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Over 2 dozen people injured after vehicle crashes into crowd in Los Angeles

Over 2 dozen people injured after vehicle crashes into crowd in Los Angeles

Yahoo3 days ago
More than two dozen people were injured when a vehicle crashed into a Los Angeles crowd in the early morning of Saturday, July 19, authorities said.
The crash happened when the driver of a vehicle appeared to lose consciousness and hit a taco cart before running into a crowd outside a nightclub in East Hollywood, Captain Adam VanGerpen, public information officer for the Los Angeles Fire Department, told ABC News and NBC News.
About seven people were in critical condition, six were in serious condition and 10 were in fair condition, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement. At least seven others who were injured were not transported to hospitals for treatment, the fire department said.
The fire department responded at about 2 a.m. and had over 120 personnel working the scene.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vehicle crashes into crowd in Los Angeles; 2 dozen injuries reported
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The True Story Behind Trainwreck: P.I. Moms
The True Story Behind Trainwreck: P.I. Moms

Time​ Magazine

time7 minutes ago

  • Time​ Magazine

The True Story Behind Trainwreck: P.I. Moms

On August 24, 2010, Pete Crooks, a senior writer at Diablo magazine, received a call from a Los Angeles-based publicist representing Chris Butler's private investigation firm. The pitch he got was intriguing: Butler had hired a group of local mothers to run surveillance on cheating husbands, and business was beginning to boom. The firm was featured in People, The Today Show, and Dr. Phil—and most recently, Lifetime Television had just greenlit a new reality show called P.I. Moms San Francisco about its East Bay operation. Butler had a proposal for Crooks: Take part in a ride-along with one of the mothers, watch them catch a philanderous man in the act, and write about it. It smelled like a great story and Crooks eventually hopped in a car with Denise Antoon, one of four moms Butler had employed. The mission went like clockwork. The man they were following met up with a young woman and began kissing her in a parking lot, all while Denise grabbed photos and video. Crooks understood why Lifetime was eager to turn this into a series. But did everything go down a little too perfectly? Soon after returning home, Crooks got an email from someone named Ronald Rutherford that made him question everything. 'It would be a mistake to write a story on the P.I. moms and Chris Butler,' the email stated. 'Chris totally played you. The case that you sat in on was totally scripted. All the participants or employees are paid actors. I hope that publishing it is not in your plans.' As chronicled in Netflix's new documentary Trainwreck: P.I. Moms, that mysterious message was just the beginning of a scandal that involved lying, cheating, wire-tapping, methamphetamines, and jail time, and would ultimately kill the Lifetime reality series before it ever aired. In this retelling, director Phil Bowman interviews a couple of the moms, Lifetime producers, and several others involved with the show to paint a better picture of how Butler's enterprise wasn't everything it seemed to be. Reality show origins When Butler started his investigation firm around 2000, the former police officer hired a lot of off-duty, law enforcement officers to work on cases, but he found that the men were all too competitive and impatient to be good investigators. 'Then, I hired a mom, and she was the best investigator I had worked with,' he told Crooks. 'She was patient and a good team player, and she could multitask." Eventually, he hired moms Michelle Allen, Charmagne Peters, Denise Antoon, and Ami Wilt to fill out a team. Butler used their skills and inconspicuousness to perform undercover operations, stings, and other kinds of investigative work, which secretly included a 'Dirty DUIs' scheme in which they'd encourage men to drink alcohol, encourage them to drive, and then alert the police. (The doc doesn't interrogate this aspect of the business.) As the moms started getting media attention throughout the reality TV boom, Lifetime saw potential for a show—along with spin-offs in other cities—centered around them. The network soon reached out to Lucas Platt about showrunning the series. The TV veteran liked the general concept of 'showing this group of women busting criminals together,' he says in the doc, but he also wanted to explore their lives outside the job. As Denise and Ami attest, the moms didn't want to be treated like a group on Real Housewives and create fake drama, so Platt agreed to share more personal and meaningful anecdotes about their lives. Lifetime eventually gave Platt three camera crews and a four-million budget to produce eight episodes with Butler's group, which also included Carl Marino, a former law enforcement agent who helped with cases that needed a male presence. But Platt and the moms could tell there was something off about him—that he was eager to be a television star at any cost. 'It felt like egotism run amok,' Platt says. 'Its called P.I. Moms, and he's not a mom.' Repeated sabotage After Crooks received the anonymous tip about the staged ride-along, he reached out to Platt to share the information. 'If Chris did this to me, how could he not do it for TV?' he thought. The showrunner was confident in the veracity of the women and the cases they were pursuing, until their next sting operation, when their target told Denise that he'd been tipped off. Now Platt was curious. He began investigating and soon discovered the tipster (and the man responsible behind the Rutherford email) was actually Marino. The show wouldn't work if employees were breaking up operations out of spite and jealousy, so Platt told Butler that his employee had been sabotaging the show. But instead of firing Marino, Butler told Platt not to worry about it—an odd reaction, especially for someone hoping to make bank from a reality series. 'Clearly he had other things that were happening that were taking precedence,' Denise says. Marino knew all about those other things, and was willing to spill the information. He continued corresponding with Crooks and explained that Butler was involved in serious criminal activity, selling marijuana, prescription Xanax, and steroids that had been confiscated by a Contra Costa Country Task Force commander. Once in possession of the drugs, Butler would then give them to Marino inside the office. 'I have not sold any and don't want to,' Marino messaged Crooks. 'I don't want anything to do with this.' At the same time, Marino continued to scheme, eventually using insider case files to solve a missing person's case that Platt and the P.I. Moms had hoped would be their opportunity to save the series. As both Ami and Denise remember, Marino was determined to have his 15 minutes of fame, even if that meant continuing to sabotage the show he was so desperate to be on. 'How dumb are you that they're going to push this out and you're going to be the star of the show?' Ami says. The final sting After Crooks reached out to Contra Costa D.A. Daryl Jackson with his information, Marino ultimately came forward and agreed to wear a wire for law enforcement, who was ready to bust Butler after discovering he had planned to sell three pounds of methamphetamines. They arranged a buy at the P.I. firm between the corrupt officer, Butler, and Marino, and as soon as the sale went through, authorities quickly arrested Butler. The news officially sealed the show's fate. Lifetime cancelled P.I. Moms San Francisco and forced Platt to break the bad news to the women and crew. It was an emotional moment, especially for Ami, who had opened up over the course of the show's production and shared intimate details about losing her son at an early age. She hoped her testimony would help other women struggling with something similar. Instead, it would never air. On May 4th, 2012, nearly two years after telling Crooks to write a story about him, Butler pleaded guilty to selling drugs, extortion, robbery and planting illegal wiretaps, and was later sentenced to eight years in prison. The fallout also impacted the P.I. moms themselves—they were called frauds and took heat from their community for collaborating with Butler. (Crooks eventually did write a 10,000-word story about his experience.) Marino eventually got his moment in the sun, playing lead Detective Lt. Joe Kenda, on the Investigation Discovery TV show Homicide Hunter. But to everyone involved with P.I. Moms, he and Butler will always be known as the ultimate schemers that killed their TV careers. 'Chris and Carl just took it away from everybody,' Denise says. 'They put their desires above everyone else's.'

Dozens of peacocks and peahens go missing from Northern California hotel
Dozens of peacocks and peahens go missing from Northern California hotel

Associated Press

time7 minutes ago

  • Associated Press

Dozens of peacocks and peahens go missing from Northern California hotel

WALNUT GROVE, Calif. (AP) — Dozens of peacocks and peahens known for wandering the grounds of a historic Art Deco hotel in the Sacramento Delta are missing, and the hotel staff said Tuesday they believe the birds were stolen. After a customer at the Ryde Hotel mentioned Sunday seeing two men grabbing one of the birds and putting it inside a cage on the bed of a pickup truck, the staff did a count and realized only four of their exotic birds remained, David Nielsen, the hotel's general manager, said. 'We're not sure why anyone would do anything like this, but the staff is absolutely heartbroken,' Nielsen said. Authorities are investigating the case as a property crime. The male birds are valued at $2,000 each and the peahens at $1,000 each, said Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a spokesperson at the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office. He didn't share any additional information. The owner purchased five of the birds to wander the grounds 14 years ago. They reproduced 'to the point that they became a signature of the hotel,' Nielsen said. Peacocks are common in Art Nouveau design. Staff fed them leftovers of fillet mignon, prime rib and salmon, and over time, the birds became tamer. They got used to people, and the employees began seeing them as pets, even naming some of them. Rafe Goorwitch, the hotel's catering coordinator, said he fed a group of about 15 peafowls twice every day. He named the biggest one Alibaba, Baba for short, because he would walk through the hotel like he owned the place. 'I joked with the owner that we worked for Baba because he would walk through the dinner rooms, the ballrooms and the garden with this attitude that he was the boss,' Goorwitch said. Peacocks tend to be aloof, but Baba 'became like a dog,' he said. Since the news about the missing birds became public, people have been calling the hotel with tips and possible sightings, including reports of neighbors with new peacock pets, Nielsen said. Hotel staff are hoping the birds are found and returned home. For now, the hotel has added better and more surveillance cameras, and there are plans to add more fencing. 'They really meant a lot to us,' Nielsen said. ___ Rodriguez reported from San Francisco.

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