There were 84,840 people who read Noozhawk this past week. What’s my take on your top stories? I’m glad you asked.
1. Six Arrested After Major Altercation at Righetti High in Orcutt
One day after a melee at Righetti High School in Orcutt, authorities were still trying to figure out how the fracas started and why.
Nine students have been arrested so far in the Nov. 19 incident, which also involved one Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputy being plastered in the back with a plate of nachos, and a second deputy apparently scrapping with a group of female students and ultimately appearing to knock one down. Cell-phone video of that altercation was dutifully uploaded to the Internet.
As our Tom Bolton reported first, a fight that started just after 12:30 p.m. quickly escalated into what responding law enforcement officers were describing as a “riot.”
Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Kelly Hoover told Noozhawk that the school’s resource deputy was following up on the initial fight when a second fight broke out as a large crowd gathered to watch the show.
Hoover said the deputy quickly tried to detain the primary aggressor in the second fight, but the student allegedly put up a struggle, and he and the deputy both fell to the ground.
At that point, she said, things got ugly, with an ever-larger crowd of students yelling obscenities at the deputy and throwing food, containers and bottles at him.
Hoover said the deputy called for backup as students closed in, trying to kick him. Campus security officers and administrators, meanwhile, were unsuccessfully holding back the mob.
A second deputy arrived and, she said, when he attempted to detain a female suspect, the teenager tried to run.
“Her friends surrounded the deputy and pushed and hit him,” Hoover said. “In the process of defending himself, he shoved the females away and one of the suspects was knocked to the ground.”
Six students were arrested in the incident, with three more arrested the next day. All were carted off to Juvenile Hall in Santa Maria.
Charges include resisting arrest resulting in injury to a deputy, battery on a peace officer, battery on another student on school grounds, assault on a school employee, possession of a knife on school grounds, possession of marijuana on school grounds, and resisting and obstructing officers in the performance of their duties.
Hoover said the knife apparently was found on one of the students afterward, but was not used in the fight(s).
The Righetti campus, at 941 Foster Road, was placed on lockdown, as was nearby St. Joseph High School. There were no apparent injuries to students.
In addition to sheriff’s deputies, officers from the California Highway Patrol and Santa Maria police raced to the scene, as did our Janene Scully, who provided firsthand reports as Tom updated our story from Noozhawk World Headquarters. Tom also connected with numerous Righetti High students who were posting to their social media feeds from their front-row seats. HT to Kyler Corral.
The next day, a phalanx of law enforcement officers were patrolling on and around the campus, and they had to disperse an unusually large throng that had gathered in the main quad area as lunch was ending.
Mark Richardson, superintendent of the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, said the district will not tolerate such conduct.
“Students who participate in this type of behavior will be disciplined up to and including expulsion from campus,” he said.
2. Woman Arrested on DUI Charges After Early Morning Crash in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara police arrested a 23-year-old woman in the early morning hours Nov. 16 after she rolled her car in the 2900 block of State Street.
Nicol Sarah Richardson, 23, of Santa Barbara, was issued a citation for driving under the influence after the wreck, which occurred around 4:20 a.m., according to Sgt. Riley Harwood, an SBPD spokesman.
Richardson was taken to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries.
No one else was hurt in the crash, but authorities say at least one parked vehicle was damaged in the incident.
3. With Proposed Hilltop Home, Some Santa Barbara Residents Want to Cut House Down in Size
Drs. Grace and John Park want to build a home for their multigenerational extended family on 2.2 acres of vacant land they own on Brosian Way, located in a scenic neighborhood of single-family houses — many of them with ocean views — above Cliff Drive west of Las Positas Road.
Brian Cearnal, the couple’s architect, designed a relatively low-profile, 5,900-square-foot, two-story residence to house John Park, a neurosurgeon with the Santa Barbara Neuroscience Institute at Cottage Hospital; Grace Park, a physician at Sansum Clinic; their three children; Grace Park’s parents; and John Park’s mother.
As a blueprint, the idea sounds good although the concept takes my own clan’s long-running joke about “forced family fun” to TV reality-show levels.
At any rate, the project exceeds Santa Barbara’s arbitrary floor-area-ratio guidelines for the size of the lot and would require a manmade hill from 4,000 square yards of fill dirt at the rear of the property to lift the house so it, too, could see the ocean. You don’t need to be living here long to know where this is going.
Cearnal made his case to the Planning Commission, which voted unanimously Nov. 6 to grant a coastal development permit. But the agency also punted the project back to the Singly-Family Design Review Board — for a fourth time — to see if those appointees can come up with ways to make the Parks’ house smaller.
Our Josh Molina quoted the all-too predictable blah-blah-blahs from all sides of the issue, but it has been our readers who have taken this story and run with it.
In our comments section are multiple strings of entertaining “discussion” covering the Parks, the architect, the neighbors, the neighborhood, property rights, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, brain surgery, emergency brain surgery, RVs, routes to get to the hospital and much, much more.
I often tiptoe into our comments section dreading what I’ll find, but with this story, it’s been a hoot. Thank you to all who have taken the time to comment.
4. Teen Driver Sentenced for Death of UCSB Student Struck on Bicycle East of Santa Maria
Marcus Maldonado, the Santa Maria teenager charged in the August death of a bicyclist he hit with the pickup truck he was driving, has been sentenced to formal probation, community service and restitution for his victim’s family.
In a Nov. 14 appearance before Juvenile Court Judge Roger Picquet, Maldonado, now 17, admitted his role in the death of Matthew O’Neill, a 33-year-old UC Santa Barbara graduate student. Picquet had earlier rejected a defense attempt to enter a no-contest plea, pointing out that the purpose of Juvenile Court is rehabilitation and not punishment.
O’Neill, who lived in Carpinteria, was riding a recumbent bicycle on Foxen Canyon Road about 7:30 p.m. Aug. 9 when he was struck from behind by Maldonado’s Chevy 3500 dually pickup.
Maldonado, who was 16 at the time, was pulling a horse trailer, which was not permitted under his class of driver’s license. His 18-year-old brother was a passenger in the truck — another violation as, at that age, passengers must be at least 25 years old.
Our Janene Scully — the only reporter in the courtroom — chronicled the emotional testimony from families on both sides of the tragedy.
Afterward, Picquet sentenced Maldonado to formal probation, suspended his driver’s license for nine months, instructed him to perform 100 hours of community service and ordered him to pay $75,000 in restitution to O’Neill’s family.
Maldonado, the son of former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, had been charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter plus infractions for driving a commercial vehicle without a license, and for noncompliance with driving terms and restrictions.
5. Bill Macfadyen: ‘Dead Body’ in the Street Turns Out to Be Dead Body in the Street
The story of a homeless man who was found lying dead on East Victoria Street outside his minivan continued to draw heavy traffic two weeks after his Nov. 7 death, but my column about it drew even more.
Richard Springer, 73, who had been living in his van there for more than a decade, apparently died of natural causes in the 400 block of East Victoria Street, across from Victoria Market.
In a touching display, dozens of neighborhood residents gathered outside the market Nov. 11 to share their memories of the man.
• • •
By Santa Barbara standards, these waves aren’t impressive. But when’s the last time you surfed with a wind-chill factor of 13 degrees? You might want to turn down your speakers as the background music sounds like someone succumbing to hypothermia.
(Kevin Cullen video)
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— Bill Macfadyen is Noozhawk’s founder and publisher. Contact him at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com, follow him on Twitter: @noozhawk, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.