By Miriam Raftery

February 11, 2018 (El Cajon) — A man in a vehicle parked outside the Home Goods store at Parkway Plaza shopping mall in El Cajon exposed himself to a 14-year-old girl on Tuesday, the girl’s mother told ECM news partner 10 News.

$11.5 million PE and Food Services project will begin construction in late spring

East County News Service

February 9, 2018 (El Cajon) - The Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD) and Erickson-Hall Construction are hosting a Contractor Outreach Event, designed to bring the District’s construction management team together with local general contractors, subcontractors and small and/or historically underutilized businesses looking for opportunities on the upcoming construction of the new PE and Food Services Buildings at Granite Hills High School.

By Miriam Raftery

Photos by Robert Gehr

Robert Gehr contributed to this report

Update:  The  deceased woman has been identified as Brandi Duhamell. According to El Cajon Police Lieutenant W. Miller, officers arrived to find her fiancee performing CPR on Duhamell, who had shot the fiancee in the leg before committing suicide by shooting herself in the chest.

February 6, 2018 (El Cajon) – A woman is dead and a man hospitalized with a gunshot wound, El Cajon Police Department posted on Twitter this evening.

ECM photographer Robert Gehr, who lives across the street from the Park Royale apartment complex at 193 West Park avenue, said a SWAT team was deployed and reported seeing “at least 12 police units” and 20 or more officers at the scene following the shooting that occurred around 6 p.m. as well as paramedics and a fire truck.

By Miriam Raftery

February 5, 2018 (El Cajon) -- A man was shot and a security guard injured outside Parkway Bowl on Fletcher Parkway in El Cajon Saturday night shortly after 11 p.m.

El Cajon Police Department reports that a confrontation began at the bowling alley, leading to a shooting nearby.  A security guard who tried to intervene was rammed by the suspect’s vehicle as he fled the scene.

By Kendra Sitton

February 1, 2018 (El Cajon) --- Activists praise the end of a ban on feeding the homeless, but continue advocating for further changes in El Cajon.

At a food sharing event organized by Food not Bombs and Breaking Bread on Saturday, Jan. 27, transients and volunteers filled Wells Park. There was a swathe of donated clothes, blankets, and hand sanitizer, as international media attention brought additional support to the advocates who have worked for months to repeal the ban. Houseless people filled plates with beans, chow mein, bread, peach cobbler, and a chocolate cake which read “solidarity not charity.”

Hear our interview  on KNSJ with Mandy Mattis, No One Left Behind, on the Shurish family, how you can help this local hero and other translators relocated here after risking their lives to help Amreican troops.

By Miriam Raftery

February 1, 2018 (El Cajon) – Targeted by the Taliban for helping the U.S. military as a translator in Afghanistan, Ahmed Shurish fled his homeland with his wife and children, leaving everything else behind.  They arrived here just seven months ago, building a new life in El Cajon.

But now his family has once against lost everything, this time in a fire in which Shurish heroically saved his neighbor’s baby from the flames. So the community is pulling together to help this hero and his family rebuild their lives yet again.

East County News Service

February 1, 2018 (El Cajon) — Two pickup trucks collided shortly after midnight this morning at Jamacha Road and East Main Street in El Cajon.  A 40-year-old Hispanic man was ejected from his 2001 Nissan Frontier vehicle and died at the scene.

By Sergeant Kevin Maxwell, El Cajon Police Dept. Traffic Unit

January 29, 2018 (El Cajon) -- Kickoff on America’s favorite past time is just about ready to start. For many football fans, when it’s time for Super Bowl LII, everyone’s a fan…and Fans Don’t Let Fans Drive Drunk. The California Office of Traffic Safety, Police, Sheriff and the CHP are huddling up for a special designated driver reminder to urge football fans across the nation not to drop the ball on this issue. 

By Jillian Hymer

January 26, 2018 (El Cajon) – At a StoryTent pitched outside the El Cajon Library last week, children listened to stories read aloud and enthusiastically chose books to read. It’s all part of Traveling Stories, a local nonprofit that focuses on “inspiring children to learn to read so they can read to learn.”  You can bring your children ages 2-12 to weekly readings at three locations in San Diego County, including the El Cajon Library each Wednesday from 3:30-5:30 pm.

A StoryTent is set up where staff members, volunteers and parents all pitch in to “empower kids to outsmart poverty…by helping kids fall in love with reading by the 4th grade,” said Hezhi Naseem, the Field Director.

Now hiring for new Director of Sales position

East County News Service

January 24, 2018 (El Cajon) --  Sycuan Casino announced today that the organization is now hiring for a new Director of Sales position. This position is the first of over 700 new jobs for the hotel and resort expansion project. The new positions will be in the hotel, food and beverage and casino divisions. Sycuan will begin hiring for departmental leadership positions during the first half of the year and will host a series of job fairs mid to late 2018.

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Story and photos by Liz Alper

January 23, 2018 (Spring Valley) - ECM traveled to Granite Hills on Tuesday night for a clash between the lady Eagles and the lady Wolf Pack on the court.  Granite Hills has started their season a little lackluster, going 7-10 overall and 1-1 in league.  The Wolf Pack sport the same 7-10 record, but are undefeated so far in league, going 2-0.

Board also names West Hills Gymnasium for David C. Hunter

By Jonathan Goetz

Photo: Steele Canyon High School 2017 CIF-SDS Football Champions - Division II, 2017 CIF SoCal Regional Football Champions - Division 3-A and 2017 CIF State Champions – Division 3A, January 22, 2018

January 23, 2018 (El Cajon) - At Monday’s Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD) Board Meeting, recognition was given to top sports teams for their victories and their “sportsmanlike” conduct.

Helix Charter, Monte Vista and Steele Canyon high schools all won CIF-SDS 2017 Champions, and West Hills Gymnasium is named in honor of David C. Hunter after a GUHSD vote, while the Steele Canyon 2017 SoCal Regional Football Champions and “West Hills Way” were accoladed as being “sportsmanlike.”

By Sue Strom, Advocates of Safe Airport Policies (ASAP)

January 21, 2018 (El Cajon) -- We hope your year is off to a happy and healthy start.  However, for those of us concerned about heavy local traffic, safety, noise, toxic air and lead overhead, with protections for homeowners few and far between, the new year is already daunting.

FAA approval for an increase in air traffic... a state of the art flight training center... the lengthening of the 27L training runway...the redesign and enlargement of the Bradley Street interchange off hwy 67... and the development of 9 five acre parcels of land for aviation usage called the Cajon Air Center are all coming together step by step over the next several years to form the perfect storm.

Update January 18, 2018:  Alaya Michelle Jenkins has been arrested and charged with first degree murder in this case.

By Miriam Raftery, East County Magazine

January 17, 2018 (El Cajon) — A woman stabbed near a bus stop in the 100 block of West Madison Avenue in El Cajon by another woman yesterday at 3 p.m. was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead.  According to Lt. Walt Miller with El Cajon Police, the victim and her pet pit bill dog had exited a vehicle to confront another woman. 

By Paul Kruze and Miriam Raftery

Photo: Screenshot from video on James Elia’s Facebook page

January 14, 2018 (El Cajon)—Defying a city of El Cajon ban on feeding homeless people in public places,  a dozen individuals including a 14-year-old minor were arrested and given misdemeanor citations by El Cajon Police today, then released.

The feeding was one of many held around the country this weekend to carry on the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who in a 1964 lecture to Nobel laureates voiced concerns about those who “have no houses or beds to sleep in.“ Rev. King added, “If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health, when we have the means to help them.”

El Cajon’s City Council voted to adopt a temporary ban on feeding the homeless in public places during the countywide hepatitis emergency declaration, since there have been many cases among the homeless in the outbreak, which county health officials believe originated in El Cajon.