Domestic Violence

A Reseda man was sentenced to eight months in jail after being convicted of spousal battery in a case in which he attacked his estranged wife and terrorized her and their three children, the Los Angeles city attorney said. Foaud Jamal, 44, was sentenced by Los Angeles Municipal Judge Suzanne Person on Tuesday after a five-day trial in which the jury dismissed Jamal's contention that he never struck his wife and that she was the aggressor in the June incident that led to the charges.

A teenager who allegedly left the door of her home unlocked in a plot to kill her mother, and her boyfriend, who allegedly shot and knifed the woman to death, were ordered Friday to stand trial on murder charges. In a preliminary hearing, Burbank Municipal Judge Alan Kalkin ruled there was enough evidence against Amber Merrie Bray, 18, and Jeffrey Glenn Ayers, 22, to bring them to trial on charges of killing Dixie Lee Hollier, 42, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

A preliminary hearing began Thursday for a high school senior and her boyfriend on charges they murdered her mother. Amber Merrie Bray and Jeffrey Glenn Ayers are accused of killing Dixie Lee Hollier for her $300,000 life insurance policy. The hearing is expected to continue today. When it concludes, the judge will determine whether Bray, 18, and Ayers, 21, will be bound over to Superior Court for trial.

The second anniversary of the death of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman drew hundreds of people to Salt Creek Beach late Wednesday for a candlelight vigil. Some came to stand against domestic violence, others to protest the October acquittal of O.J. Simpson in connection with the murder of his ex-wife and her friend Goldman. They came alone and in couples, from surfing and skateboarding, carrying lap dogs and leading children by the hand.

A Los Angeles man was arrested on suspicion of shooting his 9-month-old daughter during a confrontation with the child's mother and another woman, police said Monday. The toddler, whose name was withheld, was in stable condition after surgery, according to a spokesman for Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Epifanio Medina Gomez, 33, was booked for assault with a deadly weapon, willful child cruelty, shooting into an occupied vehicle and discharging a firearm after the shooting at 11:30 p.m.

A Brooklyn man who shot his sister in the back and held dozens of officers at bay has been linked to the four "Zodiac" shootings of 1990, a ranking police official said. After police arrested Heriberto Seda, 26, to end a 3 1/2-hour standoff, they matched his fingerprints to evidence from the Zodiac shootings, in which one person was killed, said the official.

A 32-year-old Fullerton man was sentenced Friday to 26 years to life in prison for stabbing his estranged wife to death several months after she had obtained a court order to keep him away. Steven Todd Summers contended he never meant to kill his wife and was acting in an "unconscious state" brought on by diabetes-related acute low blood sugar.

There's an ebb and flow to issues such as AIDS, drug abuse, health care and education. They take turns in the national spotlight, especially if there's a scandalous story to feed the buzz. But the issues don't go away or stop affecting countless lives just because attention shifts. So Sunday's "Domestic Violence: Faces of Fear," produced by NJN-The New Jersey Channel, may seem like old news--unless it's happening to you or someone you know, perhaps for the first time.

For many, the term "domestic violence" is irrevocably linked to the case of O.J. Simpson and his late wife, Nicole. In West Hollywood, with its large lesbian, gay and Russian populations, domestic violence has a different twist. The city addressed these differences during a conference Friday--called the Nonviolent City Summit II--attended by local law enforcement and domestic violence service providers.

TAMMY BRUCE resigned in May as president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women after being criticized for her outspoken statements about the O.J. Simpson case. She and Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, have formed the Women's Progress Alliance, which they describe as dedicated to improving the lives of women and children. She also spoke to Trin Yarborough. * The fist that strikes a woman, and the woman it injures, can be white, black or brown.