Free Republic

Human bones recently found in Napa County were positively identified as two missing Santa Rosa brothers, who investigators believe were killed when they became trapped in the Butts Fire that ravaged Pope Valley in 2014. The brothers — Mario and Florentino Avendano — were first reported missing by their family members in January 2015, seven months after the Butts Fire erupted northwest of Lake Berryessa.

The quake hit at 6:39 p.m. about 1.86 miles north of Santa Rosa, USGS said. It struck at a depth of about 4.6 miles. The Santa Rosa Fire Department said it was responding to multiple reports of gas odors, gas leaks and stuck elevators. There are no immediate reports of injuries.

A group of four young men are wanted for robbing $20,000 worth of merchandise from an Apple Store, all caught on security cameras in broad daylight - the latest in a series of lootings across California.

A Northern California Apple store was targeted by thieves Wednesday in the latest smash-and-grab theft as mobs continue to commit brazen burglaries on retail shops in several U.S. cities. Four suspects walked into the Apple store just after 11:30 a.m. in Santa Rosa, 55 miles north of San Francisco, and stole more than $20,000 worth of merchandise in broad daylight in front of customers and staff, authorities said.

Former Officer Derek Chauvin was justified in pinning George Floyd to the ground because of his frantic resistance, a use-of-force expert testified for the defense Tuesday, contradicting a parade of authorities from both inside and outside the Minneapolis Police Department. Taking the stand at Chauvin’s murder trial, Barry Brodd, a former Santa Rosa, California, police officer, said officers don’t have to wait for something bad to happen; they need only to have a reasonable fear that there’s a threat and then adjust their actions accordingly. “It’s easy to sit and judge … an officer’s conduct. It’s more of a challenge...

The fire is spreading to the SW and East. The map updates if you refresh, and can be zoomed in and out. Many areas have been evacuated and others are under Evacuation Warnings. Many areas are in power outages and planed outage areas. https://sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2cb4401e1fc0494dbf9d9e22aa794617

<p>SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Watermelons are set to replace piglets in an annual event celebrating agriculture at a California fair.</p> <p>The Press Democrat reported Saturday that the Sonoma County Fair has eliminated the pig scramble from Farmers Day due to rising public concern and protests over animal welfare.</p>

Jason Windus gave his California neighbor something to look at during a dispute over the height of a backyard fence — naked mannequins having a garden party. Four of the fashion dummies are seated in wicker chairs around a matching table. Another is standing with its arms over its head and shamrocks over on its breasts. A hand-scrawled sign on top of a nearby wooden barrel reads, "Reserved seat for the nosey neighbor that complained about my fence to the city." "They wanted me to tear down my fence to see inside my yard, and now they get to," Windus...

Democratic consultant claims he warned party staffers about legality but was ignored. It seems clear at this point that Democrats in Florida were not going to accept defeat in the 2018 midterms and were prepared to do whatever it takes to win, including fraud. In multiple counties, an effort has been underway to “fix” certain mail ballots in the hope that they could turn the tide after the fact. Try to imagine the media’s reaction if Republicans were doing this. Ana Ceballos reports at the Naples Daily News: Democrats planned to use altered forms to fix mail ballots across Florida...

Bronough Street, we have a problem. That problem for Democrats is that Republicans have figured out early voting. The one “ace up the sleeve” for Democrats in Florida has been offset by an aggressive early voting campaign by Republicans. In fact, 7,152 more Republicans have voted early compared to Democrats. When Democrats make small gains in Broward, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough and, yes, Duval Counties, Republicans are making significantly larger early vote gains in Sarasota, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, and almost every other Republican-leaning county in the state. Remember when I said at the beginning of the election that the Florida Panhandle was...

{snip}...The report said a substitute administrator, Marie So, was in charge the night of the fire and wasn't familiar with the facility's evacuation plan. "She did not utilize Villa Capri's emergency binder during the evacuation, did not know where keys for facility vehicles were kept, where flashlights were kept, or where batteries for flashlights were kept, nor did she know how to direct the staff she was supervising during the emergency," the report said. At the nearby Varenna facility, touted on its website as a "luxury retirement community," 228 residents were being cared for the night of the fire. The...

Some movie goers may still be reeling after seeing some very rare footage of San Francisco around the time of the 1906 earthquake. A small crowd of people turned up at the Edison Theater in Fremont Saturday to view the premiere of a nine-minute film of the devastation. The footage from the San Francisco-based Miles Brothers film studio was discovered at the Alemany Flea Market last summer after being missing for more than a century. Anniversary of the quake, which destroyed much of Santa Rosa too, is Wednesday.

Before a crowd of more than 100 civic and business leaders, Santa Rosa Junior College President Frank Chong on Friday vowed to resist federal immigration operations on campus and defy all requests for information about undocumented students, even if it lands him behind bars. “If it’s about release of information, we’re not going to cooperate. If they end up on campus, we’re not going to cooperate,” Chong said. “We will engage in civil disobedience and I will be willing to go to jail in order to protect the rights of my students.” Chong’s defiant words came during a packed, noontime...

NOTICE: If you hate California and have nothing good to say, move on. You are NOT wanted on this thread. Get lost. If you have a heart, please watch the video of the Berkeley Engine 6 firefighting team helping out in Santa Rosa. This is heart-wrenching. There are links to contribute to those who have lost everything. A group of Berkeley firefighters was called out to help fight the Tubbs Fire early Monday morning. They thought it was a "large grass fire," but arrived in Santa Rosa to find hundreds of homes and businesses burned. This video was taken and...

Peter Lang had a heart-wrenching choice — save his house in the fire-ravaged hills above Santa Rosa or protect the more than 1,000 animals trapped at his wildlife preserve, Safari West. The 77-year-old owner of the 400-acre facility on Porter Creek Road didn’t give it much thought. As the flames approached, Lang ushered his wife, employees and 30 overnight guests off the hill, grabbed a garden hose and began dousing hot spots threatening his collection of primarily African species, including cheetahs, giraffes and rhinoceroses. When dawn broke, they were all alive but Lang’s home was destroyed. “I did not lose...

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Multiple wildfires were burning early Monday in Sonoma and Napa counties, threatening homes and businesses and prompting mass evacuations as well as school cancellations and power outages. A fire in Santa Rosa crossed Highway 101 at about 2 a.m. and ignited structures west of the freeway in the area of Kohl's Department Store on Hopper Avenue, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Snip In his 14 years at the school, Lyon has performed no reading remotely like the one that resonated throughout the historic campus two days after the presidential election in November. He said the response of many Latino students to the election of Donald Trump compelled him to write and broadcast the piece. The day after the election, “it felt like a funeral,” he said. “People were wearing black and crying. It felt like death.” Lyon had students coming up and asking, “Are they going to deport me now?” He felt the fear was pervasive. About half the student body...

“Just because you live on the street doesn’t mean you don’t have value.” – Ka Lani If you walk into the Coddingtown Starbucks, don’t be surprised to see a man with headphones quietly strumming an electric guitar and jotting down chords in a notebook. Meet Ka Lani, a homeless musician and Santa Rosa Junior College student. With 35 years’ experience playing the guitar, he earns money as a street musician while studying to become a substance abuse counselor. He wasn’t always homeless. In the 1980s he played guitar for The Crypts, a Marin punk rock band who opened for Black...

A Santa Rosa teenager who was injured during a violent struggle with seven law enforcement officers near Elsie Allen High School in 2011 has settled his federal lawsuit against the city and Sonoma County for $350,000. The agencies admitted no wrongdoing in the case, but faced risks in trying to convince a jury that the force they used to restrain 17-year-old Marlon Whitmore during a psychotic episode — including pepper spraying, Tasering, and striking him with batons — was justified. cut According to court documents filed by Whitmore’s legal team, the youth was ultimately Tasered 19 or 20 times, struck...

A Santa Rosa man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of child endangerment and other charges after he allowed his 15-year-old daughter to drive his Dodge Ram while he sat by as a drunken passenger, the CHP said. An officer stopped the truck Sunday night around 7:30 p.m. after noticing it going about 20 mph in a 35 mph zone on Llano Road with expired registration, said Officer Jon Sloat in a news release. He stopped the truck after it pulled into a private driveway and found that a 15-year-old was driving along with passenger Grasifedo Chavez, 35. Chavez told the...