Assaults Los Angeles County

The morass of political scandals and investigations engulfing Bell Gardens City Hall these days got even stickier Wednesday. One day after prosecutors filed a conflict-of-interest charge against City Manager Maria Chacon, police opened an investigation into a late-night confrontation between the mayor and a former council member. The former councilman, Rogelio Rodriguez, says Mayor Ramiro Morales tried to run him over in the City Hall parking lot.

An Ontario man who was shot by police last week after a freeway chase and standoff that lasted 12 hours was charged Monday with two dozen counts ranging from attempted murder of police officers to illegal possession of an assault weapon. Santiago Gutierrez, 38, could face life in prison. He remains hospitalized in critical condition. Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald S. Jakubowski Monday asked for bail of more than $6 million in filing the charges in West Covina.

Jared Essig, accused of stabbing a Pomona College professor, was committed to a state mental institution Thursday after the court accepted his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, court officials said. Essig, 22, was charged with attempted murder in the Oct. 30 attack on Frederick Sontag, 76, a philosophy professor. Sontag, who was stabbed in the neck, recovered.

Jared Essig, accused of stabbing a Pomona College professor, was committed to a state mental institution Thursday after the court accepted his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, court officials said. Essig, 22, was charged with attempted murder in the Oct. 30 attack on Frederick Sontag, 76, a philosophy professor. Sontag, who was stabbed in the neck, recovered.

Police on Friday continued to search for a man who reportedly attacked a Glendale High School ninth-grade girl in a campus restroom this week. The 15-year-old girl was shaken but not seriously hurt, police said. The attack occurred about 11:25 a.m. Thursday during the break between third- and fourth-period classes, when the student went alone into a girls restroom and found the man inside, school officials said. Police said the man hit the girl with his fist, then fled when she screamed.

A Lancaster man and woman suspected of trying to strangle the woman's children after beating them with a pipe, stick and a belt were jailed Monday on attempted-murder charges. Chivonne Campbell, 29, and Abraham Johnson, 38, were being held without bail at the Los Angeles County sheriff's Lancaster station. Deputies arrested the couple after responding to a 911 call at 11:30 p.m. Sunday from a neighbor, Deputy Dan Burdick said.

Pasadena police are searching for two men who allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted a woman before dumping her barely conscious at Arroyo Park early Saturday in South Pasadena. The badly beaten woman crawled to a nearby house, where she collapsed and the homeowner alerted police shortly after 2 p.m., police said. The woman, a Pasadena resident in her 40s, suffered lacerations and a concussion.

A 19-year-old man who was punched and stabbed in an argument over a bus seat remained hospitalized in stable condition Tuesday, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in Santa Clarita said. The squabble, which occurred Monday on a Santa Clarita Transit bus in Newhall, turned violent when a 22-year-old Canyon Country man hit and stabbed a fellow passenger, deputies said. Witnesses told police that Raymond Diaz Jr. began arguing with Matthew Taylor of Canyon Country.

Laker trainer Gary Vitti was found not guilty Wednesday of choking his former fiancee during an argument in their Manhattan Beach home. A Torrance Superior Court jury acquitted Vitti, 46, of one misdemeanor count of corporal injury on a cohabitant. The jury spent one day deliberating after the trial. Vitti was arrested after Wendy Newton, 35, said he grabbed her by the neck during a May 29 argument and slammed her against a wall, briefly knocking her unconscious.