Real reporting got'ya down? Too hard?

Not so! Especially with these handy Internets at our fingertips. Not when you can re-report the actual work done by actual reporters. Except would-be plagiarists are usually savvy enough to rewrite the copy and make a phone call of their own, even throw in a few "such and such told us in an exclusive interview."

Which makes for an entertaining (some might assert troubling?) lapse by Pasadena Now, as recounted by our Public Editor Lawrence of Wilson:

Rewriting someone else's stories is one thing. Simply stealing them word for word is another. We all know that the one-man-band news site Pasadena Now doesn't have much staff, whether in Bangalore or Pasadena. That's why they can't cover the news like a professional organization. It's tough all over, but our science and health writer Elise Kleeman, a Caltech grad and extraordinary professional journalist, worked hard recently to get the long covered-up story about a huge back-pay settlement Huntington Hospital has been ordered by a court to pay its nurses.

Here's a couple excerpts for comparison's sake -- Larry posted both stories in full.

From our by-lined story by science reporter Elise Kleeman:

Superior Court Judge William MacLaughlin, who ruled in September that the hospital was attempting to dodge overtime laws, sided with the employees again in accepting their calculation of the underpaid wages.

Huntington lawyers had argued the restitution amount should be decreased by approximately $20 million.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by four former Huntington nurses, charged that the hospital failed to pay adequate overtime for 2,117 employees between 1999 and 2004.

"We're very pleased," said Joseph Antonelli, lawyer for the nurses. "I think it's going to be a landmark decision because there hasn't been a trial court decision on this issue before."

And from Now's "staff report:"

Superior Court Judge William MacLaughlin, who ruled in September that the hospital was attempting to dodge overtime laws, sided with the employees again in accepting their calculation of the underpaid wages.

Huntington lawyers had argued the restitution amount should be decreased by approximately $20 million.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by four former Huntington nurses, charged that the hospital failed to pay adequate overtime for 2,117 employees between 1999 and 2004.

"We're very pleased," said Joseph Antonelli, lawyer for the nurses. "I think it's going to be a landmark decision because there hasn't been a trial court decision on this issue before."

Score one for these fine, vast Interwebs!

Posted by Todd at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Reports in that Monrovia City Council members are meeting at the community center there, despite no public notice as required under the Brown Act. Someone at the center confirms to Molly that the entire council is meeting currently and that it's open to the public. No notice was ever posted, however.

UPDATED: 7:50 p.m.: City tried to deny access to reporter Robert S. Hong before relenting. WTF?

Posted by Todd at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just back from southeast Monrovia and unincorporated parts. Police had left Almond Avenue, but a photographer served to clue me into the crime scene. Despite being told "no one is talking," I managed to score an invite into the bullet-scarred home where Brandon Lee, 19 of Duarte, was shot in front of last night.

A couple of Brandon's relations lived there. His great-granduncle in-law(?) provided some contact information that eventually led to his parents. Emerging from the home just after 10 o'clock, I ran into Frank Girardot who'd come out to put his eyes on some of the crime scenes.

Fed some info back to the newsroom for some of the web updates your seeing now, some of which I've gone back and tweaked a bit once back in the office.

Brandon was to be a linebacker at PCC next semester, his father said, and the bullets which killed him weren't the first to cut short his ambition. Last summer, just before he left for junior college in Fresno, Brandon was shot in the arm. His father blames Latino gangs for both incidents. He says Brandon wasn't a banger, but hung out with them.

Don't have details on this image but photo dug it up from their archive of sports coverage.

Posted by Todd at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Not much time for posting as I'm headed back out to unincorporated Monrovia-Duarte-Arcadia again today.

Cyclical violence between black and Latino gangs has gotten out of control and it was clear that Saturday's shooting of two 16-year-old girls was not going to go unanswered.

Today's story provides some context and has some uncharacteristic comments from law enforcement. When these people say it's "degraded into a race war" they're not engaging in hyperbole.

Here's something from August 2006 when we were in between cops reporters:

Police fear vendettas
Star-News (Pasadena, CA) - August 18, 2006
Author: Kenneth Todd Ruiz Staff Writer
DUARTE - Nine days after three people were caught in the crossfire of a decades-old feud between two gangs in an unincorporated area known as " No Man's Land ," a heavy police presence has yet to net any arrests. Two people were killed the night of Aug. 9 and a third hospitalized in what police said was part of a long cycle of retaliation between predominantly African American and Latino gangs.

Nicole Kaster, 22, was socializing with friends in front of their home on Shrode Avenue when she was shot to death just after 1 a.m. on Aug. 10.

Several hours earlier, 54-year-old Michael Minor was hit by a bullet and killed while asleep in bed a few blocks away, not long after another man was shot in the head while washing his car in southeast Monrovia. He survived.

Minor and the first victim were black. Kaster was white, but a number of her friends were Latino.

None were gang members, police said.

After three generations in a home built by her father when Shrode Avenue was little more than orange groves, Vivian Kaster, 55, wants to sell the home and get out. However, she has a more immediate concern: figuring out how to pay for her daughter's funeral.

"She got along with everyone," Vivian Kaster said. "But it's been so bad down here, so bad down here. I didn't want her standing down there."

Vivian Kaster was trying to get a loan Thursday so she could bury Nicole at nearby Live Oak Cemetery, where her son and husband are also buried.

Her husband was shot to death by his stepfather 13 years ago, and several weeks later she had her son, Shawn, disconnected from life support after a car struck him on his skateboard.

Since last week's shootings, officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have been out in force in the neighborhood, an expanse of mostly county land bounded by Arcadia, Monrovia and Duarte.

"We're still working the cases," sheriff's Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said. "We've already saturated the area with extra units, with extra patrols."

Monrovia has beefed up its patrols in the southeast corner of the city, where the first, nonfatal shooting occurred, according to Sgt. Tom Wright of the Monrovia Police Department.

Since the 1980s, the two gangs, each estimated to number in the hundreds, have battled one another, with occasional spikes in the violence.

Police suspect jailhouse tensions are a factor in the recent upswing.

"I've talked to other people involved in the investigations who've said these are all racial wars that started in the county jails and are spilling out into streets," Wright said.

Race and gang relations have worsened in the county jails, where large riots occurred earlier this year.

Gang members who don't engage in racial violence outside the jails are likely to face retribution if they end up inside, Wright said.

And the tension in No Man's Land is likely to continue.

Rumors abound of planned retaliations for last week's shootings and more, he said.

"We're hearing that people are being imported from L.A., but you hear a lot of crazy stuff," he said.

In the past, law enforcement and civic leaders have organized community forums to address the inveterate violence.

They've had little effect, however, because the community didn't show up, Detective Ernie DeArmas of the sheriff's homicide unit said.

Law enforcement officers have cited that same unwillingness to communicate as their biggest barrier to ending the violence.

But, Rodriguez said, "it's not going to deter us."

Meanwhile, Vivian Kaster remains deeply distraught and angry about the death of her daughter, who she said played varsity football as a high school freshman and wanted to become a physical education teacher.

"Nicole just happened to be in front of her location just talking with some friends ... that night," Rodriguez said.

For years, Vivian Kaster said she welcomed her children's friends from all ethnic backgrounds into her home, and wishes other parents would do more to keep children off the streets.

"I raised up this little crew, always kept them in the house," she said. "I did all that and she's still dead."

If the police do not make arrests soon, she worries further retaliation will occur.

Younger gang members are taking things too far, she said.

"It's the younger ones, its not the older ... Crips or the older Mexicans," she said. "The kids are taking it further, way too far."

But her immediate concern, she said, is justice for Nicole.

"How dare they shoot my daughter?" she said. "They killed her, they murdered her. She was supposed to put me in the ground, I'm not supposed to put her in the ground."

todd. ruiz @sgvn.com

(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444

Posted by Todd at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)