Oxnard Police Department

Hundreds of antique cars and street rods will be on display Sunday outside the Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife when the Oxnard Police Department is host of the fifth annual Cops & Cruisers Car Show. The event is a fund-raiser for various youth organizations, including Casa Pacifica, a Camarillo shelter for abused children.

The family of a sunbather who was run over and killed by a police beach patrol vehicle has settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the city for $2.75 million. Cindy Conolly was run over and killed by a police Chevrolet Tahoe on June 12, 2006, while relaxing on Mandalay Beach. She had attended her son's ocean-side wedding a day earlier at Embassy Suites Mandalay resort.

The widow of Oxnard Police SWAT Officer James Rex Jensen Jr., slain by a fellow officer in a botched drug raid, filed a $15-million federal civil rights lawsuit against the department Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. "This is the only way I feel I can get some peace of mind and find out what really happened to my husband," said Jennifer Jensen at a news conference. Her husband was mistakenly shot and killed by fellow SWAT team member Sgt. Dan Christian in the raid last March.

An Oxnard police officer who ran over and killed a female sunbather while on beach patrol in an SUV will not face criminal charges, though the accident is a "great tragedy," the Ventura County district attorney's office said Wednesday. Senior Officer Frank Brisslinger drove a Chevy Tahoe directly over Cindy Conolly, 49, as she lay on Mandalay Beach last June. But prosecutors cannot prove that he was driving negligently at the time of the incident, according to a 54-page report released by Dist.

County narcotics officers concluded a three-month investigation this week with the arrests of five Oxnard residents on drug charges. Officers from the Oxnard Police Department, Ventura County Sheriff's Department, Port Hueneme Police Department and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency searched two houses in Oxnard and one in Port Hueneme, said Sgt. Frank Devorick of the Oxnard Police Department.

The Oxnard Police Department is accepting unwanted guns from local residents. The new push for firearm collection stems from a plea from talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who recently aired a program on the dangers of guns. Winfrey contacted police stations throughout the country and asked them to encourage citizens to relinquish their guns. All firearms returned to the Oxnard Police Department will be destroyed without question. For more information, call 385-7683.

The leader of an Oxnard police SWAT team shot to death a fellow officer and close friend during a drug raid early Wednesday, a tragedy officials described as "a case of mistaken identity." The fatal shotgun blasts came during one of 16 coordinated police assaults throughout western Ventura County on a major drug ring dealing in cocaine and methamphetamine. Officials said the shooting took place just seconds after the victim, Officer James Rex Jensen Jr.

The Oxnard Police Department will conduct its first traffic sobriety tests of 1996 at a checkpoint today in south Oxnard. The Police Department just completed its first year of DUI checkpoints as part of a campaign to remove drunk and unlicensed drivers from the city's roadways before they are involved in accidents. More than 12,400 drivers were screened at 14 checkpoints in 1995, with 73 suspected drunk drivers arrested and 374 drivers receiving citations for license violations, police said.

The Oxnard Police Department and members of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department evacuated a portion of the 1200 block of Stellar Drive in Oxnard after discovering explosives in the area, an Oxnard police spokesman said. Acting on a tip, two Oxnard probation officers found what appeared to be seven sticks of dynamite or TNT stuffed in a plastic bag next to a dumpster, the spokesman said. The pair reportedly evacuated the area and called the Ventura County Bomb Squad.

Investigators with the Oxnard Police Department were looking Thursday for several juveniles believed to have been involved in a drive-by shooting the night before. A 16-year-old boy narrowly escaped serious injury when his head was grazed by a bullet fired from a car in which several young men were riding, an Oxnard Police Department spokesman said. The incident occurred at 8:20 p.m. on the 3500 block of Sutter Drive.

The family of a woman killed when a police beach patrol vehicle ran over her while she was sunbathing has filed a $10-million negligence lawsuit against the city. The suit, filed Monday in Ventura County Superior Court, accuses the city and its police force of seven counts of negligence in the death of Cindy Conolly of Sioux City, Iowa. The counts include not having a beach-driving policy and insufficiently training officers to drive on the beach.

The family of a woman killed when an Oxnard police beach patrol vehicle ran over her as she was sunbathing has filed a $10-million negligence lawsuit against the city. The civil suit, filed Monday in Ventura County Superior Court, accuses the city and its police force of seven counts of negligence in the death of Cindy Conolly of Sioux City, Iowa.

An Oxnard man remained in critical but stable condition Monday after he and three fellow workers were shot during a robbery at a bakery, police said. The gunman, wearing a bandanna, walked into the Panaderia Vanessa near downtown Oxnard shortly before 5 a.m. Sunday, authorities said. He emptied the cash register and then "herded" the workers toward the rear of the store, officials said. When the workers began to run, the gunman opened fire, hitting three of them.

Bob Pierson is haunted by the question. If he had just stayed with his fiancee, Cindy, for a few minutes more as she sunbathed, "Could I have saved her?" The two police officers didn't see Cindy Conolly as they patrolled Oxnard's Mandalay State Beach in a 5,500-pound Chevy Tahoe. When the SUV ran over her, they didn't even realize they had hit something. Surely, Pierson thinks, they wouldn't have been able to miss him -- with his 6-foot-1 frame and shock of red hair.

After celebrating her son's wedding, Cindy Conolly wanted to soak up a little more California sun before heading back home to Iowa. So she stayed by the Oxnard surf Monday afternoon when fiance Bob Pierson walked back to their beachfront hotel. She didn't return to the hotel, and it would be an agonizing six hours before Pierson learned what had happened.

Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez will end a 34-year career in law enforcement today and immediately begin a second career as part owner of an investigations and security firm in Los Angeles County. "I wanted to relax a little bit, but it just didn't work out that way," said Lopez, who turns 55 next week. "On Monday morning, I'm back at work again."

The Oxnard Police Department will conduct a sobriety checkpoint in central Oxnard on Friday. Drivers found to be impaired will be arrested and booked, and their vehicles will be impounded. Unlicensed drivers will be cited and their vehicles will also be impounded for up to 30 days. Friday's checkpoint will be the 14th this year in Oxnard. According to police, the stops have led to a nearly 30% drop in alcohol-related traffic collisions during the year.

Seven reserve officers have joined the Oxnard Police Department. After going through a brief orientation program, the reserve officers will work as partners to full-time officers, or, in some cases, with another reserve officer. They are not paid, but are armed and do much the same work as full-time officers. The new officers are Alexander Bean, Hakeem Hasan, Thomas Hawkins, William Offerman, Alfred Velasco, Charles Woodruff and George Zosimo.

Declaring a crisis sparked by unprecedented gang violence in recent months, the Ventura County district attorney and Oxnard police announced Wednesday that they are seeking a permanent injunction against the Colonia Chiques gang, which has terrorized the beachside city for more than three decades. "The Colonia Chiques is the largest and most violent criminal street gang in Ventura County," Dist. Atty.