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State news briefs
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MOM JAILED AFTER TODDLER FOUND ROAMING PARKING LOT: MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) — Deputies say they have arrested a drug-addled mother after her 3-year-old daughter was found wandering a Southern California apartment complex parking lot late at night.

Orange County sheriff's investigators say 29-year-old Milanya Mundell has been booked for investigation of child neglect and being under the influence of a drugs. Bail is set at $100,000.

Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said that the toddler was found roaming the Mission Viejo parking lot and crying for her mother just before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

When deputies knocked on Mundell's apartment door, she initially locked herself inside. She eventually opened the door and she appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

Amormino says a loaded syringe and drugs were found in the home.

The toddler is in protective custody.

PI IN NORCAL DRUG TASK FORCE PROBE PLEADS GUILTY: OAKLAND  (AP) — A former Northern California police officer pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges of stealing drugs from law enforcement, setting up men for drunken-driving arrests and other crimes.

Christopher Butler entered his plea in U.S. District Court to multiple counts, including robbery, conspiracy and extortion. He was at the center of a Contra Costa County drug task force scandal.

Butler and Norman Wielsch, former head of the now-defunct Central Contra Costa Narcotics Enforcement Team (CNET), were indicted last year for allegedly stealing marijuana and methamphetamine from evidence lockers to sell in 2010, prosecutors said.

The pair also ran a Pleasant Hill brothel, according to authorities.

TEEN CHARGED IN CALIF. ICE SHOOTING : LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 14-year-old boy admitted fatally shooting his father, a federal immigration agent, with his service weapon after arguing about school grades, a prosecutor told The Associated Press on Friday.

Prosecutors will seek to try the teen as an adult in the killing of Myron Chisem, 42, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. The boy, whose name wasn't released because he's a minor, faces one count of murder with an allegation that he used a firearm to shoot his father.

The teen is expected to appear Monday in Juvenile Court. He remains in custody and it wasn't immediately known if he had retained an attorney.

Deputy District Attorney Todd Hicks said the teen admitted he shot his father after a lengthy interview with sheriff's investigators.

"Our working theory is apparently there was a dispute of some kind between father and son over grades," Hicks told the AP.

The teen used his father's weapon late Wednesday to fire a single round through a window from outside their house in Carson, near Los Angeles, authorities said. The bullet struck Chisem, a U.S. Navy veteran, in the back of his head.

 

 

 

FISHERMEN FREE TANGLED WHALE THAT WENT MISSING: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Crab fishermen working off the Northern California coast have managed to free a gray whale that was tangled in a large fishing line and that had disappeared after a previous rescue attempt, federal wildlife officials said.

Fisherman Mark Anello was out on his 48-foot wooden crab boat Thursday about 3½ miles off the coast near Bodega Bay, located about 67 miles north of San Francisco.

A fourth-generation fisherman, Anello noticed something odd near his boat: three buoys floating nearby were moving. He motored closer to investigate.

Anello and two others on his boat the Point Ommaney found the orange and white buoys connected to a whale that measured close to the length of his vessel, said Tony Anello, Mark's father.