Traffic Accidents San Bernardino County

San Bernardino County authorities have one suspect in custody and continued to search for two others Tuesday in what is believed to be the revenge killing of a hit-and-run driver on a remote Mojave Desert road 10 miles west of Victorville.

The 17-year-old driver of a car involved in a desert crash that killed four Orange County teen-agers was released from San Bernardino County Juvenile Hall on Tuesday as police continued their investigation. "Obviously he feels a lot of stress," David Patterson said of his son, James. "He feels a tremendous sense of loss."

Fifty-seven-year-old Juana Basilia Alfaro worried about her daughter's safety ever since that big earthquake in January, so she left her home in El Salvador for the long journey to Los Angeles to make sure her Silvia was safe. Quite by chance, she joined other immigrants who had crossed the border near Nogales, Ariz., on Tuesday afternoon. She squeezed herself with 19 others inside a pickup truck that had parked along a rural highway.

A CHP cruiser, stopped in traffic lanes as an officer placed flares at a suspected drunk-driving accident, was rear-ended by another car, setting off a chain-reaction pileup under a blanket of fog on Interstate 15 Sunday morning, authorities said. Ultimately, 30 cars and a tractor-trailer rig smashed into one another, injuring 24 people, four of them critically. The interstate, the main link to the High Desert and Las Vegas, was closed southbound from just after 8 a.m. until 6:15 p.m.

Nine school bus drivers and an instructor were hurt Wednesday during a training accident at San Bernardino County's Emergency Vehicle Operations Center, authorities said. Drivers from the Redlands Unified School District and two instructors were taking part in an exercise when the accident occurred at 1:40 p.m., said Sheriff's Deputy Robert Taylor. The only person not injured was the instructor driving the training vehicle, he said.

A San Bernardino Superior Court jury has ordered the California Department of Transportation to pay $10.6 million to a couple involved in an accident that left the husband a paraplegic after their car rolled over on a notorious stretch of Interstate 15 on Christmas Day 1996. The jury found that the department knew the 18-mile stretch between Baker, Calif.

A jury acquitted a liquor store clerk Friday and was unable to reach a verdict against the store's owner on charges that the pair sold beer to teens involved in a desert crash that killed four students from Katella High School. Prosecutors accused clerk Muhammed Hosain and Anaheim store owner Masood Zaman of misdemeanor counts of selling alcohol to the minors hours before the fatal crash.

The San Jose State football program will retire jersey No. 58 in honor of Carl Ekern, who died in a one-car accident Aug. 1. Ekern played football for San Jose State from 1972-75 and played for the Rams from 1976-88. The Rams will have a memorial service for Ekern at 4 p.m. today at Rams Park in Anaheim. The retirement ceremonies will take place at 6 p.m. on Sept. 1 at Spartan Stadium before San Jose State's season-opening game against Louisville.

The owner of an Anaheim liquor store on Friday was ordered to stand trial a second time on charges that he sold beer to teens involved in a desert crash that killed four students from Katella High School. A jury deadlocked last month on whether to convict Masood Zaman, the owner of Me-N-Paul's Market, on misdemeanor counts of selling alcohol to the minors hours before the fatal crash. "It's important to pursue this case for the protection of our kids," said Anaheim Assistant City Atty. Pat Ahle.

The Anaheim high school student who crashed his Chevy Suburban near Victorville in an accident that left four friends dead was ordered by a San Bernardino County judge Friday to attend alcohol counseling and not to leave home without a parent. James V. Patterson, 18, denied the vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving charges against him at a juvenile court proceeding and was allowed to remain at home with his parents as long as he meets 14 conditions of home supervision, said Deputy Dist. Atty.