The Solano County District Attorney’s Office cold case unit is revisiting the case involving death of 47-year-old Winifred Christian “Chris” Douglas, a homeless woman with ties to Berkeley.

Douglas’s body was discovered dumped in bushes near the Interstate 780 Laurel Street freeway exit in Vallejo on March 3, 1996. An autopsy report showed that Douglas, who was not known to travel to Vallejo, had suffered traumatic injury, said Investigator Ronald Becker. He said the woman commonly spent time in an underground Berkeley parking garage.

“One of the pieces of the puzzle is … why Vallejo?” Becker said in an interview with the Contra Costa Times. “We don’t know any ties, any reason, that she would be brought to Vallejo. There’s a possibility — don’t know for sure — that she was killed elsewhere. Which is why we’re looking for anyone who may have known her in Vallejo.”

Investigators are asking anyone who may have associated with Douglas in the Vallejo area, or who might know her son Anthony Douglas to contact them at (707) 784-3088.

The prosecution of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle continued Friday as a new judge reviewed the defense’s proposal to dismiss the murder charge against him.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Reardon asked both sides several questions but did not issue a decision, which he said he will release by Oct. 2, when the court will consider the defense’s request to move the court to a different county. Friday’s hearing lasted less than an hour.

Mehserle allegedly shot Oscar Grant III, who was unarmed, at the Fruitvale BART station on Jan. 1. Judge C. Don Clay, who presided over the 7-day hearing, decided in June that there was enough evidence to try Mehserle with murder. He said he did not believe the defense’s claim that Mehserle intended to use his Taser and accidentally used his firearm.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Mehserle intended to shoot Oscar Grant with a gun, not a Taser,” Clay said.

Clay ended the hearing before the defense presented all of its witnesses. Rains claimed this deprived Mehserle of his right to due process and that the charge should thus be dismissed.

In a statement dated Aug. 26, Rains wrote that Clay’s conclusion was based on two faulty assumptions that would have been debunked by the defense’s next witness, a Taser expert.
Rains said Clay assumed that officers were trained to draw their Taser with their strong arm and fire them with one hand, and that he thus incorrectly concluded that since video evidence shows the right-handed Mehserle drawing his weapon with his right hand and using both arms to discharge his weapon, Mehserle intended to use his firearm and not his Taser.

The statement also shed light on the extent Rains might be willing to go in defending Mehserle, even mentioning the possibility of a federal appeal.

“The legal issues before the Court now, and those that will inevitably arise throughout this litigation, are thorny and will be reviewed by the Court of Appeal, the state Supreme Court, and perhaps by the federal courts,” Rains said in the statement. “If California intends to send a police officer to prison for the rest of his life for an on-duty shooting that occurred during the arrest of a resisting suspect, it had better ensure that such a prosecution is squeaky clean.”

Rains is also requesting a change of venue, which would move the trial to a different county on the basis that members of jury selected in Oakland would already have made up their mind against Mehserle.

Rains scolded the approach of the public toward the prosecution in his statement.
“From just hours after the Grant shooting, members of the media, community and religious leaders, and politicians, have been calling for Mehserle’s conviction of murder,” he said in the statement. “They—and those who resorted to civil unrest during the weeks after the Grant shooting—have little understanding of the important and precedent-setting legal issues raised by the case. They have no sense that the decisions made here will have profound impact on the administration of justice in this state going forward. As to this case, at least, they appear to be unconcerned with the rule of law.”

Rains also claimed that David Stein, the district attorney prosecuting the case, has been swayed by the public.

“In a matter of such extraordinary seriousness and importance, and which has caused such upset in the community, it is the (district attorney’s) job, beyond all others, to insist that the rule of law prevail over sentiment and outrage,” Rains said in the statement. “As the United States Supreme Court said 75 years ago, the prosecutor’s ‘interest, therefore in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.’ … But by refusing in almost all instances to directly address defendant’s legal arguments and claims of error, the DA sends precisely the opposite message: justice be damned; we just want to win the case, give the community what it demands, and move on.”

Reardon said he has read and reviewed all transcripts from the hearings as well as all evidence that was presented. Although he did not make a ruling, he asked the attorneys to clarify several points regarding the case.

Reardon asked the attorneys about the orientation and position of Mehserle’s Taser before it was drawn. He also discussed bringing Grant’s arrest history into the case.

Reardon also pointed out that there was testimony during the hearing regarding Mehserle’s handling of the firearm as compared to the trained use of a Taser, and thus that the testimony of the Taser expert would not have been entirely new information. Pirone had testified that Mehserle’s hand position while using the firearm was consistent with the use of a Taser. Rains acknowledged this and said he was trying to add this to the record because he anticipated that he might not be able to have the Taser expert testify. Michael O’Conner, the other district attorney present at Friday’s hearing, said that the Taser expert Rains wanted to testify was not the actual person who had trained Mehserle and that his testimony would thus not have be as relevant.

Rains also suggested that the judge should have given more consideration to Mehserle’s character. O’Conner said character would have been “negligible at best” and would not have affected the outcome.

Outside the courtroom, Grant’s uncle Bobby Johnson said he does not think Reardon will rule in the defense’s favor by lowering the charge from murder to manslaughter. Johnson said he still thinks Mehserle’s intention was to murder Grant.

After I wrote an article on community and police efforts to increase safety in south campus, UC Berkeley senior Paula Luu contacted me regarding a new iPhone application she is helping to promote called Panic N Poke.

The application allows users to send a text message to a predetermined list of contacts when they feel their personal safety is at risk. After sending out the message, users are given the option to dial 911.

The application also utilizes the iPhone’s GPS feature.

“Because iPhones are capable of recording your GPS location, the panic request includes the user’s current street address, so your contacts can easily find you,” Luu wrote in a message.

The group that developed the application, Life360, created it in response to the 20 sexual assaults that have occurred near UC Berkeley this year alone.

“The Life360 team recognized how our application might serve student bodies, turning iPhones into a security device and a regular application into a potential life saving tool,” Luu wrote.

The application does not only focus on safety, though. It also has a poke option, which subscribers can use to send out a fun message in non-emergency situations.

Panic N Poke, which was launched on Monday, costs $1.99 to download.

Berkeley police were digging for evidence related to an old case in Tilden Regional Park today, according to Berkeley police Officer Andrew Frankel. Frankel declined to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the case, saying only that he will provide more information through a press release if more information is uncovered

A daily roundup of the biggest headlines in Bay Area and national news.

UCLA Student Found Dead in Alleged Murder-Suicide

In what police are now calling an apparent murder-suicide, UCLA sophomore Krishna Rajaram was found dead Monday morning in his home, the Daily Bruin reports.

Rajaram, along with his two brothers and mother, was allegedly killed by his father, Karthik Rajaram, according to the Los Angeles Police Department authorities. Upon allegedly killing his family, Karthik Rajaram then turned the gun on himself, authorities added.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block issued a statement Monday evening, expressing his sadness over Rajaram’s death. The Los Angeles campus is now offering counseling services to those in need, according to the Daily Bruin.

Televised Presidential Debate to Attract Millions

Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain will be meeting in Nashville, Tenn., tonight for the second presidential debate.

The two candidates will debate foreign policy and the economy tonight. However, the current financial crisis will likely generate a few more points for discussion.

The debate follows Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden’s historic vice-presidential debate, which attracted a record number of 70 million viewers.

$2 Trillion Lost in Retirement Funds

Roughly $2 trillion in retirement funds have been lost over the past 15 months, according to Congress’s top budget analyst today, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Due to the credit crunch and recent stock market upheaval, retirement plans have been devastated, said Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional budget office.

“Unlike Wall Street executives, America’s families don’t have a golden parachute to fall back on,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “It’s clear that their retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis.”

$601 Million Raised Among Billion Dollar College Campaigns

The 29 college billion-dollar fundraising campaigns have raised a total of $601.9 million in gifts and pledges during the last month in which they had data available, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

New York University made the largest fundraising gains last month, collecting $163.2 million. In total, the university hopes to raise $2.5 billion by 2008.

Launched last month, UC Berkeley’s Campaign for Berkeley aims to raise $3 billion by 2013 in order to remain competitive with its private peer institutions. In the challenging economic climate, campus official say they are primarily relying on affluent donors to meet that goal.

Valerie Woolard discusses the effects of high gas prices on students.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiwYhB1_wiU

See the full article here.

After the crime scene tape and cop cars have left, students of UC Berkeley’s Greek community have left signs mourning the passing of a UC Berkeley fraternity member killed last night.

They are mourning the tragic death of 21-year-old Chris Wootton, a member of Sigma Pi who was fatally stabbed early this morning.

In a display of support, students have delivered flowers and chalked phrases such as “We Love You Chris” on the street near the parking lot Wootton was killed. (Click here to read more…)

Three Unit 1 male security monitors were robbed at gunpoint early Wednesday morning as they waited at a nearby bus stop.

Alex Cheng, 19, Jason Keller, 20, and Devin Koba, 19, were sitting at the bus stop between the Putnam and Freeborn halls, waiting for the Owl Line to come pick them up when the suspect approached them holding a handgun and took two cell phones and $182.

(Click here to read more…)

Although police and school officials say they think gangs do not have a major presence at Berkeley High School, they admit the kids would know most about student membership in West Side Berkeley or H2O Front Berkeley—the two most prominent Berkeley gangs.

“Even in the junior high you’ll pick up notebooks and they’ll have H2O written all over it,” said Berkeley police Sgt. Patricia Delaluna, a gang expert. “The kids know better than anybody who’s all involved.”

However, even students are in discrepancy about the presence of gangs. Two juniors at Berkeley High, Rafi Susman and Michael Salaverry, said they don’t think gangs exist in their school.

“I don’t worry about that, not at Berkeley High,” Salaverry said.

His friend said even though there aren’t gangs at the school, there still is criminal activity.

“There’s gang-like activity but they’re not labeled as gangs,” Susman said. “I think here it’s more about ridiculous individuals than ridiculous gangs.”

However, other students are positive of the presence of gang-like groups, which sometimes engage in criminal behavior but do not label themselves as “gangs.”

“There’s gangs, but sometimes they’re called cliques,” said Cervon Rogers, a freshman at Berkeley High. “Then they say the ‘turf’ they’re from, they do signs, they target each other.”

(Click here to read more…)

When the case seemed cold, homicide detectives in the Berkeley Police Department received an unexpected tip about the 2006 shooting death of Wayne Drummond, Jr. As a result, two men were arrested.

Police have charged Berkeley resident Brandon Crowder, 20, and Richmond resident Nicholas Beaudreaux, 22, with the murder of 23-year-old Drummond, who died on the steps of UC Berkeley sorority, said Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.

(Click here to read more…)