At St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, where thousands of public safety officers gathered to honor two firefighters fatally injured in a blaze last week, men and women in their dress blues lined the back of an over-flow room where all the seats were full.
About halfway through the 3.5-hour service Friday, two firefighters stood up and offered their seats to men who had been standing for a long time. The firefighters had to imply they were leaving the room to convince their colleagues to sit down.
It was the kind of cooperation and selflessness that seemed to run like a thread through the funeral of fire Lt. Vincent Perez, 48, and firefighter-paramedic Anthony "Tony" Valerio, 53, of Station 36, who were burned while fighting a fire in the Diamond Heights neighborhood June 2.
Perez died shortly after the fire, and Valerio succumbed to his injuries two days later.
Police and firefighters from across the country and beyond gathered to remember the men -- one talkative and one taciturn, but both choosing daily to put their lives on the line to help others.
"On the outside they seemed pretty different," fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said during the service. "But both shared an unwavering tenacity and unwillingness to give up on what they believed in."
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San Jose police have arrested a man who allegedly stabbed another man to death during a Cinco de Mayo celebration.
Demetrius Campbell, a 20-year-old San Jose resident, was stabbed around 11:30 p.m. May 4 in the 2000 block of Flintcrest Drive.
Just before the stabbing, Campbell and the suspect, Joseph Rick Beltran, were involved in a verbal altercation at a Cinco de Mayo barbecue, according to detectives.
Campbell was taken to Regional Medical Center of San Jose, where he was pronounced dead at 12:01 a.m. His death marked the city's 16th homicide of 2011.
Beltran, 19, was arrested at his home, located in the 1200 block of Farringdon Drive on Wednesday.
He remains in custody at the Santa Clara County jail.
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A man was struck and killed by a car as he tried to cross Saragota Avenue in San Jose this afternoon.
Police received the call at about 2 p.m.
The man was struck by a 2006 Scion as he attempted to cross the southbound lanes of Saratoga Avenue south of Graves Avenue. He was taken to Valley Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The driver of the Scion was a 26-year-old Campbell woman, according to police. She cooperated with investigators.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. Drugs and alcohol do not appear to be factors.
The identity of the victim hasn't been released.
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Search dogs and forensic investigators had no luck searching a rural area of southeastern Alameda County for the body of a nursing student who was last seen at a Hayward hospital in May, police announced tonight.
A 35-person police team searched about 30 square miles of the Niles Canyon and Palomares Canyon areas for Michelle Le starting at around 8 a.m. Friday. The search ended at 6 p.m.
No body or other evidence was found, according to the Hayward Police Department.
Friday's search was the latest of more than a half-dozen searches during the past two weeks.
Le's friends and family members hosted a vigil Thursday night at Mount Eden Park in Hayward with the hope that she is still alive.
The vigil was in response to the Hayward Police Department's reclassification of Le's disappearance to a homicide Monday, organizers said.
Le, 26, has been missing since about 7 p.m. on May 27 from Kaiser Permanente Hayward Medical Center on Sleepy Hollow Avenue.
She told classmates she was headed to Reno after her rotation at the hospital. Le left during a break and never returned.
Investigators said they discovered compelling evidence that points to homicide.
Sgt. Steve Brown said investigators wanted to remain hopeful that Le was alive, but "based on all the evidence, we have the grim possibility that Michelle is dead and we should prepare for the worst."
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A man was found dead in a recycling bin in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park on Friday morning by firefighters responding to a brush fire nearby, and investigators are considering the death suspicious, police said.
The man, who has not been identified, was found by firefighters responding to a fire at 4:39 a.m. at the park, located near the intersection of Buena Vista Avenue East and Haight Street, a fire dispatcher said.
While extinguishing the blaze, firefighters found the partially burned body of someone who was already dead, police Lt. Troy Dangerfield said.
The body was found in a blue recycling bin, which was near tennis courts, police Sgt. Mike Andraychak said.
Homicide inspectors and the arson task force responded to investigate the incident.
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A woman who was struck and killed by a vehicle on state Highway 156 in Castroville on Thursday morning had stopped with her 12-year-old son to help people with car trouble, according to a California Highway Patrol spokesman.
The woman, 36-year-old Veronica Brumley, was driving a red Acura sport utility vehicle west on the highway shortly before 11 a.m. when she noticed a Volkswagen Jetta that had run out of gas on the left shoulder, CHP Officer Robert Lehman said.
She stopped her car on the right shoulder and a couple, who was in the disabled vehicle, walked along the shoulder of the two-lane freeway to meet Brumley behind her car, Lehman said.
Then as she was getting back inside her car, a Toyota Avalon going west on the highway struck Brumley. She was pronounced dead there.
Lehman said the woman's son was sitting in the passenger seat of her car and saw the crash.
The CHP sent a grief counselor to console the son and his stepfather, who arrived a short time later to pick him up.
The people in the disabled vehicle were also "shaken up," Lehman said.
The driver of the Toyota Avalon was an 18-year-old woman from Southern California who was on her way to the University of California at Santa Cruz campus to visit a family member, Lehman said.
She was not cited or arrested. There was no indication she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The crash remains under investigation.
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A small plane crash near Livermore that killed a Belmont couple in 2010 was most likely caused by the pilot's inability to fly in low-visibility weather conditions, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.
The crash happened shortly before 10:30 a.m. on May 9, 2010, about eight miles northeast of the Livermore Municipal Airport in a rural, hilly area off Morgan Territory Road.
Julia Huber, 75, was flying the plane, a Piper Cherokee PA-28, and her husband Oskar Huber, 77, was riding as a passenger.
The couple was returning home after visiting family members in the Auburn area.
According to the report, rain had passed through the area shortly before the plane crashed and fog limited visibility.
Julia Huber held a private pilot certificate that allowed her to fly in weather conditions clear enough to see where she was going, but the weather conditions that day appear to have required the use of navigation instruments, according to the report.
The plane was heading into hilly terrain when it appears that Julia Huber attempted to maneuver it to better weather conditions at lower elevations, but struck an area of 50-foot-tall trees and then crashed to the ground, according to the report.
The plane was seriously damaged, but investigators found no evidence of any mechanical malfunction before the crash.
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A man who was found shot to death in his trailer in Richmond has been identified as 50-year-old Richard Lovato, Richmond police Lt. Bisa French said.
Police received a call at about 9:50 a.m. Friday from a man who had stopped by the trailer, which was parked in the driveway of a house in the 1800 block of Virginia Avenue, and found Lovato dead inside.
It appeared that he died from at least one gunshot wound, French said.
There were no witnesses to the shooting and police did not have any suspect information this afternoon.
Police had received a report of gunshots in the area about an hour before Lovato's body was found, but when officers checked the area, they didn't find any victims or evidence of gunfire, French said.
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A Sonoma man was sentenced to 21 years in prison Friday morning for fatally shooting a Penngrove man who was working on stereo equipment in his home two years ago.
Salvador Camargo, 28, pleaded no contest in April to voluntary manslaughter of 52-year-old Kenneth Swolley.
Swolley was fixing stereo equipment in the Arnold Drive house where Camargo was renting a room May 9, 2009.
Camargo shot Swolley in the head at close range and disposed of the firearm in a nearby vineyard pond. Dive teams from Sonoma and Solano counties recovered the weapon.
Camargo was arrested at a Pueblo Drive home about three miles away after he asked a woman to call 9-1-1 because someone was trying to kill him, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said.
Camargo was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and was sent to Napa State Hospital. A Sonoma County grand jury indicted him for the murder in January 2010 and he pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.
The Sonoma County District Attorney's Office agreed to the plea agreement with Camargo because of mental health evaluations and his drug use around the time of the murder, District Attorney Jill Ravitch said.
Swolley's family members remembered their brother and cousin as a talented baseball player, salesman, manager of seven businesses, horse lover.
"This was a horrific, uncalled for, unnecessary crime," Swolley's brother Johnny said.
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In his last day on the job Friday, Oakland City Attorney John Russo appointed Chief Assistant City Attorney Barbara Parker to be acting city attorney until a permanent successor is either appointed or elected.
Russo, who has been city attorney since 2000 and served on the City Council for six years prior to that, will begin serving as Alameda's city manager Monday.
The Oakland City Council now has 60 days to appoint a replacement for the rest of Russo's four-year term, which ends in December 2012.
If the council can't muster enough votes to make an appointment within 60 days, the city will have to hold a special election within 120 days to fill the post.
Russo announced May 4 that he would take the Alameda job, but it was widely known for a long time before then that he was seeking that position, largely because he has clashed with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who was sworn in Jan. 3.
In a letter to City Council members, Russo commented on their slowness in selecting a replacement, saying, "It is clear that the council will not make an appointment before I vacate the office."
In his letter, Russo said he is appointing Parker "to assure a seamless transition with an experienced, eminently qualified attorney in charge of the office until the council makes its appointment decision."
Parker has 20 years of experience in the Oakland City Attorney's Office, including more than 10 years as second in command to Russo. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1975 and previously served for more than five years as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California.
As Oakland's chief assistant city attorney, Parker has represented the City Attorney's Office at virtually all council meetings for the past decade.
Her responsibilities included overseeing a staff of about 20 attorneys and directing all legal advice provided to the Mayor's Office, City Council, City Administrator and all other city boards, commissions and departments.
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A man police dubbed the "Hot Spot Bandit" was arrested Friday morning in Pleasant Hill for allegedly stealing hundreds of dollars worth of lottery tickets, California Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said.
Robert Wayne Ladd, a 39-year-old Pleasant Hill resident, was arrested on suspicion of nine counts of burglary.
Each count carries a possible sentence of two to six years in prison. If he is convicted, however, this would be Ladd's third strike, which means he could potentially be sentenced to life in prison, Traverso said.
The alleged thefts began in April and were mainly committed at Bay Area supermarkets.
In most cases, Ladd allegedly waited until a counter where Hot Spot tickets were being sold was left unattended, walked over and reached behind the counter, where he helped himself to hundreds of dollars worth of tickets, Traverso said.
Lottery police, working with Pleasant Hill police, obtained surveillance photos of Ladd and issued a warrant for his arrest earlier this week.
Investigators have also been working with the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office, which will be prosecuting the case, Traverso said.
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Drug use or a medical condition might have caused a Sebastopol man to collide with three vehicles on state Highway 12 near Sebastopol, California Highway Patrol Office Jon Sloat said.
Diego Jameau, 54, of Sebastopol, was driving a Toyota Previa van east on Highway 12 at 80 to 100 mph around 9:30 a.m. Friday, Sloat said.
The Toyota rear-ended and disabled a Ford Ranger then continued traveling east. The Toyota then sideswiped two other vehicles that were stopped in the left lane waiting to turn south on Llano Road, Sloat said.
The van continued east on Highway 12 before it became disabled and caught fire.
A Sonoma County sheriff's deputy stopped and broke one of the van's windows to remove the driver. Jameau became combative and was handcuffed and CHP officers arrived, Sloat said.
Jameau was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and the driver of one of the other two vehicles at Llano Road complained of pain and was taken to Sutter Medical Center.
Alcohol does not appear to be a factor, and the CHP is investigating a medical condition or drug use as a cause of the collisions, Sloat said.
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A man who claimed to have a gun robbed the U.S. Bank in the Safeway store in American Canyon Thursday evening, the Napa County Sheriff's Office said.
The suspect demanded money from a teller and ran from the bank at 103 W. American Canyon Road with an undisclosed amount of money, sheriff's Capt. Tracey Stuart said.
No one was injured and a weapon was not seen, Stuart said.
American Canyon police responded to the robbery at 5:50 p.m.
The suspect is a thin black man who is about 5 feet 6 inches tall. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark pants.
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The Bay Area is forecast to be cloudy this morning, becoming partly cloudy, with highs is the lower 60s and west winds of around 20 mph.
This evening is expected to be partly cloudy, becoming cloudy, with lows in the lower 50s and west winds of 15 to 20 mph.
Sunday is expected to be mostly cloudy, with highs in the upper 50s to mid 60s and southwest winds of 10 to 15 mph.
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