Story and photos by Josh Stotler

Photo, left: Crews battle the heat and smoke of the Murray fire Tuesday afternoon.

June 20, 2023 (El Cajon)-- A small vegetation fire was sparked off Interstate 8 near Murray Drive and Dennstedt Place in El Cajon this afternoon. While East County crews were battling two other wildland fires, calls came into Heartland Fire & Rescue’s dispatch just after 2:20 p.m. reporting a fire on the hill adjacent to Grossmont High School.

Engines were sent to the scene and Interstate 8 was closed to westbound traffic as crews battled the flames.

Update 2:50 p.m. --Forward spread has been stopped at 37 acres,  Cal Fire reports. One outburning burned. The fire is 10% contained.

June 20, 2023 (San Diego's East County) -- An Evacuation Order has been issued northeast of the Manzanita and Los Posta Indian Reservations this afternoon due to the #Blackwood  Fire, which has charred over 30 acres and threatens homes..

An Evacuation Order requires immediate movement out of the affected area due to an imminent threat to life, per the County Dept. of Emergency Service.  Temporary Evacuation Points are located at the Golden Acorn Casino, 1800 Golden Acre Way, Campo.

The fire began near Blackwood Road and Old  Mine Road, north of I-8. It is spreading at a moderate rate of speed. .

SDG&E's camera indicates the fire is burning close to the Campo Wind Farm.

Cal Fire is on scene. Air tankers and a helicopter have been dispatched. 

Update June 21, 2023 -- The Medical has confirmed that the body recoveredis that of the missing hiker,Richard Oliver,28, from Rancho Cucamonga

East County Magazine

File photo of Three Sisters Falls, by MIriam Raftery

June 19, 2023 (Julian)  Volunteer divers with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department Reserve Unit found a body just before 1:30 p.m. today. The body was recovered underwater in the middle pool of Three Sisters Falls, the same area where a missing hiker was last seen on Friday, June 16.

The man was last seen swimming there went he went underwater and never came up.

“For four days, deputies with the Alpine Sheriff's Station, Julian Sheriff's Substation, Sheriff's ASTREA helicopter, CAL FIRE and U.S. Forest Service continuously searched for the man,” the Sheriff’s department announced in a press release.  “The water current was too dangerous for divers to attempt a search underwater until today.”

By Miriam Raftery

Photo by Dan Rigger

June 19, 2023 (Jamul) – Cal Fire has filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court against the parents of two young children, seeking to recover $675,000 in costs for fighting the Skyline Fire in Jamul three years ago. The suit alleges that parents “negligently” supervised their children while camping at Skyline Truck Trail and that a fire started by their two young children on June 11, 2020 spread into the brush and onto neighboring property.

East County News Service

June 18, 2023 (San Diego’s East County) – Windy weather is forecast tonight through Monday in San Diego County’s mountain and desert areas.

The National Weather Service predicts west winds of 25-35 miles per hour, with gusts up to 60 mph, strongest in mountain passes. This will create hazardous driving conditions for high-profile vehicles. In addition, blowing sand and dust could reduce visibility in the desert.

By Miriam Raftery

Image: U.S. Constitution, cc via Bing

June 18, 2023 (Sacramento) – California Governor Gavin  Newsom has proposed a 28^th amendment to reduce gun violence. Newsom says, “The 28th Amendment will enshrine in the Constitution common sense gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support — while leaving the 2nd Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition.”

Because Congress lacks enough votes to pass even modest gun reforms,  Newsom has called for a constitutional convention to be convened,as allowed under Article V of the Constitution.  But that’s never been done.  It requires a steep bar:  two-thirds of states must call for a constitutional convention,  amid a currently divided political landscape.

But even some who might support gun reforms may think twice about potential risks to our democracy that a constitutional convention could pose, since the process could open the door to rewriting other aspects of the Constitution that  Americans have long taken for granted as permanent protections for our rights and liberties.

Update June 19, 2023 --The deceased has been identified as  Max Andrew Vizcarra, 26. The Medical Examiner found cause of death to be blunt force injuries and inhaling products of combustion.

By Miriam Raftery

June 15, 2023 (Dulzura) – A 26-year-old San Diego man lost control of the sedan he was driving last night on State Route 94 in Dulzura, causing a fiery collision with a pickup truck.  The crash killed the sedan driver and injured the pickup truck’s driver.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the sedan was heading westbound on 94 just west of Cochera Via Drive around 7:10 p.m. when the driver traveled onto the dirt shoulder, then spun counterclockwise and crossed into the eastbound lane. The sedan struck a 2012 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup driven by a 26-year-old man from Tecate, Mexico, who was traveling at 55 miles per hour.

“The right side of the sedan struck the front of the Dodge, resulting in the sedan bursting into flames,” says Officer Jared Grieshaber with the CHP. “The driver of the sedan was knocked unconscious during the impact, and the driver of the Dodge attempted to extricate him from the sedan, but was unable to do so.”

 By Miriam Raftery

June 15, 2023 (Washington D.C.) – By a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court voted this morning to uphold the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) provisions which require that Native Americans be given preference to foster or adopt Native  American children. 

The law was enacted to keep children in their Tribal community and protect tribal sovereignty, in response to many decades of Indian children being taken away from their families by both state and federal authorities and given to white families to adopt, or winding up in the foster care system, losing cultural identity. The law gives priority to adoption by others in the Tribal community, if parents cannot care for their own children.

“By ruling on the side of children’s health and safety, the U.S. Constitution, and centuries of precedent, the justices have landed on the right side of the law,” reads a statement issued by  leaders of four tribes involved in the case – the Cherokee Nation, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians in Southern California, the Oneida Nation, and the Quinault Indian Nation.  “With these latest political attacks on  ICWA now behind us, we hope we can move forward  on focusing on what is best for our children.”

By Miriam Raftery

Donald Michael Santini,  aka Wellman "Wells" Simmonds

June 13, 2023 (San Diego’s East County) – A fugitive wanted for the murder of a Florida woman nearly 40 years ago, as well as a robbery in Texas, has been leading a double life in Campo. There, he brazenly held public positions under an assumed name.

On Wednesday, Donald Michael Santini, known locally under the alias Wellman “Wells” Simmonds, was arrested in Campo's Lake Morena community by U.S. Marshals, ECM news partner 10 News reports.

Simmonds served on the Campo-Lake Morena Community Planning Group as well as president of the board of directors for the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company, a troubled water district where nitrate contamination has left district residents forced to drink bottled water for the past three years, as ECM reported.

“Everyone was surprised. There was nothing unusual about him,” Billie Jo Jannen, Chair of the planning group, told ECM.

By Miriam Raftery

June 13, 2023 (Pine Valley) – The Sheriff’s department is asking for public help to find a man who falsely told a 12-year-old girl that her mother had asked him to pick her up. The girl told authorities that she had returned to Pine Valley Park after a movie screening Friday just after 9 p.m. to pick up belongings she had had left behind, when a tall, heavy-set man wearing a hoodie approached and asked her name.

“She gave the man a false name as she continued to walk away. After receiving the false name, the man told the girl that her mother had given him permission to pick her up,” says Lieutenant Jeff Ford with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Rural Command. “The girl immediately fled and notified her friends and family. The man did not follow her. The girl was not hurt.”

Update June 19, 2023  --The Medical Examiner has identified the victim as Christopher Dembowski.

East Count News Service

June 12, 2023 (El Cajon) – A 43-year-old El Cajon was killed in solo-vehicle crash Friday around 6:45 p.m. at the junction of State Route 67 and Interstate 8 in unincorporated El Cajon.

He was driving a 2010 Ford Econoline van on the ramp from SR-67 southbound onto westbound I-8 when for unknown reasons, the vehicle veered right off the roadway and struck a yellow and black advisory sign, then crashed into a tree.

By Jacob Pamus

June 12, 2023 (San Diego) -- Former president Donald Trump’s second indictment, this time by federal prosecutors who allege that he compromised national security by mishandling classifeid documents,  is big news around the world.  Here’s a sampling of how the international press is covering the story.

Timeline analysis prepared by ECM documents efforts to conceal records from FBI

By Miriam Raftery

Photo, from indictment: Boxes with classified records stored insecurely in a bathroom at Trump’s Mar a Lago Club.

June 10, 2023 (Washington D.C.) – Special Counsel Jack Smith yesterday unsealed a 49-page indictment charging former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump with “felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” Smith announced, after a Florida grand jury voted to indict. Trump is charged with 37 felonies; if convicted, he could face decades in prison.

His chauffeur and former White House aide Waltine Nauta also faces charges, including conspiring with Trump to obstruct justice.

Prosecutors allege that Trump:

• Showed a secret Pentagon plan of attack against a foreign country to unauthorized persons including a writer and publisher in a taped meeting in July 2021, in which he stated, “See as president I could have declassified it…Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
• Showed a political action committee member without a security clearance a classified map of a foreign country during a military operation that he stated was “not going well” in summer 2021.
• Asked his lawyers to defy a subpoena, withhold documents and lie to the FBI;
• Ordered an aide to move boxes of subpoenaed documents without telling his attorneys, shortly before the FBI raid on Mar a Lago;
• Stored highly sensitive documents in an insecure manner in a bathroom, ballroom, storage closet and other areas with unlocked doors Mar a Lago, where thousands of guests attended over 150 events while records were there;
• Mishandled documents on nuclear weaponry of the United States, America’s vulnerabilities,  nuclear capabilities of a foreign country, a foreign country’s support of terrorism against U.S. interests,and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.

Smith says of the indictment, “I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged…Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk….We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”

Update June 12, 2023 --  The victim has been identified as Sarah Louise Crocker, 48, of Ladera Ranch, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner. 

Story and file photo by Miriam Raftery

June 8, 2023 (San Diego’s East County) – A woman supervising four teenagers on a hike to Three Sisters Falls died after trying to save a girl who slipped on a ledge at the middle waterfall and fell into the pool below in Cleveland National Forest near Descanso this morning.

Both the woman and girl fell, suffering severe injuries. According to Lieutenant Jeff Ford with the San Diego Sheriff’s department, “Several people witnessed the accident and attempted to render medical aid. 

Deputies from the Sheriff’s rural command responded. Rescuers pulled the victims from the water, but the woman was dead.