,” Reichardt said. “As emergency managers, we always encourage people to have three to seven days’ worth of supplies on hand.”

Surf City Marathon event organizer Dan Cruz said the race, expected to draw 18,000 runners to Huntington Beach on Sunday, Feb. 4, is still planned, rain or shine.

“The forecast definitely calls for winter weather this weekend in Southern California,” he said on Friday. “Rainy races can be memorable and enjoyable with the right mindset and preparation. They’ve been training for weeks and months in preparation for the race. We are going to do our best to put on a world-class experience, no matter the conditions.”

But if changes are necessary, he added, the organizers will notify participants through email and social media.

NASCAR rescheduled Sunday’s planned doubleheader at the Coliseum to Saturday evening, with admission to the NASCAR Cup Series’ Busch Light Clash and NASCAR Mexico Series’ King Taco LA Batalla en El Coliseo now free.

Six Flags Magic Mountain will be closed Sunday.

Santa Anita Park canceled Sunday’s eight-race program due to the forecast, and a pair of graded stakes, the Grade III, $100,000 Las Virgenes and the Grade III, San Marcos, were rescheduled for Feb. 10.

Also, in anticipation of the storm, the Getty Center and Villa announced it would be closed Sunday and Monday.

Immediate threat to life. This is a lawful order to leave now. The area is lawfully closed to public access.https://t.co/kLvybm39S8
EVACUATION ORDER ISSUED DUE TO POSSIBLE MUD/DEBRIS FLOWS IN THE AREA OF SANTA MARIA RD. N/O TOPANGA CYN. IN EFFECT THROUGH 6:00PM 2/6/24. pic.twitter.com/4PtY5BuqBy

— LASD Lost Hills Stn. (@LHSLASD) February 4, 2024

In Los Angeles County, at least one evacuation order was issued by Saturday evening for the storm, on top of some evacuation warnings.

An evacuation order was issued southeast of Calabasas in the Owen fire area for Santa Maria Road from Topanga Canyon due to high risk of mud or debris flows in the area along Santa Maria Road north of Topanga Canyon Boulevard. The order is in effect from 6 p.m. Saturday through 6 p.m. Tuesday. Additionally, the remainder of Topanga Zone 4 was under an evacuation warning.

Evacuation warnings were also in place as follows:

Agua Fire Evacuation Warning Area:  For the area along Soledad Canyon Road east of Agua Dulce Canyon Road

Bobcat Fire Evacuation Warning Area: For the Juniper Hills and Valyermo areas

Lake Fire Evacuation Warning Area: For the Lake Hughes and King Canyon areas including those in the following:–20000 block of Pine Canyon Road–18000 block of Ellstree Drive–46000 block of Kings Canyon Road–18000 block of Newvale Drive–43000 block of Lake Hughes Road

And in the Fish fire evacuation warning area, the city of Duarte issued an evacuation warning for Mel Canyon Road between Fish Canyon Road and Brookridge Road.

In the city of Los Angeles, an evacuation warning was issued in the Shadow Hills area, the LA Fire Department said, for La Tuna Canyon Drive starting at Martindale to the east, Primrose to the south, Ledge to the west and Horse Haven to the north.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Those are the accusations of eight Southern California women who filed lawsuits against the Pomona Unified School District and those coaches over the past three years.  Last week, for the first time, a jury ruled that one of the women deserves $35 million.

What the eight women say happened back then is slowly unfolding in court. To protect their privacy, all but one of the women are identified in court records as “Jane Doe.”

The women are mostly in their 40s now. They graduated high school more than two decades ago. Jane Doe #4 – who was awarded the $35 million – dropped out of high school before graduation, returning more than a decade later to get her GED.

Some of the women now have children who are in high school themselves. According to her attorney, Jane Doe #4’s daughter has expressed interest in track and field, giving her mother tremendous anxiety.

Four more women are still awaiting the resolution of their cases. Three others have quietly settled.

The lengthy lawsuits filed for each of the then-students allege that a group of coaches committed rampant sexual abuse at the school in the mid-1990s. The coaches were young men, mostly in their 20s and 30s.

The suits are the result of Assembly Bill 218, which passed in 2019 and provided a three-year window for anyone alleging they were a victim of sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits and claim damages. The Archdiocese of San Francisco filed for bankruptcy after several hundred lawsuits were filed under the bill.

No criminal charges were ever filed in any of the Pomona cases.

“Not coming forward is not unusual, and that’s why the statute of limitations (for the civil suits) changed,” said John Taylor, one of the attorneys representing the Jane Does. “There is now an overall awareness and a support for survivors, and a realization that you don’t attack a 14 or 15-year-old girl or boy who is groomed or sexually abused.”

The women’s allegations are similar: the coaches sought the girls out after they joined athletic programs, coaxed them to spend time alone in offices and locker rooms, and repeatedly harassed, groped and assaulted them.

Some of the Jane Does reported bullying, both by coaches and other students, so incessant that they left for other schools.

Jane Doe #2 alleged in her suit that when she was one of the athletes at a Las Vegas track and field meet, she was a victim of statutory rape – coerced into having sexual intercourse with Brian Crichlow, a track and field coach, in a hotel room, while she was forced to watch another coach, Kitrick Taylor, having intercourse with one of her teammates on a bed next to her.

She also said that she once was taken to Kitrick Taylor’s home and coerced into having sexual intercourse with Crichlow.

She and her legal team could not be reached for comment.

Kitrick Taylor came to the school after a stint as a wide receiver for the NFL from 1988 to 1993. He played for the Green Bay Packers, the San Diego Chargers, the Denver Broncos, and the New England Patriots. He is now retired. He has no relation to attorney John Taylor.

While Kitrick Taylor is named a defendant in only one of the cases — Jane Doe #2 — he is mentioned throughout the other cases as a witness and an enabler.

Kitrick Taylor did not want to comment on the cases, other than to deny his involvement in an argument between himself and Jane Doe #4 that she said led to her being harassed by classmates and other coaches.

Jane Doe #8 alleged that her sexual abuse began when she was 16 years old, after she joined the track team. Coach Herman Hopson and Crichlow abused her inside a school bus on campus, and Crichlow continued to abuse her off campus, as well, she said in her suit.

Unlike the other accusers, the complaint filed for Doe #8 explains that she only realized she was a victim of sexual abuse decades later, in January 2023, after learning that other women had come forward with similar reports.

“The Pomona community is relatively small, and people knew people, and they knew things that they saw,” John Taylor said. “It was such a pervasive thing for such a long period of time that once people realized there was a way to hold the school district and the perpetrators accountable, then people were excited.”

Jane Doe #8 said she never told anyone about what she experienced, or sought help for it. Most of the Jane Does did not file police reports.

“A lot of times, the grooming has been so normalized that there’s confusion about what the sexual interaction or the relationship was about,” John Taylor said. “Survivors come forward and talk about sexual abuse at different times. There is no magic period of time that makes it more comfortable.”

Hopson and Crichlow could not be reached for comment.

Vincent Spirlin, named as a defendant in the lawsuits filed by Jane Does #5, #6, and #7, was a coach and locker room supervisor. He is accused of similar conduct to the other coaches, including sexually abusing Jane Doe #7 on campus at sporting events and coercing her into sexual intercourse.

Public records indicate that Spirlin was working as a locker attendant at a Pomona Unified school as recently as 2022.  Spirlin declined to comment, and the school district would not comment on his employment status.

At least one of the Jane Does filed a report with the Pomona Police Department, but no criminal charges were ever brought. Pomona police said that although a report had been filed, the incident was past the statute of limitations, and Las Vegas and Chino authorities had taken up their own investigations. The status of those investigations is unclear.

All of the Jane Does allege that school administrators, including a principal, knew about the abuse and simply turned a blind eye, sometimes directly discussing the relationships they had with the coaches.

The school district has not commented except to offer a statement saying that in the wake of the lawsuits, it has offered more sexual harassment training.

According to the lawsuit filed by Jane Doe #4, a school administrator she told about her abuse said they would “take care of it.” However, after relentless bullying from the coaches and other students, Jane Doe #4 moved to a different state.

The $35 million award to Jane Doe #4 represented what her legal team said was more than two decade’s worth of physical ailments, emotional trauma, and consistent anxiety stemming from the abuse she experienced.

The cases for Jane Does #5, #6, #7, and #8 are pending, with no trial dates set, according to their legal team. Jane Doe #5’s case will likely go to trial before the end of 2024.

None of the Jane Does wanted to discuss their cases.

The quake at 7:43 p.m. was initially reported as a 4.5, but has now been downgraded, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was two miles southwest of San Bernardino.

The city of San Bernardino and other local governments will assess buildings for damage, but no injuries or damage were immediately reported by local authorities.

A USGS intensity map showed people reported feeling the quake as far away as Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Barstow, Indio and San Diego.

Noted seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones said on social media the quake location was close to the San Jacinto fault.

“That part of the fault is generally locked … We often see small quakes like this below locked segments,” she said.

This is the second 4.2-magnitude quake near San Bernardino this month. One struck on Jan. 5 near Lytle Creek.

Earthquakes of that magnitude usually will cause no more than minor damage.

This is a developing story.

“Jane Doe 4”  said in the lawsuit she entered the 10th grade at the school in 1995 and joined the track and field program. At a track trip to Las Vegas the following year, she said, she witnessed several male coaches and employees drinking, smoking marijuana, and giving alcohol to students.

In 1997, during another track trip in Las Vegas, Doe said, she was assaulted by one of the coaches, Herman Hopson, who she said was drunk in a motel room. Hopson asked Doe to come into his room to talk to Doe after she had an argument with another coach. It was during that time he raped her, the suit says.

After reporting the assault, Doe was told by the school’s principal that it would be dealt with, but instead, Doe was incessantly bullied until she left the high school and moved to a different state, according to the suit, while the coach remained employed.

Although the lawsuit says two women alleged sexual assault against coaches at the school, the jury only returned a verdict Tuesday in Jane Doe 4’s case.  Another woman, Jane Doe 3, settled and did not go to trial.

The suit, filed in Oct. 2022, was the result of Assembly Bill 218, a law passed in 2019 opening a three-year window allowing sexual assault survivors to file lawsuits. The window closed on Dec. 31, 2022.

No criminal charges were ever filed. Hopson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Various coaches from Pomona High School have faced allegations of abuse stemming back to the 1990s, including Kitrick Taylor, a former NFL wide receiver who was sued by a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 1997. The case was settled in 2021. Taylor has continued to work with children and young women, holding a position working with abused children.

In total, eight women have filed lawsuits against the district in the last two years. Three of those suits have settled and one is ongoing. The “Jane Doe 4” case is the only one to go to trial and reach a verdict.

In 2016, the same legal team representing the Jane Does won an $8 million verdict for a former Pomona student who was sexually abused by her eighth-grade middle school teacher in Diamond Bar.

“Pomona High School had a prolific problem with childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by its adult, male coaching staff in the 1990s and early 2000s, and Jane Doe 4 is one of nine women who have come forward to report abuse. PHS administrators, coaches and staff repeatedly and inexplicably turned a blind eye to this abuse for decades, destroying the lives of many young women, including our client,” attorney Natalie Weatherford, who represented Jane Does 3 and 4, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Today’s verdict is a huge victory, not only for Jane Doe 4, but for all the women who are currently waiting to fight their fight,” Weatherford said.

The Pomona Unified School District in its own statement accepted liability and said that the district would mandate more training and bolster its risk management team in response.

“PUSD’s students are safer because PUSD is implementing new measures and is more transparent and more committed to protecting its students than ever before,” the district said.

The district declined any further comment on the cases and declined to disclose settlement amounts.

Reporter Scott Reid contributed to this report.

It was his second-in-command, the Operations Captain Gus Jimenez.

Ten people had been killed, Jimenez said, and 10 others had been injured by a gunman, later identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran. Tran walked into the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park holding a pistol modified with a high-capacity magazine and sprayed the beloved dance studio with gunfire for about a minute. Tran then drove to Alhambra, where a heroic citizen, Brandon Tsay, disarmed him, and then Tran disappeared into the night.

On Saturday — exactly a year since the shooting — Monterey Park community members will gather for a vigil at the ballroom to remember the 10 people who died that night and one woman who died soon after. Wiese reflected on the year that he, and his department, have had since the shooting.

After making calls to his own administration — and texting newly-inaugurated L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna — Wiese got in his car and drove to the scene.

“It’s big,” Wiese recalled texting Luna. “I’m going to need some sheriff’s resources. It sounds like it’ll be on the news in the morning.”

As Wiese drove to the scene of the mass shooting, he thought of Uvalde, Texas, where police officers waited more than an hour to breach the classroom where an 18-year-old gunman had opened fire on children and teachers. The agonizing footage of police officers standing mere feet from where children lay bleeding out sparked intense rage, and a scathing Department of Justice report released on Jan. 18 found “cascading failures” with the department’s response.

Officers in Monterey Park arrived at the ballroom just minutes after Tran left. They went inside as they were supposed to do, Wiese said. Officers had participated in active shooter training just days earlier.

“Uvalde was a very sobering experience for every cop in the country,” Wiese said. “We, in law enforcement, cannot believe the mistakes that were made. Our job is 99% mundane, and it’s one percent of chaos. The problem is that in that one percent, you have to do it right. It has to be done right.”

Mass shootings, still a part of the public conscience and a part of the state’s history, are relatively uncommon in California compared to other states. An analysis by the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research center that focuses on gun violence in America, found that California has had about one mass shooting per million residents compared to states like Illinois, which averages 3.6 mass shootings per million residents.

Soon after Tran opened fire in the ballroom, the small and primarily Asian-American city of Monterey Park was thrust into the international spotlight. And Wiese — although he had been working as the department’s chief for several months — had just days earlier been sworn in.

So early in his tenure, Wiese became a member of what he called a “small and terrible fraternity” of police chiefs helming cities in the wake of mass shootings.

When Wiese arrived at the scene, one of his officers walked him through the terrible events of that evening: they walked past a car where 67-year-old Mymy Nhan was shot, and into the ballroom, where bodies, blood, and gun casings lay strewn across the wood floor.

Wiese spotted another one of his officers who had been on the force for just a year and was in her mid-20s.

“My youngest female officer met us inside, and she was processing evidence, looking at the scene, looking at the videos,” Wiese recalls. “I stood there in the middle of the ballroom, and I was looking at these nine murdered people laying in different positions, and she was doing her job, stepping over dead people to get to evidence. … She was a manager at an In-N-Out a year ago, and here she was, in a room full of dead people as a cop. I realized I was really proud of her.”

It was five hours later that the department informed the public that a suspect was on the loose — a decision Wiese has come under scrutiny for in the months since. He stands by his decision.

“We didn’t have a very specific suspect by name, but that developed over the next several hours,” Wiese said. “Initially it was a very vague description, and this is happening at one or two in the morning.”

At about 10 a.m. the morning after the killings, officers in Torrance spotted a white van that matched the description of Tran’s vehicle. Officers pulled the vehicle over, and as a Sheriff’s Department SWAT team began to make make their approach, Tran fatally shot himself in the head.

Almost exactly 12 hours after the shooting, the suspect was dead, and a massive investigation was full-speed ahead as reporters from around the world descended on Monterey Park.

The parking lot behind the dance studio would, for weeks, be filled with news trucks, portable light kits, and dozens of cameras. Community members would gather again and again with tear-stained cheeks and plastic candles, trying to make some sense of what had happened.

The Monterey Park Police Department is significantly smaller than other cities in Los Angeles County, especially when compared to the 10,000 civilian and sworn employees of the LAPD. The department had  interacted with the media on significant stories so rarely that it didn’t have a spokesperson, or media training, according to Wiese.

“It was overwhelming,” Wiese said. “Not a lot happens in Monterey Park. Our relationship with the press wasn’t bad, but it doesn’t exist. Reporters go where the story is, and we were never the story.”

While organizing the media frenzy outside the ballroom, fielding interview requests from news broadcasters Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon, and speaking to local reporters at the scene, Wiese also pivoted to the officers who had first responded earlier that night. Most of them had gone home, slept, and returned to work — against Wiese’s advice.

“Initially they said, ‘We’re okay, sir,’” Wiese said. “I opened up about my own trauma, and they started to break down a little bit. Three hours later, they all went home. That was the first time we got to debrief them, and it was an important night, because it showed them that they can have emotions like human beings.”

One of the lessons Wiese has learned from the shooting is that the ways in which police — and often reporters — identify people affected by violent crime is frequently too rigid.

“There were a lot of people who are connected to the dance studio who might have been there earlier, or who had a close relative who was there, or are somehow associated with that night, but they aren’t what I would consider a victim or a witness, because they weren’t there when bullets were being fired,” Wiese explained. “But they’re still affected by this. … I had to learn about that process, because it was new for us.”

A year later, Wiese said, the department often speaks to people who are coming to terms with that emotional damage, left behind without physical markers.

“What we’ve done in the last year has been an internal assessment to make sure we’re doing that one percent the right way, and externally giving the community the support they need.”

And, as for Wiese himself, he said that he is leaning on family and friends to continue his own recovery from that night.

“I’m doing okay,” Wiese said. “I learned early on that police officers suffer more trauma, and have more issues in their lives, if they internalize the trauma they see. I am a huge advocate for talking about things. I have expressed myself to the point where my demons are out.”

The Star Ballroom and Dance Studio is still standing in Monterey Park, still offering dance classes, its physical presence mostly unchanged. Many places where mass shootings happen are either rebuilt, or demolished entirely. But the ballroom has stayed.

“I can’t drive by that location without thinking of all those people,” Wiese said. “There’s a Bank of America attached to it. If I go to that ATM and pull some cash out, I think about all the lives that were affected that night. I look at myself like a sheepdog that affects the flock. Part of me wishes I could have done more that night to stop that guy before it happened, but I also know that there’s nothing I could have done. But we’re all sheepdogs. And we don’t like for members of the flock to be hurt.”

Steven Robert Sablan, a 62-year-old man from Cleburne, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping. He has been in federal custody since July 2023.

According to court documents, Sablan abducted the girl in July and transported her in a Nissan Sentra to Long Beach. Sablan used a gun to threaten her.

Sablan kept the girl in his custody in Long Beach until July 9, 2023, when someone noticed her holding a sign saying, “help me!” in the window of Sablan’s car and called 911.

Sablan also admitted to sexually assaulting the girl, with whom he has no family relationship or legal custody.

Sablan will be in court next on Oct. 25, at a sentencing hearing, where he will potentially face life in prison.