logo
Former security guard charged with murder of technical college dean near Los Angeles

Former security guard charged with murder of technical college dean near Los Angeles

Independent07-05-2025

A former security guard was charged Tuesday with murdering the dean of a small technical college in Los Angeles last week, officials said.
The dean of student affairs, Cameisha Denise Clark, died at the hospital Monday afternoon after being shot Friday afternoon at the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology campus in Inglewood, according to family. Another female employee was also injured.
Jesse Figueroa, 40, was charged with murder, attempted murder, and several counts for possessing a firearm as a felon. He also faces gun sentencing enhancements, which add additional penalties when a gun is used during a crime. He was previously convicted of robbery and making criminal threats, according to the district attorney's office.
Chris Becker, campus president, said Figueroa worked for a security firm.
Figueroa will appear in court May 29 and faces a maximum sentence of life in state prison if convicted as charged.
Clark's family said she had been recently promoted to dean at the school.
'Cameisha uplifted everyone fortunate enough to cross her path," her family said in a statement to KNBC. "Her leadership, integrity, and deep sense of purpose helped shape futures of countless students from the campus of Clark Atlanta University to Spartan College. She believed in the potential of others even when they could not yet see it in themselves.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The Democrat mayor in denial about the violence ripping her city apart
The Democrat mayor in denial about the violence ripping her city apart

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

The Democrat mayor in denial about the violence ripping her city apart

A few months ago, Karen Bass was accused of standing by as Los Angeles burned. Now, the city's mayor has been accused of 'fanning the flames' – but this time of the rioting, violence and looting that has consumed its downtown area. Critics say Ms Bass has provoked clashes between law enforcement and protesters, who have been demonstrating against raids by immigration authorities since Friday, and is in denial about the scale of the crisis that has gripped the City of Angels. A constant presence on Left-leaning CNN and MSNBC this week, she has routinely downplayed the violent scenes even as cars have been torched and journalists have been injured by non-lethal rounds. When immigration officials raided workplaces in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, Ms Bass declared herself 'deeply angered' and hit out at what she claimed was an attempt to 'sow terror in our communities'. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, later claimed the mayor had 'embarked on one of the most outrageous campaigns of lies this country has ever seen from an elected official, blaming President Trump and brave law enforcement officers for the violence'. Critics say Ms Bass's words inflamed the tensions between immigration officials and demonstrators, provoking riots that have lasted for days. 'Karen Bass whipped all of this up,' Ric Grenell, Donald Trump's presidential envoy for special missions, wrote on social media. 'She attacked the rule of law. She undermined democracy. The mayor of LA is creating chaos in LA.' This week, she issued a statement downplaying the scale of the violence, even as several journalists caught up in the ensuing melee were shot by police using non-lethal rounds, including The Telegraph's Jon Putman. Mr Putman, who was struck in the ear, narrowly avoided serious injury, but said a clean shot would have put him 'out of commission'. Nick Stern, a British news photographer, was shot in the leg with a non-lethal round on Saturday, and when a paramedic cut off his clothes found a 'five centimetre hole with muscle hanging out of it'. If Ms Bass is an effective rabble rouser as her critics claim, then the evidence shows she is less adept at cooling tensions. Over the weekend, she called on rioters to stop looting businesses in downtown Los Angeles, but the dozens of masked figures who raided the CVS, Adidas and T-Mobile shops among others seem to have been unmoved. Finally, with crime spiralling out of control, Ms Bass decided to act on Monday. 'We reached a tipping point,' she said at a news conference, announcing a curfew between 8pm and 6am local time after more than two dozen businesses were vandalised. Others might have reached the same conclusion days ago. At that point, she conceded the 'vandalism and violence' had been 'significant', long after images of burned-out cars and masked protesters had made their way around the world. Moses Castillo, a former LAPD detective who responded to the Rodney King riots that gripped Los Angeles in the early 1990s, criticised Ms Bass for being too slow and indecisive. 'I think she's trying to play catch up,' he told Fox News. 'I think if she had been very forceful in the beginning that we're not going to tolerate these crimes and allow police officers to do their job and arrest people on sight, I think it would have been different. 'She's now saying that these crimes will not be tolerated, looting will not be tolerated, but it's a little bit too late.' To Ms Bass's political enemies – and there are many, including within her own party – these are familiar themes from the Los Angeles mayor's playbook. When the city found itself in the grip of devastating wildfires back in January, she fumbled her public statements, rowed with officials, and belatedly tried to get a grip on the crisis. Ms Bass wasn't in Los Angeles when the fires broke out. She wasn't even in California, or the US. She was in Ghana to attend the inauguration of its president, and hours after the Pacific Palisades blaze started she was posing for photographs at a reception organised by the US ambassador. The trip was a 'mistake', she later conceded, adding: 'I hated the fact that I was out of the city when the city needed me the most.' When she did return, Kristin Crowley, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) chief blamed her for slashing their budget, leaving her colleagues defenceless when the fires broke out. By the time the smoke cleared, the wildfires had consumed some 16,000 buildings, forced 200,000 people to evacuate, and killed 30. But for some ill-judged comments about Cuba's Communist regime, it's possible that Los Angeles could have been spared the worst of these crises. Joe Biden, the former US president, briefly considered Ms Bass as a potential running mate for the 2020 election, before she won the mayoral election two years later. But it subsequently emerged that Ms Bass had visited Communist Cuba several times as a young woman in the 1970s, and when Fidel Castro died in 2016 after ruling the country for decades, she lamented 'a great loss to the people of Cuba'. That was enough to end the prospect of any role in the Biden campaign. Ms Bass's loss, as it turned out, was Los Angeles' loss too.

World's biggest TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves the US after being detained for overstaying his visa
World's biggest TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves the US after being detained for overstaying his visa

Daily Mail​

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

World's biggest TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves the US after being detained for overstaying his visa

Khaby Lame, the world's most popular TikTok personality, has left the US after being detained by immigration agents in Las Vegas for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Senegalese-Italian influencer, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained on Friday at Harry Reid International Airport - but was allowed to leave the country without a deportation order, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed in a statement. Lame arrived in the US on April 30 and 'overstayed the terms of his visa', the ICE spokesperson said. He has so far not publicly commented on his detainment. Khaby Lame rose to international fame during the pandemic without ever saying a word in his videos, which would show him reacting to absurdly complicated 'life hacks'. He has more than 162 million followers on TikTok alone. The Senegal-born influencer moved to Italy when he was an infant with his working class parents and has Italian citizenship. His internet fame quickly evolved. He signed a multiyear partnership with designer brand Hugo Boss in 2022. In January, he was appointed as a Unicef goodwill ambassador. Last month, he attended the Met Gala in New York City, days after arriving in the US, where he wore a three piece suit with well over a dozen timepieces attached to his vest. Yesterday, one of Barron Trump's supposed best friends has claimed he was responsible for getting Lame deported. Bo Loudon, a Gen Z MAGA influencer who's previously been pictured with Barron and Donald Trump, said he reported Khaby Lame to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Loudon's first post on X came June 6 when he wrote that Lame is an 'illegal alien ' in all caps before proclaiming that he has 'been working with the patriots at President Trump's DHS' to deport the Senegal-born influencer. Loudon, 18, claimed that Lame was detained at Henderson Detention Center, southeast of Las Vegas proper, though its unclear how long he may have been in custody before leaving. He made a post Wednesday afternoon denouncing various media outlets' coverage of this incident, who reportedly called him a 'rat' and a 'rat extraordinaire'. 'Why? Because I helped President Trump's DHS deport TikTok's biggest star, Khaby Lame, for being in the U.S. illegally,' he added. 'I wish Khaby well and hope he returns as a LAW-ABIDING citizen.' His detainment and voluntary departure from the US comes amid President Donald Trump 's escalating crackdown on immigration, including raids in Los Angeles that sparked days of protests against ICE, as the president tests the bounds of his executive authority. A voluntary departure - which was granted to Lame - allows those facing removal from the US to avoid a deportation order on their immigration record, which could prevent them from being allowed back into the US for up to a decade. But many, including British citizens, haven't been afforded that luxury. British backpacker Rebecca Burke, 28, was on a 'once in a lifetime' solo travelling trip across the US and Canada when she was handcuffed while trying to cross the Canadian border on February 26. She spent nearly three weeks behind bars 5,000 miles from home at a detention centre in Tacoma, Washington, where she is said to have survived on a diet of cold rice, potatoes and beans. Burke was eventually released on March 18, and later warned others to not even bother going to the US. She told the Guardian following her release: 'First, because of the danger of what could happen to you. And, secondly, do you really want to give your money to this country right now?

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store