One driver in Milpitas picked the wrong Highway Patrol K9 to drive a little too fast around Thursday night, as the driver was pulled over for speeding, and the dog sniffed out nearly 27 pounds of cocaine in the car.

A Thursday night incident saw a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer pull over a speeding vehicle on some highway in Milpitas, a routine thing that happens every night. But once that CHP officer’s K9 unit started sniffing around, well, things really went off the rails.  

As KRON4 reports, the officer “observed indicators of criminal activity” inside the vehicle. And then that dog began to investigate, and promptly located 26.5 pounds of cocaine that was hidden within that vehicle.

“The K9 Officer deployed his canine partner ‘Rae’ who alerted to the presence of illegal narcotics,” the CHP’s Coastal Division unit said in a Friday morning Facebook post. “Personnel from the San Jose CHP Area assisted with a subsequent search of the vehicle. During the search, officers located approximately 12 kilograms of cocaine which was packaged for distribution.”

“The cocaine has an estimated street value of approximately $2 million dollars,” the CHP added.

The accused driver is not named in any public reports thus far. But obviously, that driver was arrested for possession of cocaine for sales, and other “​​various criminal charges,” according to the CHP.

Related: Cops Bust Mission District Van Packed With Cocaine, Magic Mushrooms, $600,000 in Cash [SFist]

Image: CHP - Coastal Division via Facebook

Is it a good idea to have three kilos of cocaine and 600 grand in cash sitting in your van at 17th and Shotwell streets? Probably not, and two people learned that the hard way in a recent Mission District drug bust.

An apparently suspicious van was parked at 17th and Shotwell streets on Thursday, May 30. SFPD received a tip that something sketchy may have been going on with that van. So they got a warrant to search said van, and as seen below, by golly did that tip prove to be correct.

“Large quantities of various narcotics,” indeed.

SFPD says in a Friday press release that “Officers located and seized the following from inside the vehicle: large quantities of suspected narcotics including approximately 3 kilos of cocaine HCL, ketamine, mushrooms, acid, suspected MDMA, methamphetamine, and various other prescription narcotics as well as over $600,000 in US currency.”

Two suspects who are both 46 years old, Robert Pritchard and Ronald Butera, were both pulled out of that van and arrested, Kilos, as you would imagine, will account for additional charges. Both are also charged with possessing and transporting controlled substances, and Butera already had an outstanding warrant on him for other charges.

And according to KRON4, a tipster’s information led to the bust. “A community member alerted SFPD about a vehicle that may have been involved in drug distribution,” that station reports.

While arrests have been made, this remains an ongoing investigation. If you have any information, you’re asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at (415) 575-4444, or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Related: Authorities Seize $15,000 Worth of GHB From Marin Nail Salon [SFist]

Image via SFPD

San Jose police arrested a San Jose man for allegedly running a drug lab that made “pink cocaine,” a drug containing a mix of ketamine, MDMA, methamphetamine, cocaine, and opioids, out of the donut shop he owned last month.

The San Jose resident, 32-year-old Luis Carrillo-Moyeda, owned and operated a Yum Yum Donuts franchise in South San Jose, as SFGATE reported. It’s located at 400 Blossom Hill Road in a shopping mall.

When police investigated and executed a search warrant at the location, they found various illegal narcotics, narcotics manufacturing parts, large amounts of cash, an unregistered firearm, and ammunition, according to an SJPD press release.

Police say that the narcotics were a new synthetic drug called “pink cocaine," also known as "Tusi", "2C", "Pantera Rosa," or “Pink Panther." It’s apparently a trendy party drug dyed pink with food coloring, known for its hallucinogenic and stimulant effects. The drug 2C is a synthetic hallucinogen, but tests show that pink cocaine doesn’t usually contain 2C itself, according to the Chronicle.

Court records show that Carrillo was arraigned January 24 and is scheduled to return to court March 4, per the Mercury News. He is currently out on bail.

Yum Yum Donuts has three locations in San Jose and dozens of locations across California, including in Sacramento and Stockton. Carrillo only owned one franchise location, the one on Blossom Hill Road.

Feature image via SJPD.

After a Wall Street Journal report this weekend said Elon Musk has been using cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine, and magic mushrooms, Musk issued non-denials, but top executives of his companies remain worried about the fallout.

It is well-known that Tesla CEO Elon Musk smoked marijuana on camera during a taping of the Joe Rogan podcast in 2018. But a report this weekend in the Wall Street Journal tied Musk to using cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine, and magic mushrooms, and has obviously created a wee bit of anxiety for top-level board members at Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX.

The report is behind a paywall, but to summarize: it says Musk used many of the above-mentioned drugs at several parties at which all guests had to sign non-disclosure agreements, between 2018 and 2021. It also describes a 2017 all-hands meeting at SpaceX where Musk gave a speech that was reportedly “nonsensical,” “unhinged,” and “cringeworthy,” before SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell had to step in and take over. And of course, Musk has openly admitted to using ketamine.

Musk has since responded to the report. “After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing,” he posted to Xitter Sunday. “Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird 💩.”

Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro told the Journal that Musk is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test,” and added that “there are other false facts” in the Journal article, though he didn’t specify which ones.

Musk further posted Sunday that “Whatever I’m doing, I should obviously keep doing it!” and "If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!” Those statements certainly sound like non-denials.

But Bloomberg reports that all this drug talk around Musk could be trouble for the Tesla and SpaceX boards of directors. “This will give ammunition to class-action lawyers on behalf of disgruntled shareholders at Tesla, if they can tie evidence of drug use to his actual role as an executive,” Santa Clara University School of Law professor Stephen Diamond told Bloomberg. “The Tesla board has an obligation to discern what’s going on here.”

The real problem could be for SpaceX, which is massively reliant on government contracts, and Musk’s erratic behavior being attributed to drugs would likely present red flags for the federal government. But as for Tesla, its board of directors is now firmly packed with Musk suck-ups, including his own brother.

“A small percentage of investors will sell their stock over the next week and put some pressure on shares,” Deepwater Asset Management managing partner Gene Munster told Bloomberg. “Most investors won’t care, because it falls into the category that if you want to profit from Elon, you have to put up with his controversies.”

Related: Elon Musk to Fleeing Advertisers: 'Go F**k Yourselves' [SFist]

Image: PowerfulJRE via YouTube

There’s a new version of the old 'speedball' that now substitutes fentanyl for heroin, and the upper/downer mix now accounts for most SF overdose deaths, though many of those victims may just not have known there was fentanyl in their product.

The Chronicle apparently just discovered the age-old hard drug term “speedball” in a new article today, a term that’s actually been around for decades to describe a mixture of cocaine and heroin that brings on a combo upper-and-downer high. It's this speedball combination (also sometimes called “goofball”) that claimed the lives of John Belushi, Chris Farley, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Michael K. Williams.

But the Chronicle’s report covers how people are now using fentanyl to make speedballs, combining that substance with crack cocaine or meth. Though it’s important to note that many of these people may not have been intentionally doing a so-called speedball, but instead were using what they thought was pure cocaine or meth, but was instead contaminated with fentanyl.  

Either way, these combinations of the depressant fentanyl and stimulants like coke or meth now account for most SF overdose deaths. According to the Chronicle's figures, 63% of SF overdose deaths in 2022 showed this combination, and they add “Data from the first half of 2023 suggests the total number and share of fentanyl-plus-stimulant deaths will be higher than ever this year.”

And it didn’t used to be that way. Per the Chron, in 2016, “less than one-third of fatal overdoses” involved fentanyl combined with a stimulant.

But again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people are intentionally speedballing. We’ve seen many overdose cases involving people who thought they were using cocaine or meth, and were unaware they were actually using fentanyl.

“I think you’re seeing a spike in speedball and goofball ODs now because cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine are all adulterated with fentanyl,” Salvation Army Harbor Light  clinical director Adrian Maldonado told the Chronicle. “And when coke and meth have fentanyl in them, the user gets overwhelmed with the downer."

Anecdotally, heroin users in San Francisco have used stimulants for years during times when they did not have a safe space to crash or nod off — and one fentanyl user speaks to the Chronicle about using the speedball combination with crack to keep from getting his stuff stolen, because, "That little bit of crack cuts the nods."

So to any of you who do use cocaine or meth, we will stress how important (and easy) it is to get fentanyl testing strips. They are available for free at the Community Behavioral Health Services (CBHS) Pharmacy at 1380 Howard Street (hours here), and the above map shows establishments where Fentcheck has free testing strips available. Fentcheck also sells the testing strips online in sets bowls of 20 for parties or public venues, or an envelope of 40 for personal use.

Related: Five Hospitalized For ODs on Christmas After Reportedly Doing Contaminated Cocaine at Japantown Residence [SFist]

Image: SFPD via Twitter

People struggling with meth or cocaine addiction can earn up to $599 in gift cards to stay away from the stuff under a news state program, and San Francisco is one of the participating counties.

The New York Times reports today on an innovative, first-in-the-nation program that will pay meth and cocaine users to stay clean. That report details that this pilot program is available to residents suffering from stimulant use disorder (meth or cocaine addiction) in four California counties, but San Francisco is one of them. And a July report from CalMatters notes that Zuckerberg General Hospital is participating, though you do have to be enrolled in MediCal to enroll in this program that pays up to $599 to stay off the stimulants.

“It’s really a brave choice of California to try this against potential backlash and misunderstanding,” California Health Care Foundation associate director Catherine Teare tells the Times. “This isn’t going to solve it,” she adds, “but I think it’s well worth trying.”

As we’ve mentioned before, San Francisco is on pace for its deadliest year ever for accidental drug overdoses. And according to the California Health Care Foundation, meth-related emergency room visits increased 50% between 2018 and 2020. The notion of paying people to stay clean has proven effective, as a 2021 paper published in JAMA Psychiatry found that 80% of such clinically administered programs did reduce drug use.

One does need to be diagnosed with a stimulant use disorder to participate. Once enrolled, you basically pee in a cup to prove you’ve spent the week clean. The first clean test yields a $10 gift card. The value of the card gradually increases to up to $26.50 a week, and recipient max out at $599, because beyond that, it’s taxable income.

The program could cost the state up to $50 million, though the feds are covering the cost.

But why aren’t we doing this for fentanyl, which is causing the largest number of overdose deaths? Because fentanyl is an opioid, and there are targeted, pharmaceutical treatment therapies for opioid addiction. There are no such medical treatments for methamphetamine or cocaine addiction, so the state is hoping the $10-$26 gift cards may prove therapeutically useful.

Related: Someone Died From an Overdose Inside the Mid-Market Whole Foods That Just Closed [SFist]Image: MeNotMeth.org

Photo: Karen Mower/Getty Images

Five people were hospitalized, two of them in critical condition, after they all apparently suffered accidental overdoses inside a residence on Japantown's main drag on Christmas Day.

Details are thin about what happened at the residence on the 1700 block of Post Street Sunday — likely an apartment in one of the only (or the only?) residential complexes on that block, which is the main strip of Japantown including the Kabuki Cinema, half of the Japantown Mall, and mostly retail storefronts on the north side of the street.

The San Francisco Fire Department's public information officer, Captain Jonathan Baxter, would only confirm to the Chronicle that six individuals at the home were treated for accidental overdoses using Narcan, five of whom were taken to the hospital for further treatment — with one individual refusing further treatment. Two of the individuals hospitalized were reportedly in critical condition.

Paramedics and San Francisco police arrived on the scene around 2:20 p.m. on Christmas Day.

The group had apparently ingested cocaine laced with another drug, likely fentanyl, or a substance that was an opioid but they thought it was cocaine. The San Francisco Standard reports that a source at the CPMC Van Ness hospital confirmed that the individuals being treated had ingested a substance they believed to be cocaine — but the presence of fentanyl has yet to be confirmed.

The case is reminiscent of one that occurred in March in which three people died in a Mission District apartment after all doing cocaine together, which turned out to be contaminated with fentanyl. That case, and two others involving 9 other individuals who inadvertantly consumed fentanyl but survived, led to the Health Department issuing a citywide alert to be extra cautious about the source one's drugs, and to test them for fentanyl.

"Fentanyl overdoses have increased precipitously in San Francisco since 2015, with an estimated 474 deaths in 2021," the department said. "Fentanyl overdose deaths usually involve cocaine and/or methamphetamine."

Anyone using cocaine in this day and age should keep fentanyl-testing kits around — and they can be obtained for free around the Bay through the Friends of FentCheck network, and you can get them at the Community Behavioral Health Services (CBHS) Pharmacy at 1380 Howard Street, which also gives out free naloxone/Narcan.

“You never know what’s in your drugs,” said Kristen Marshall of the harm reduction org the DOPE Project, speaking to Broke-Ass Stuart. “The market is criminalized, so the supply is unregulated, inconsistent, and unpredictable. Always has been, fentanyl didn’t change that. Whether you cop from the corner of Turk and Hyde, or your dealer is just a text away and delivers discreetly to your door in Pac Heights, remember: This ain’t the cereal aisle at Safeway – no nutritional facts, no ingredients lists, and not a ton of choice. White powders all look the same, drug markets are chaotic, and mistakes happen.”

As KPIX reports, the Japantown incident is under investigation by the SFPD, which is trying to determine if anything criminal occurred.

Related: Cocaine Laced With Fentanyl Blamed for Spike in OD Deaths, DPH Urges Use of Fentanyl Test Strips and Narcan

Amidst a surge in fentanyl overdoses among people who thought they were using cocaine, the Health Department is emphasizing that it is easy to get free fentanyl testing strips and Narcan for safer drug use.

There has been a serious problem of fentanyl overdoses killing people who thought they were using cocaine going back for a few years. But that problem has taken a sudden turn for the much-worse here in the month of March 2022.

“In the past 2 weeks, SFDPH has become aware of 3 fatal overdose decedents in San Francisco who intended to use only cocaine but were unintentionally exposed to fentanyl, as well as 9 similar non-fatal events in two groups of people,” the SF Department of Public Health said in a Thursday health alert. “Fentanyl overdoses have increased precipitously in San Francisco since 2015, with an estimated 474 deaths in 2021. Fentanyl overdose deaths usually involve cocaine and/or methamphetamine.”

The drug supply in San Francisco is clearly getting dirtier. Should you ever use cocaine or meth, take a good hard look at the image above, and get yourself some of these fentanyl testing strips. They are available for free through a Bay Area harm reduction called FentCheck, and you can also get free testing strips at the Community Behavioral Health Services (CBHS) Pharmacy at 1380 Howard Street.

“Ninety percent of opioid deaths in San Francisco are now due to fentanyl, so it is the most common street drug,” SF DPH director of substance use research Dr. Phillip Coffin tells the Chronicle. “It can look a lot like other drugs, or even be stamped as a pill, and every year we see people die from fentanyl who meant to use a drug like cocaine or methamphetamine."

Above we see the CBHS Pharmacy building at 1380 Howard Street (at Fifth Street), where you can walk right in with no appointment and get a pack of free fentanyl testing strips. Their hours are  9 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday,  and 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. on weekends.

They also provide free naloxone, a nasal spray commonly referred to as Narcan, which can immediately reverse an opioid overdose. Narcan is actually a brand name for one particular type of the medicine naloxone, though those of us who are not doctors use the terms interchangeably. Naloxone is a simple nasal spray, you do not need formal training to use it.

The nonprofit FentCheck has been placing free fentanyl testing strips at bars across the Bay Area for a few years. The Google Map above shows which bars are carrying them, and they’re usually in the bar’s washrooms, because that’s where people tend to snort their blow.  FentCheck strips are most prevalent at East Bay bars, but in San Francisco, you can find them at Mission District establishments Beauty Bar, Casements, the Royal Cuckoo Market, the Sycamore.

The testing strips are super easy to use. You put a pinch of your stash into a shot glass’ worth of water, stick the strip into the water, and within five minutes it will tell you whether any deadly fentanyl is present in your supply.  

You may think your dealer is clean, and would never sell you anything with fentanyl. But people, we remind you that your drug dealer is a drug dealer.

“You never know what’s in your drugs,” the DOPE Project’s Kristen Marshall writes at Broke-Ass Stuart. “The market is criminalized, so the supply is unregulated, inconsistent, and unpredictable. Always has been, fentanyl didn’t change that. Whether you cop from the corner of Turk and Hyde, or your dealer is just a text away and delivers discreetly to your door in Pac Heights, remember: This ain’t the cereal aisle at Safeway – no nutritional facts, no ingredients lists, and not a ton of choice. White powders all look the same, drug markets are chaotic, and mistakes happen.”

Related: Three Identified In Saturday Morning Drug Overdose Deaths In Mission District [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura via SFist

The regional US Coast Guard is tooting its own horn after busting three separate smuggling vessels carrying an estimated $156 million in cocaine.

Thar she blows, indeed. KRON4 brings us the news that three separate cocaine smuggling busts by the US Coast Guard unit housed in Alameda netted more than 9,000 pounds of cocaine in a recent eight-day span. KPIX adds that these busts off the California coast confiscated an estimated $156 million worth of the nose candy.

The first bust is detailed in the Facebook post above, with the cheeky lead-in line “These fisherman were hauling more than ‘today’s catch.’” The Coast Guard cutter (boat) Munro, which is home-ported in Alameda, “boarded a fishing vessel Jan. 26 suspected of smuggling illicit narcotics. Exercising a bilateral agreement with a partner nation, the boarding teams searched and discovered 1,300 pounds of cocaine concealed within the vessel” according to a Coast Guard release.

This all happened in the "Eastern Pacific," and was actually probably quite far from the Bay Area — like this December 2019 bust by an Alameda-based Coast Guard near San Diego.

Here’s what that 1,300 pounds of cocaine looked like. And a few hours later, the exact same crew boarded a “suspicious vessel” carrying another 3,500 pounds of cocaine.

"Having back-to-back cases lasting 31 hours pushed our limits, but our crew took on the challenge," the Munro’s commanding officer Capt. Blake Novak said in the release. "Cartels are cunning and sophisticated, and this is a dynamic environment, which required interagency and international coordination which yielded results. I am proud of our crew, but these successes would not be possible without our Central and South American partnerships."

Eight days later, a separate crew on another boat called the Bertholf popped what they call a “low-profile vessel” carrying a whopping 4,400 pounds of cocaine. According to the Coast Guard, “Cartels design low-profile vessels specifically to evade law enforcement by being difficult to detect.”

All told, nine suspects are in custody. The Coast Guard has not released the names of the suspects.

Related: Drug Test Ordered By Judge Following Search of City Official's Home and Suspected Cocaine Discovery [SFist]

Image: U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area

Three security screeners at SFO have been indicted on fraud and drug smuggling charges, the Justice Department said on Friday. The three were employees of Covenant Aviation Security, a private company that's contracted with the Transportation Security Administration to provide additional security at the San Francisco airport.

The federal indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, revealed that the three had arranged for passengers they knew were carrying cocaine in their carry-ons to pass through designated x-ray machines, and purposely allowed them through security in exchange for money.

According to court documents, one of the accused screeners would meet up with the smugglers at the airport, so they could identify whom they'd allow to pass through security. The smugglers would then be directed to the lines where the other defendants were working x-ray machines and monitoring passengers, and would be let through, no questions asked, reports KTVU. Undercover Drug Enforcement and TSA agents discovered that these transactions happened on five separate occasions between May 2013 and April 2014.

Joseph Scott of Vallejo, Michael Castaneda of Daly City, and Jessica Scott of San Pablo are all charged with two counts: the first is conspiring to defraud the TSA by obstructing a lawful government function, which, if convicted, could carry a sentence of five years in prison, plus a maximum fine of $250,000. The second count—conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine— could get the defendants a mandatory minimum of ten years, with a maximum sentence of life in prison, on top of a maximum fine of $10 million.

This bust follows on the March indictment of two TSA screeners at SFO who are accused of conspiring with a third individual in similar meth smuggling operation. Their scheme was surveilled in part through messages exchanged over Facebook.

Previously: FBI Uses Facebook Messages To Nab Alleged Meth-Smuggling TSA Agents At SFO

It seems like only yesterday that the City Attorney's office announced it would be closing down illegal gambling cafés in the Excelsior. The sweepstakes cafés, which have operated under a legal loophole in California state law, were accused of drawing unsavory elements to the neighborhood. But with those cafes now gone, it appears those looking to make a quick buck have simply gone the old-school route of launching illegal gambling clubs.

These "gambling shacks," dilapidated storefronts that stay open well past the last call of 2:00 a.m. and frequently house illegal gambling rings, have not gone unnoticed by police or Excelsior residents.

According to KQED News, one spot in particular — running out of a closed women's clothing shop called "The Pink Spot" — has already been the subject of an ABC investigation and police raid.

After an undercover ABC agent entered the club and confirmed there were unlicensed alcohol sales, he let in the ABC agents and police to execute a warrant. Forty patrons left as the authorities detained and cited the operators.

“Agents at the scene seized five bottles of distilled spirits, over 1,000 containers of beer and over $800 in cash,” ABC spokesman John Carr said. “The bartender later admitted that the club normally stayed open until 6 a.m.”

And as KQED News notes, it seems booze wasn't the only thing fueling the late-night party.

The SFPD arrested a man on narcotics charges who allegedly tried to stash in an ice bucket “eleven packets of cocaine packaged for sale,” according to a police report. “A search of the suspect’s clothing revealed packets of small denominations of currency totaling more than $1,000.”

Supervisor John Avalos, who represents the Excelsior, called a public hearing yesterday to both inform residents of police efforts to shut down the spots and to reassure his constituents that he is paying attention to their complaints. The Examiner reports that Ingleside Police Captain Joseph McFadden attended the hearing, and spoke to his efforts to follow the money behind the operations.

“You’re looking for the bigger kingpins in it, the people that are handling the money,” McFadden said of the illegal operations. “You want to catch the main guys. That’s the toughest part, getting the nexus and the evidence to identify that particular person. They are very intricate in stopping that.”

Madden continued that the police are moving much faster than they used to.

“We are knocking them down sooner rather than later. When I first came in, there were some places that took upwards from four to eight years to close down. We are doing it in a matter of months.”

But moving quickly may not be enough. The high number of empty storefronts plays a significant contributing role in the neighborhood's draw to organizers of late-night gambling joints, and means that operators can move from one location to another.

Again, from KQED News:

This diverse, working-class neighborhood in the southern part of the city includes discount shops, liquor stores, fast-food outlets, and mom-and-pop grocery stores, as well as numerous empty storefronts. [...]

The Excelsior Action Group, a government-funded nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the neighborhood’s commercial corridor, recently performed its quarterly storefront survey and found 38 empty, non-performing or for-sale spaces, up two from the previous survey, on the 1.4-mile stretch of Mission Street it works on.

That one 1.4-mile strip has 38 potential options for would-be illegal gamblers, which means the police have their work cut out for them.

Unless yesterday's hearing leads to major changes in the way these clubs are dealt with, our money is on the gamblers.

Previously: City Attorney To Close Illegal Gambling Cafes In Excelsior

According to the website for Playland, the Polk Street bar will be closed for a "remodel" until March 3rd. But the Chronicle is implying that's some coded language, and maybe not the first for the establishment.

Alleging that the business allowed an employee to "negotiate the sale of cocaine and marijuana inside," the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has posted a 30-day notice of a liquor license suspension at the bar. It's not known whether criminal charges against employees have been filed.

It certainly brings to mind the recent bust at Gestalt Haus on 16th Street. That bar was also shut down for 30 days after an employee was caught slinging pot following a 4-month California Alcoholic Beverage Control undercover operation.

Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but it leads me to suspect that other investigations could be underway. So just in case, make sure not to use anything that could be construed as drug code in your drink order.

Previously: Gestalt On 16th Shut Down For Selling Weed

Sixty years after Bill Haley's version of "Rock Around the Clock” "became an anthem for rebellious Fifties youth," a high-profile Los Angeles attorney allegedly used it to fight for her right to party at San Francisco International Airport, right before her arrest for public intoxication (among other things).

According to the Ex, on Tuesday Los Angeles public defender Monica Marie Jenkins was allegedly too drunk to get on her plane back to LA. The San Mateo County District Attorney's office says that Jenkins then demanded to be taken to jail, then started, they say, screaming profanities, singing early rock classic "Rock Around the Clock," and making statements like "I'm not worried anymore, give me some cocaine."

Prosecutors say that Jenkins also threatened to sue police, tried to kick at least two police officers, and, once in jail, tried to bite a nurse.

She was charged Wednesday with five misdemeanor counts of public drunkenness, resisting arrest and assault on an officer. She pled not guilty, and will return to San Mateo County this July.

[SF Ex]
[Mercury News]

33-year-old Douglas Yim is currently looking at 126 years to life in prison for the murder of his friend 25-year-old Dzuy Duhn Phan. The two started arguing over the existence of a higher power during a druggy video game session at Yim's house in Oakland back in 2011, but the argument ended when Yim stormed off to his room and returned with an AR-15 assault rifle.

According to a third friend, Paul Park, the two had been drinking, smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine while playing video games when Phan started asking Yim where his God was every time Yim lost the game. According to Park's testimony, Yim was especially incensed when Phan asked where God was when Yim's father died of a stroke years before. The comment pushed Yim over the edge and he threw his controller through the TV screen and stormed off.

Phan and Park tried to calm down their friend, even offering to pay for the TV he broke. When they couldn't talk him down, Phan — who knew Yim had bought the AR-15 rifle to protect his basement marijuana grow operation — told Yim to go get the weapon and shoot him. Which he did.

Park's testimony said Yim went into his room, returned with the loaded weapon and shot Phan at least six times at an extremely close range, injuring Park in the process. After the incident, Yim gave himself up to police.

Although Yim's attorney tried to make a case for manslaughter because his client was under the influence of quite a few drugs at the time, the Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Allyson Donovan successfully argued that Yim's intentions were premeditated and intentional. A plea deal was also thrown out by the DA's office prior to the jury trial and Yim was found guilty of first-degree murder, assault with a firearm and mayhem.

[Oakland Tribune]
[Chron]