Simi Valley Ca

Two children were hospitalized Wednesday after they were exposed to chlorine gas at a YMCA pool in Simi Valley. Six adults and 41 children were in the pool area when the maintenance accident occurred shortly before 2 p.m., said Battalion Chief Kevin Nestor, who oversees Ventura County fire stations in Simi Valley and Moorpark. Staff members of the YMCA, in the 3200 block of Cochran Street, had evacuated the pool area before fire personnel arrived.

For the third time in less than a week, a teenage girl has admitted lying to the Simi Valley Police Department about being abducted from city streets and sexually attacked. Police said a 17-year-old Royal High School student was arrested on suspicion of filing a false report and issued a citation to appear at the county Probation Department. She was released to her parents.

To the untrained eye, the site behind the Simi Valley Drive-In looks like nothing special: a spot along the Arroyo Simi where muck meets rock. To a geologist, however, the shear along the stream embankment is something quite significant--a fault line where very old bedrock slides against young clay. Even more important, earthen evidence recently found in this segment of the Simi-Santa Rosa fault indicates something that earthquake watchers have long suspected but lacked the data to prove.

A 75-year-old Simi Valley woman was killed Thursday morning when she was struck by a vehicle while crossing a street on the east side of town. Marie Hernandez was walking south in the intersection of Los Angeles and Yosemite avenues about 5:49 a.m. when she was hit by a Chevrolet El Camino driven by Simi Valley resident Michael Miller, 66, who was traveling east on Los Angeles Avenue. Hernandez was pronounced dead at the scene. The accident is still being investigated.

A Simi Valley man was arrested on suspicion of elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon after an attack on a 77-year-old man in his apartment, police said Thursday. Christopher Bonagrazia, 23, got into an argument Wednesday night with the man while visiting his residence in a retirement complex in the 1700 block of Heywood Street, Simi Valley Police Sgt. Roy Jones said. Bonagrazia's father is a longtime friend of the victim, Jones said.

A Simi Valley woman who was stabbed to death in her home Saturday was identified Sunday as 41-year-old Reina Amico. Amico's 15-year-old son, whose name is being withheld because of his age, was arrested at a relative's house in Van Nuys about 1 1/2 hours after the 4 p.m. slaying. Amico, who lived in the 1600 block of Blackwall Drive, was found by police lying on the bathroom floor of her residence with several stab wounds to her chest. She was taken to Simi Valley Hospital, where she died.

A masked gunman held up a check-cashing store Friday, locking two employees in a back room before fleeing, authorities said. The man was wearing dark pants and a blue jacket when he entered the store just after 7 a.m., said Lt. Andy McCluskey of the Simi Valley Police Department. After ordering one of the employees to give him an undisclosed amount of cash, the gunman forced them into the back room, McCluskey said.

Former Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton announced Friday that he is organizing a coalition of local leaders to fight a November ballot measure seeking to rein in the city's growth boundaries. Stratton said he objects to Measure B because it is driven by out-of-town lawyers and politicians who want to take control away from local residents and turn it over to Ventura County. The initiative is proposed by the slow-growth group Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources.

A Simi Valley man has pleaded guilty to workers' compensation fraud after claiming that he was involved in a traffic accident on the job, officials said. Kenneth Brendon Crump, 43, said he suffered knee and back injuries in a hit-and-run accident that occurred while he was making a sales call for the Ventura County Star newspaper in May 2001, prosecutors said last week. Investigators concluded, however, that he was injured while trying to keep his car from rolling into a ravine near his home.

Simi Valley police on Monday were looking for a man who assaulted a 21-year-old woman who was jogging in Atherwood Park. The man brandished a sharp instrument and knocked the woman to the ground in the park off Alamo Street about 10:15 p.m. Saturday. She escaped after a struggle and was treated for minor cuts at Simi Valley Hospital. The assailant was described as heavyset, about 20 and between 5 feet 9 and 6 feet tall. He had a scar near his mouth and wore a dark cap, dark sweatshirt and