• 3 PULLED FROM HOLLYWOOD POOL IN GRAVE CONDITION: LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities say a woman and two children who were pulled from a motel pool in Hollywood are in grave condition.
Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey says the three weren’t breathing and had no pulses when paramedics arrived at the motel on Hollywood Boulevard at about 3:30 p.m. Monday.
Humphrey says the children apparently panicked while swimming in the deep end of 7 ½-foot-deep pool.
He says a woman attempted to rescue the two and also ran into trouble.
An unidentified bystander pulled all three from the pool and left.
• COUPLE DEAD AFTER BOAT CRASHES INTO DOCK IN TAHOE: MEEKS BAY (AP) — Authorities say a husband and wife are dead after their boat crashed into a dock in the middle of the night at Lake Tahoe.
El Dorado County sheriff’s officials say the crash was reported a little before 2 a.m. Sunday near Meeks Bay.
Deputies say a 19-foot boat was traveling at a high rate of speed when it hit a pier piling and the hull of the boat split in half. Officials say the force of the collision woke up some people who had been sleeping on the dock at the time.
Firefighters and deputies pronounced the couple dead on scene. They’ve been identified as 44-year-old Tatiana Nikolskaya and 45-year-old Vadim Raizanov, both of San Ramon, California.
Authorities are looking into the possibility that alcohol was involved.
• MARRIED NEARLY 62 YEARS, COUPLE DIES 4 HOURS APART: BAKERSFIELD (AP) — After nearly 62 years of marriage, little separated Don and Maxine Simpson — not even death.
The California couple died just four hours apart in July, spending their last moments side by side. He was 90 and she was 87.
Granddaughter Melissa Sloan said that her grandmother died first, and when her body was taken away, Don Simpson’s soul left with her.
The couple met at a Bakersfield bowling alley and married in 1952. A civil engineer, Don at one point worked for the U.S. Army in Germany.
The couple adopted twin boys from a German orphanage and returned to Bakersfield, where she worked as a nurse and he owned his own engineering company.
• MAN PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO KILLING GOOD SAMARITAN: LOS ANGELES (AP) — A homeless man who allegedly began screaming and swearing at a 3-year-old child in a Hollywood restaurant has pleaded not guilty to killing a man who tried to protect the boy.
City News Service says 36-year-old Jeremy Harris entered a plea Monday to voluntary manslaughter.
Prosecutors say Harris repeatedly punched 57-year-old Gabriel Ortega in the head when Ortega stepped in front of the boy at a Hollywood McDonald’s in June.
Ortega was hospitalized two days later and died last month.
Authorities say Harris didn’t know the boy.
He faces 11 years in prison if convicted.
• FINGERTIP BITTEN OFF AT BEYONCE-JAY Z CONCERT: PASADENA (AP) — Authorities say a man was arrested at Jay-Z and Beyonce’s Rose Bowl concert in Southern California after allegedly groping a woman and then biting off the tip of her boyfriend’s finger during a fight.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports (that 25-year-old Roberto Alcaraz-Garnica of San Diego was taken into custody Saturday on suspicion of sexual battery and mayhem.
Pasadena police Lt. John Luna says Alcaraz-Garnica was accused of groping a woman in her 20s. When the woman’s boyfriend confronted him, a fight broke out. Luna says during the altercation the suspect bit off the tip of one of the boyfriend’s fingers.
• KERN COUNTY DEPUTIES KILL WOMAN ARMED WITH BB GUN: BAKERSFIELD (AP) — Kern County sheriff’s deputies have shot and killed a woman they say pointed a realistic-looking handgun at them.
Deputies went to a Bakersfield stone business around 5 a.m. Sunday to deal with a woman who reportedly was yelling and throwing rocks.
Arriving deputies found 42-year-old Maria Rodriguez on top of a large pile of stones.
Authorities say when three deputies climbed the pile, Rodriguez pointed what appeared to be a semiautomatic handgun at them. They opened fire.
Rodriguez died at the scene.
The weapon was later determined to be a BB gun.
• MAN SUSPECTED IN CHILD ENDANGERMENT : CORTE MADERA (AP) — A Northern California man was arrested after police say he accidentally set his apartment on fire making drugs while his two young children slept in the next room.
Brian Holland, 29, of Corte Madera was booked into the Marin County Jail late Saturday on two counts of suspected child endangerment and one count of manufacturing a controlled substance, the Central Marin Police Authority reported.
Investigators said that Holland was converting marijuana into a wax form, which is becoming popular for its high potency.
The process requires butane gas, and investigators said it appears Holland was working close to the heater’s pilot light in the small apartment, which caused the flare-up.
Holland sustained a minor burn and was taken to a local hospital for treatment before being booked into jail, police said.
Holland’s two children, ages 2 and 4, were not harmed by the fire that scorched the living room carpet, police said.
Investigators seized 24 cans of butane gas, more than two pounds of marijuana and other items, police said.
• POLICE SHOOT SUSPECT OUTSIDE VENTURA COUNTY FAIR: VENTURA (AP) — Authorities say 26-year-old man was shot by police after allegedly driving recklessly and injuring an officer outside the Ventura County Fair.
The suspect, who has not been identified, is in critical condition on Monday.
Police say the man was seen driving recklessly in a pickup, trying to pass barricades near the fair entrance on Sunday. After the driver struck an officer, police fired on him as he accelerated and hit parked police motorcycles and an empty shuttle bus.
The officer was treated at a hospital. Police say his injuries aren’t life-threatening.
Police say a beer can was found inside the driver’s truck, but it’s unclear whether he had been drinking.
• WHEELCHAIR-BOUND TRANSIENT’S DEATH PROMPTS PROBE: RIVERSIDE (AP) — Riverside police say a homeless man who was found dead in a wheelchair outside a barbershop had been attacked.
The man was found dead before dawn Sunday.
Thre man, who had just one leg, would panhandle in the strip mall where he was found and usually slept in front of the barbershop where he was found.
Friends say they called him “St. Louis” because he was from that city.
• MAN FOUND NOT GUILTY OF KILLING 6-MONTH-OLD GIRL: SANTA ANA, (AP) — An Orange County man who denied killing his girlfriend’s 6-month-old daughter has been found not guilty in a retrial.
City News Service says Rodrigo Martinez was acquitted Monday and will be released from prison.
He was convicted in 2008 of assault on a child and murder. Prosecutors say he struck the infant in the head with a gun butt in 2005 at the Garden Grove home he shared with his girlfriend.
But two forensic experts testified at his retrial that the injuries were inflicted seven to 10 days earlier, when Martinez wasn’t with the child.
Martinez’s girlfriend, Alma Hernandez, pleaded guilty in 2007 to child abuse, endangerment and being an accessory after the fact. She was sentenced to four years in prison.
• MAN SENTENCED FOR PLANTING PALM SPRINGS PIPE BOMBS: RIVERSIDE (AP) — Prosecutors say a man who planted pipe bombs in a Palm Springs neighborhood was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to possessing an explosives device.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Edward Allen Costa planted six crude pipe bombs in various locations near his ex-girlfriend’s home in May 2012.
None of the devices exploded.
He received the sentence Monday, about three months after pleading guilty to possession of an “unregistered destructive device.”
In 2012, the 49-year-old had pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Authorities say he walked away from a halfway house last August before completing his year-long sentence.
While a fugitive, he was indicted on charges of possessing pipe bombs and escaping from custody. He was recaptured last November in Banning, California
