Jan. 6: We obtain a screenshot of Jeremy Popoff's Facebook page, on which he claims he hasn't avoided calls from the Weekly, that we committed journalistic malpractice by “twisting [his] words” and that our man Brandon Ferguson should masturbate rather than try to ask him questions. Can't argue with that last one, but what's odd is the Lit guitarist and owner of the Slidebar–which had a possible inadvertent role in the Kelly Thomas killing–says just the opposite in a voice-mail message to us. Except the past about Brandon needing to masturbate.
What We Learned: Sum 41's guitarist doesn't waffle like that.
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Jan. 7: An Anaheim Police SWAT officer shoots and kills Bernie Cervantes “Chino” Villegas, a father of two carrying a rifle-style BB gun through a West Ball Road apartment complex late
at night. Several reports of a man with a
gun produced the heightened response, police say.
What We Learned: Don't be a homeless guy bothering Slidebar customers or carry a BB rifle through a West Ball Road apartment complex.
Jan. 8: After the body of 21-year-old Arias Dolores Fagan is found in an RV parked in front of a Huntington Beach home, a three-strikes parolee is arrested after a police chase near the Nevada border. Ean Keith Brown, the 38-year-old whose parents let him live in their RV, is now up on charges that could get him an 85-year return visit to the joint.
What We Learned: Our neighbors are bad enough; now we have to worry about their parolee spawn living in RVs out front?
Jan. 9: Sloane Steven Briles is sentenced to three years' probation, a year in a child abusers' treatment program
and 180 days in a Veterans Administration residential treatment
program for throwing his 7-year-old
son off a cruise boat in Newport Harbor last August. The prosecutor argues to no avail that Judge Robert Fitzgerald should have given the 35-year-old Irvine resident jail time.
What We Learned: If something worse happens to the kid, it's on Fitz.
Jan. 10: A day after a 16-year-old boy turns himself in, a 17-year-old boy is arrested for allegedly being the second robber who participated in a violent beer theft from a
Circle K market in Garden Grove a week ago. Surveillance video had shown the clerk taking a beating before Good Samaritan Alex Ruiz, 22, of Garden Grove stepped in to help him.
What We Learned: Never trust a 16-year-old to keep his trap shut.
Jan. 11: Ahmad Siddiqi, a former Marine translator in Afghanistan, is arraigned for the murder in Westminster of his ex-girlfriend Soraya Faroqi, a former Department of Defense translator in Afghanistan, and her unborn child. Siddiqi faces a minimum
sentence with conviction of life in prison without parole, but prosecutors may seek the death penalty. Faroqi was 23, just like Siddiqi.
What We Learned: War really is hell.
Jan. 12: Former Santa Ana city intern Miguel Ruiz Fabian is sentenced to six months in jail and three years' probation for secretly creating 64 videos from his cell phone of men using City Hall restrooms. The
24-year-old Santa Anan pleaded guilty to eight misdemeanor counts of
disorderly conduct.
What We Learned: Carlos “Busty” Bustamante isn't the biggest perv at City Hall.
Jan. 13: Blase Bonpane — the religious rebel, KPFK radio host and Office of the Americas director — returns to Anaheim to promote his latest book, Imagine No Religion: The Autobiography of Blase Bonpane. He speaks at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Anaheim, which is not too far from where the old KDOC television studios were back in 1983 when Bonpane famously scuffled on camera with hot-headed Hot Seat host the late Wally George.
What We Learned: I'm not the only guy Wally once wanted to punch in the nose.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.