Wildlife officials tranquilize and release mountain lion in Santa Barbara

A 100-pound mountain lion was captured and released into Los Padres National Forest on Monday afternoon after making its way into a Santa Barbara backyard.

Officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife responded to a call from a homeowner about 8:30 a.m. about a lion in a heavily wooded backyard bordering the Santa Barbara Golf Club.

Several wildlife officers responding to the scene determined that the lion was not a public safety threat.  A nearby elementary school was notified as a precaution, but not locked down or evacuated.

The young male feline didn’t seem interested in leaving the heavily vegetated area and appeared to feel secure, said Cpt. Mike Stefanak, giving authorities enough time to prepare to tranquilize it. The lion was too far to be chased out.

“The lion was so far into the residential area we couldn’t push it out,” Stefanak said. “So we had to tranquilize the animal and remove it.”

About 12:30 p.m., wildlife officers, with the aid of local public safety officials, tranquilized the mountain lion and transported it to Los Padres National Forest.

Most of the time deer tend to be the driving force for a mountain lion’s migration patterns in the area, Stefanak said, but it didn’t appear to be a factor this time. The last time a mountain lion came into a Santa Barbara was about six months ago, but officials were able to chase it back into the wild without tranquilizing it.

“It’s not very common, but it does happen,” Stefanak said.

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Santa Barbara County’s Main Jail on lock down

Six inmates were left injured during what authorities say was a disturbance on the exercise yard at Santa Barbara County's Main Jail on Friday morning.

One inmate was taken to a local hospital, and five others were treated by medical staff, said Sheriff's Lt. Butch Arnoldi. The 11 a.m. disturbance was controlled in less than 15 minutes and has led to a  lock down of the facility, which is expected to continue through the weekend, authorities said.

Families scheduled to make visits this weekend should check to see if they will be admitted. The number to call is (805) 681-4260.

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11 arrested, pot seized after panga lands near Santa Barbara

Authorities arrested 11 people and seized 3,000 pounds of marijuana aboard a panga that landed Wednesday morning up the coast from Santa Barbara.

About 12:15 a.m., the Coast Guard was tracking an open panga boat as it navigated the waters between San Nicolas Island and the Santa Barbara County coastline. It notified the county sheriff's office, which summoned help from state and federal agencies, according to a sheriff's office spokesman.

As a Coast Guard helicopter lighted up the Gaviota beach at Hollister Ranch Road about 2 a.m., officers discovered eight people hiding in the brush. The panga, with its load of marijuana, was found beached nearby. Another three people believed to be associated with the boat were arrested as they walked on the beach several hours later.

All were turned over to investigators for the Department of Homeland Security.

The incident follows the Dec. 2 death of a Coast Guardsman in the attempted capture of a panga boat off Santa Cruz Island. Last Monday, authorities detained 25 passengers on a panga that drifted ashore in Rancho Palos Verdes. The same day, police in San Diego's Carmel Valley arrested 16 people, some in wet clothing caked with sand, whom they suspected of coming illegally from Mexico by sea. 

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Photo: Law enforcement personnel remove evidence from boat that came ashore between Gaviota and El Capitan state beaches Wednesday. Authorities say 11 people have been arrested and 3,000 pounds of marijuana have been seized. Credit: Scott Steepleton / The News-Press

Memorial today for slain Coast Guard officer

U.S. Coast Guard officials are scheduled to hold a memorial Saturday for a veteran chief petty officer killed after suspected smugglers rammed his small vessel off the coast of Santa Barbara, tossing him into the sea.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is expected to attend the event for Terrell Horne III of Redondo Beach, who served in the Coast Guard for nearly 14 years and was second in command of the Halibut patrol cutter. The memorial, at 1 p.m. on Terminal Island, is closed to the public.

Horne, 34, had been honored by the agency for his leadership in dozens of search-and-rescue cases. He is survived by his wife, Rachel, who is pregnant with their second child, according to media reports.

Horne was killed early Sunday after his boat came across a panga, a fishing vessel that law enforcement officers say has become the craft of choice for smugglers. The Coast Guard crew members turned on their blue flashing lights and shouted, in English and Spanish: "Stop! Police! Put your hands up!" according to court documents.

In response, the two men aboard the panga throttled their engines and headed straight at the Coast Guard boat, ignoring shots fired by a crew member and provoking the collision that killed Horne and injured one of his colleagues, who was not identified.

The men on the panga, Jose Mejia Leyva and Manuel Beltran Higuera, both Mexican nationals, were charged in Horne's death in U.S. District Court. Authorities believe they had been supplying gasoline to other smuggling craft operating off the California coast.

Officials say the tragedy underscored the dangers posed by smugglers who have foregone well-policed land routes in favor of the sea. Although more than 500 maritime smuggling incidents have been logged off the Southern California coast since 2010, this was the first violent death, authorities said.

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Photo: Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne climbing up onto the Halibut after conducting water survival training. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard

Sewage spill closes Santa Barbara beach

A 6,600-gallon sewage spill has temporarily shut a popular Santa Barbara beach adjacent to the city's harbor.

Leadbetter Beach will not reopen until tests indicate the water is safe, according to Manuel Romero, Santa Barbara's wastewater collection superintendent.

The spill of untreated sewage was spotted Monday morning after a resident called the city to complain about a storm sewer access hole that had been overflowing since noon the previous day. Water from the spill flowed into a storm drain, down cliffs and into the ocean at the beach.

City workers on Monday unclogged the sewer, which had been blocked by roots growing into a connecting line. 

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Map: Approximate location of beach closure shown in red. Credit: Google Maps

Coast Guard officer died 'protecting our nation,' admiral says

A Coast Guard admiral said an officer killed Sunday when his boat was rammed by suspected smugglers near Santa Cruz Island died "protecting our nation."

In a statement read by a spokesman at a news conference Sunday afternoon, Coast Guard Adm. Robert J. Papp said: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our shipmate.”

The Guard Guard released few details about the incident, but a spokesman vowed that "all individuals involved in this illegal action [will be] brought to justice."

The officer was identified as Executive Petty Officer Terrell Horne.

Horne was aboard a small Coast Guard craft and was investigating a boat that was operating without any lights, raising suspicion. The other boat was a “panga,” an open-hulled boat that is “the choice of smugglers operating off the coast of California,” said Coast Guard spokesman Adam Eggers.

Runway lights back on at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank

Repair crews at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank on Friday restored runway lights on a runway after a power failure caused several incoming and outbound flights to be canceled.

The north-south runway "edge lights" were switched back on at about 5:30 a.m., according to an operations manager at the airport.

The cause of the Thursday night outage was not immediately known,  she said.

Officials predicted Thursday night that normal flight operations would resume at daybreak whether or not the outage had been repaired.

Although the north-south runway is mainly used for departures, incoming flights were also affected, officials said.  Airlines that use Bob Hope Airport include Southwest, United, Jet Blue and Alaska.

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Sandbags offered for L.A. residents as wet weather hits the area

With a series of storms expected to bring wet weather for the next several days, officials are reminding Los Angeles residents that they can get free sandbags and sand at  a number of city facilities.

Sandbags will be available at all Los Angeles Fire Department stations. The city Bureau of Street Services will also provide sandbags and sand. For a list of firehouses and bureau facilities, see the agency's website.

The wet weather, which began Wednesday afternoon, is expected to last through Sunday as three fast-moving storms hit the region, according to the National Weather Service.

Most of the rain was expected to fall in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, where mountain areas could receive from 1 inch to 2 inches of rain, the Weather Service said.

In Los Angeles County, rainfall amounts will range 0.10 to 0.33 of an inch in coastal and inland areas and up to 0.75 of an inch on south-facing mountain slopes.

The storms are expected to cause high surf along west-facing beaches. By Thursday morning, beaches in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties could see waves from 6 to 12 feet with some sets topping out at 15 feet, according to forecasters.

As the first storm swept through the Los Angeles area Wednesday evening, wind gusts of 36 mph were reported in Palmdale and Lancaster. In Northern California, the wet weather and high winds slickened area roads and knocked down power lines in some areas, officials said.

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Dense fog warnings issued for Southern California

A dense fog warning is in effect throughout Southern California through Saturday morning, the National Weather Service said Friday night.

Visibility is expected to be reduced to 50 feet or less in some areas, especially near the coast, officials said.

The dense fog is expected to affect Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, said Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.  

The fog could affect travel along coastal roads and freeways, authorities said.

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Santa Maria pays $185,000 settlement in officer rape case

The city of Santa Maria has settled a lawsuit from a teenage girl who said a police officer threatened and raped her over several weeks before being fatally shot by colleagues attempting to arrest him.

Gilbert Trujillo, Santa Maria's city attorney, said Friday that the $185,000 settlement was "an effort to move forward and put this unfortunate chain of events behind us." 

The girl was a 17-year-old police Explorer when she became involved with the 29-year-old officer, Albert Covarrubias Jr. In her federal lawsuit, she said he threatened to kill her boyfriend if she didn't have sex with him.

When other Santa Maria officers tried to arrest him at a DUI roadblock he was manning last Jan. 28, he  fired his gun and was fatally shot in return fire, according to an investigation by the Santa Barbara County district attorney's office. 

The case shocked the agricultural city of 100,000 where, in the wake of several incidents, officers took a vote of no confidence in Chief Danny Macagni. He retired in August.

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Photo: Albert Covarrubias Jr. Credit: KBSY-TV