Assaults San Diego County

Five white men each pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony assault charge in a beating that left a 21-year-old black Marine paralyzed. Lance Cpl. Carlos Colbert of Camp Pendleton was paralyzed from the neck down. When San Diego Superior Court Judge Frederic Link asked Jessie Brian Lawson if he beat Colbert because of his race, the 20-year-old said: "That is correct." Colbert suffered a broken neck in the May 30 attack at a party in Santee, about 20 miles northeast of San Diego.

An Escondido man has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for attacking a neighbor with a homemade flame-thrower in what prosecutors called a hate crime. Jason D. Williams, 21, pleaded guilty to a hate crime, attempted arson and other charges stemming from the March 26 attack. Superior Court Judge David Gill sentenced him this week to 56 months in prison.

Sheriff's Detective Floyd Feese remembers the moment he first suspected that he was tracking a fellow law enforcement officer. It was late July, after the serial rapist whom Feese was hunting had struck the fifth time, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department had begun an elaborate surveillance operation at local beaches, complete with decoy deputies.

Five white men each pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony assault charge in a beating that left a 21-year-old black Marine paralyzed. Lance Cpl. Carlos Colbert of Camp Pendleton was paralyzed from the neck down. When San Diego Superior Court Judge Frederic Link asked Jessie Brian Lawson if he beat Colbert because of his race, the 20-year-old said: "That is correct." Colbert suffered a broken neck in the May 30 attack at a party in Santee, about 20 miles northeast of San Diego.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department on Monday dispatched a team of detectives to investigate the beating of three Central American migrants with bats last week, and the FBI launched a civil rights investigation. Sheriff's officials said they hoped to send a strong message that vigilante actions will not be tolerated.

Bobby Duckworth, a former wide receiver with the Rams and San Diego Chargers, was ordered to stand trial in Vista Municipal Court on charges of raping and assaulting a woman he met in a Carlsbad bar. Similar charges against Duckworth involving a second woman were dismissed by Judge Michael B. Harris because of insufficient evidence. Duckworth, 32, who played parts of six seasons in the NFL, has pleaded not guilty. He remains jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Child endangerment allegations have been lodged against the parents of a 5-year-old Chula Vista girl who accidentally shot a 2-year-old playmate in the head with a .38-caliber revolver the parents kept in a bathroom cabinet, according to police. Thomas Molina, 58, and his wife, Irma, 31, were arrested a few hours after Mary Ann Burns was shot. The child was listed in critical condition at a hospital after surgery to remove bullet fragments from her head.

San Diego police and U.S. Border Patrol agents shot and killed two suspected bandits and wounded two others after they allegedly tried to rob the lawmen in a canyon, authorities said. Police Sgt. Nate Caplan said that the officers involved in the shooting were members of the Border Crimes Prevention Unit, a joint police-Border Patrol unit that patrols canyons infested with Mexican bandits who prey on illegal aliens slipping into the United States.

Every week for years, 39-year-old Jose Luis Lopez has left his wife and two small daughters in their dusty Mexicali Valley colonia to work in San Diego County, returning home on weekends with his earnings and a few building supplies to put toward the family home. But on Oct. 2, Lopez arrived home with a deep gash on his forehead, a bandaged head, and several loose teeth.

Johnny Rodgers, former Heisman Trophy winner, is seeking to overturn his 1987 assault conviction, claiming the trial judge improperly instructed the jury and limited Rodgers' questioning of prospective jurors. Rodgers, who won the Heisman in 1972 as a running back at Nebraska, represented himself at the San Diego trial after dismissing five attorneys. Rodgers was convicted in January, 1987, of assault on a cable television technician who had gone to Rodgers' home in suburban Bonita, Calif.

A federal grand jury on Thursday charged 12 detainees with attacking guards during a March 9 riot at an immigration holding facility in El Centro. The suspects, from five different nations, were charged with assaulting federal officers. Three were also charged with using a dangerous weapon. The violence broke out in two barracks housing 156 detainees at the Immigration and Naturalization Service facility. Four guards from a private contract firm were assaulted.

About 170 detainees at a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility in El Centro ended an overnight standoff with authorities Tuesday that left three guards injured. The detainees, who became angry during a routine search for drugs and weapons, barricaded themselves inside two barracks at the Service Processing Center, said INS spokesman Rudy Murillo. The detainees surrendered peacefully to authorities about 10 a.m. after negotiations with FBI agents.

A 16-year-old boy was beaten to death with a skateboard after he and a friend were attacked by three teenagers at a condominium complex, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department reported Tuesday. Richard Johnson was unconscious when police found him Monday afternoon. He was airlifted to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where he died of head injuries, police said. Johnson's friend, whose name was not released, was treated for minor injuries and released.

A gunman opened fire inside a U.S.-Mexico border crossing office Thursday, wounding two U.S. Customs inspectors before being shot dead, authorities said. The inspectors' injuries were not life-threatening, and both were in stable condition at the El Centro Regional Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Shirley Dole. Dole, who refused to confirm their names, said one underwent surgery and the other will be transported to San Diego for treatment.

Police arrested a U.S. Border Patrol agent Wednesday on suspicion of accosting and sexually assaulting a female Salvadoran immigrant near the border. The crime allegedly took place shortly after dawn last Friday in a lonely area near the Tijuana River, investigators said. The distraught victim reported the assault to other Border Patrol agents, who called San Diego police. Detectives arrested Agent Charles Vinson, 41, Wednesday afternoon at his home in suburban Chula Vista.

One weekend last fall, two San Fernando Valley teen-agers and their girlfriends went camping at a beachfront state park. At the adjacent campsite, it turned out, was a group bent on a serious party. Most were from a San Diego State University fraternity. It got late. The Valley teens asked the frat guys to turn down the music, which was blaring from a boombox perched on a car. For that, they were attacked. And, badly outnumbered, they endured a beating that can only be described as savage.

The great-granddaughter of the founder of Knott's Berry Farm has regained consciousness, a month after she was bludgeoned by an unknown attacker in her San Diego County home, officials said Thursday. Desire Anderson, 17, of Fallbrook was moved to an undisclosed rehabilitation center in San Diego on Wednesday after regaining consciousness at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where she had been hospitalized since the Nov. 28 attack.

Despite a $10,000 reward, police said Friday they have no new leads in the brutal beating of the 17-year-old great-granddaughter of the founder of Knott's Berry Farm. Desire Anderson remains in critical but stable condition at Palomar Memorial Hospital in Escondido, nearly three weeks after an intruder entered her bedroom in the San Diego County community of Fallbrook and severely beat her.