San Diego Police Department

The last time Eugene Brakke drove his honey-gold 1965 Ford Mustang, he was young and single, and the throaty little sports car "certainly didn't hurt" with the ladies. He parked at work that day in May 1970, at the Lockheed plant in Burbank, and when he came out later it was gone. The police asked him how much gas was in the tank, suggesting the thieves may have just taken it out for a joy ride. But with gas at about 36 cents a gallon then, he thought they could probably afford to buy some more.

The Oceanside Police Department on Thursday defended its investigation into an incident in which an off-duty San Diego police officer shot a woman and her 8-year-old son after a traffic altercation. Oceanside Police Capt. Tom Aguigui said investigators are still trying to figure out what led Officer Frank White to fire five shots at Oceanside resident Rachel Silva's car in a mall parking lot. White was not arrested or tested for drugs or alcohol.

Daniel not come home. Linda LaPorte stood in the kitchen of her home in Pascoag, R.I., holding her cellphone. Her son's Thai girlfriend was calling from San Diego, speaking a mile a minute in fractured English. He said call mom if he not come home. Linda and her husband, Joseph, had called their son just days earlier to wish him a happy 27th birthday. He'd said nothing about traveling anywhere. Yet here was his girlfriend saying he'd gone to Mexico on business with a guy named Big Daddy.

Shortly after Army Reserve Sgt. Federico G. Borjas arrived in Afghanistan in late September, he called his father to tell him what he saw. "He said, 'This place is just like back home,' " said Raimundo "Mundo" Borjas, his older brother. " 'This is the same moon; these are the same stars.' " Federico Borjas, a 33-year-old San Diego police officer, had always dreamed of serving his country overseas.

Bob Burgreen, San Diego police chief from 1988 to 1993, died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, a week after receiving a lung transplant. He was 69. Despite his folksy, informal manner, Burgreen was exceedingly adept at managing a large police department, dealing with community groups and pleasing the various political interests on the City Council during an era when crime was a major issue. He had been the assistant chief to longtime Chief Bill Kolender.

A veteran police officer was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of having sex with a 17-year-old girl, officials said. Cedric Green, 44, a 21-year veteran of the San Diego Police Department, was assigned to its juvenile services team.

Mayor Jerry Sanders, a former police chief, presented his long-awaited plan Tuesday to stem the flow of San Diego police officers to other law enforcement agencies. The key feature is the possibility -- although not a guarantee -- of a pay hike next year. That tentative promise was met with a lack of enthusiasm by the police officers labor union. "This plan falls short of giving officers a reason to stay," Steve McMillan, vice president of the San Diego Police Officers Assn.

A federal jury Tuesday convicted two brothers of first-degree murder in the 1993 robbery-killing of a sailor at the 32nd Street Naval Station. David and Leonard Scaggs were convicted of fatally shooting sailor Mark A. Smith, 23, as he walked away from an automated teller machine on base with $80. The killing was investigated by the "cold case" unit of the San Diego Police Department and the district attorney's office after witnesses came forward....

About 246 guns were turned in Monday under a "no questions asked" effort by the San Diego-based United African American Ministerial Action Council and the San Diego Police Department. Everyone who turned in a gun received a $100 gift certificate to a grocery or electronics store. The effort was organized amid community outrage over the gunning down of two African American teenagers two weeks ago after a party. The guns will be destroyed, police officials said. Among the 246 guns were 22 listed as assault weapons.

An apparent act of workplace violence in San Diego on Tuesday morning left two employees of the Metropolitan Transit System dead and a third on life support, police said. The incident began about 2:15 a.m. in the parking lot of the transit system's downtown headquarters, where an employee shot two co-workers. When police arrived, the shooter refused to surrender and pointed his gun at officers, said Lt. Kevin Rooney of the San Diego Police Department. Three officers opened fire, killing the man, who was later identified as mechanic Lonnie Glasco, 47, of El Cajon.