Category Archives: Monterey Herald

Drug Deal Goes Bad, Dealer Files False Report

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Kids – don’t sell drugs. If you do choose to sell drugs, don’t go crying to the police when your sales skills fall short of success.

Nicholas Gore
Nicholas Gore

Nicholas Gore approached Pacific Grove police two weeks ago with an odd tale. The 18-year-old said a group of strangers had beaten, robbed and abducted him at gunpoint from the normally sleepy Country Club Gate Shopping Center. The randomness of the purported crime sent shudders through Butterfly Town, USA.

But now police say Gore invented the story to cover up a drug deal gone bad. Gore was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of making a false report to police. He was cited for the misdemeanor charge and released.

Drug Deal Goes Bad, Dealer Files False Report

Ex P.G. Policeman Caught Polishing His Billyclub In Public

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The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office filed an indecent exposure charge Friday against recently retired Pacific Grove police Capt. Bill Kennedy.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz said the misdemeanor charge stemmed from an incident in which Kennedy, 57, allegedly exposed himself in the parking lot of The Crossroads Shopping Village in Carmel on Aug. 10.

Spitz would not provide additional details but other law enforcement officials said two women called the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office that day to report a man masturbating in the parking lot. The man was gone when deputies arrived, but the women reportedly provided the license number of the man’s car. Kennedy was questioned later at his home in Pacific Grove.

Ex P.G. Policeman Caught Polishing His Billyclub In Public

Ocean View Boulevard Shooting Death

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“A Seaside man was killed late Thursday night near Cannery Row in what police say may have been an attempted robbery or carjacking carried out by two men and a woman who remained at large Friday.

Just before midnight, 27-year-old Ignacio Sanchez and a 19-year-old woman were sitting in Sanchez’s black Honda Civic at a stop sign at Eardley Avenue and Ocean View Boulevard in Pacific Grove. They had just returned to the car after viewing the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s shark holding tanks, said Pacific Grove police Cpl. Darrin Smolinski. Police would not identify the young woman.”

It was not his wife.

Now calling it a carjacking, an arrest was made:

A 20-year-old Salinas man has been arrested for last week’s killing of a Seaside man near Cannery Row. Police say Anthony Joel Estrada was the triggerman in a botched carjacking that resulted in the shooting death of Ignacio Sanchez.

Pacific Grove police said Estrada was arrested early Monday at an apartment at 44 Natividad Road in Salinas with help from the Salinas Police Department’s Violence Suppression Unit. His two accomplices apparently were still being sought Tuesday.

Ocean View Boulevard Shooting

P.G. Man Booby Traps Property With Shotgun

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People who live around 44-year-old Kevin Jeffrey Smythe say they rarely saw him but heard his hammering, sawing and an occasional alarm. He lived in one of the four apartments he was renovating for his parents at 306 18th St., and whose entrances he had barricaded with wrought-iron gates and No Trespassing signs.

Authorities say he also booby-trapped the walkway leading to his own apartment: a spring that would fire a shotgun blank when anyone hit a trip wire.”

PG Man Booby Traps Property With Shotgun

P.G. Artist Banned In Seaside

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Snick No Nudes

Farkas’ rendering, called Inanna in a Half Shell, was hanging for a week in a prime spot next to other works on the walls of Seaside City Hall. But for one visitor, Farkas’ painting showed just a little too much of the subject. The city’s Recreation Department asked the artist to remove the painting Friday.
Farkas arrived at City Hall and posted “censored” stickers over the nude’s intimate parts before taking it down.

P.G. Artist Banned In Seaside

Rotting House Corpse Found In Dumpster

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Inspectors are on the case of how “P.G. Remodels” are made.

230 Locust Street
Google Street View

Six months ago, on the day that city inspectors found the remains of the historic house in a Dumpster on the front lawn, a stop-work order was imposed on the building project.
Several walls were supposed to be saved for a use in a larger replica of the shingled home, a design that won a historic preservation permit from the city. But after finding dry rot and termites in December, March decided to tear everything down and start a new.

Rotting House Corpse Found In Dumpster

P.G.’s Memorial Benches Not Free

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Volunteers get the word while maintaining the Polly Klass bench.

 

As they were working, she said, city crewmen approached and told them that, because the maintenance fee on the bench hadn’t been paid, it and others were scheduled to be taken down.

Joann Alaniz of Public Works said the maintenance fee had been billed by letter in 2009 and the city had received no reply.
The bench was scheduled for removal during the coming year, she said, but if someone wished to pay the $175 fee, due every five years, it would be spared. The city policy is to remove benches whose sponsors are no longer available to pay the fee, Alaniz said.

When contacted by The Herald, Polly’s father, Marc Klaas of San Francisco, said he’d pay the fee.

After his daughter’s death, he established the KlaasKids Foundation child advocacy group and has counseled parents of kidnapped children.

“That bench is my favorite place on earth,” Klaas said. “Whenever we’re fortunate enough to get down to this most beautiful piece of America, we always go by the bench, stay as long as we can, and leave flowers. I feel it’s a spiritual location. I’ll be more than happy to pay any fees to keep it where it is, as it is. It’s very important to me and my family.”

P.G.’s Memorial Benches Not Free