The Vintage & Handmade Market Monday, July 21
It's never too early for a good old-fashion jail riot. Roughly four-dozen inmates commenced to brawlin' during breakfast-at 5 a.m.-at Otay Mesa's George F. Bailey Detention Facility. The fracas got so bad for two inmates they had to be airlifted out of there by helicopter. Seven others were taken to the hospital by ambulance. The melee erupted not because of the poor quality of breakfast fare but because of the ubiquitous tension between rival gangs, authorities told reporters.
Tuesday, July 22
Three members of the San Diego Unified School District's Board of Education said they've had enough of American Institutes for Research (AIR), an independent organization brought in three years ago to annually evaluate the district's controversial Blueprint for Student Success curriculum program. The results of AIR's third study of the Blueprint would have been released next March had the contract not been terminated by the board. The first two evaluations have found the Blueprint a less-than-stellar program.
Wednesday, July 23
Mayor Dick Murphy's reelection campaign got a boost when the City Council's Rules, Finance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee-which the mayor chairs-voted to endorse his proposal to establish a commission that will seek a way to fix the city's ailing pension system.
Thursday, July 24
Congressman Bob Filner is mad as hell about the federal government selling cars loaded with drugs to unsuspecting buyers, and he's not going to take it anymore. Filner said border and customs officials are responsible for a recent “pattern” of Americans and Mexicans purchasing cars at government auctions and then being arrested for carrying large amounts of drugs they didn't even know were hidden onboard. The congressman said federal officials ought to do a better job of inspecting cars confiscated from scofflaws before they auction them off.
Friday, July 25
From the “Sign of the Times” file comes news that a lawyer, late for a court appointment, pulled his Mitsubishi up on an intake ramp of the federal lockup downtown, got out, bolted across the street and disappeared into a court building. A couple of years ago, all he would have received would have been a parking ticket. But in these terrified-of-terrorism times, the guy got a date with U.S Marshals and San Diego police. The lawyer, it turns out, meant no harm, but he might be billed for the time and energy wasted by police, bomb-arson investigators and firefighters who responded to the false alarm.
Saturday, July 26
They were here. They were queer. Many thousands of gay folks and their sympathizers crammed onto the streets of Hillcrest for San Diego's annual Pride festival. Their message: Ain't nothing wrong with human beings having sexual relations with other human beings of the same damned gender, so get used to it.
Sunday, July 27
There's something about Mission Bay that really brings out the violence in young people. A bit later than 9 p.m., two men, whom witnesses say were in their early 20s, got all up in the faces of a group of people in a Crown Point parking lot. As a result of the chance encounter, a 21-year-old guy has a big ol' knife wound in his back.
