Free Republic

At 7, Clovis Hung was bored with second grade. “I wanted more of a challenge,” he said. In 2019, his mother, Song Choi, pulled him out of second grade and began homeschooling him. A year later, when he was 9, he also enrolled in Fullerton College. “My husband and two daughters said I was crazy,” said Choi, who’s worked as a tutor for more than 20 years. “But I trust my instinct. I know he is a very unique child because he's very curious and intelligent.” With his mom at his side, Clovis attended classes. At one point, he was...

CHICAGO: The 26-year-old son of Egypt’s Minister of Immigration and Expatriate Affairs, Nabila Makram, is facing charges of premeditated murder over the killing of two men in California in April. Ramy Hani Mounir Fahim, who lives in Irvine, California, has also been charged with two enhancements each of lying in wait and the personal use of a deadly weapon after a co-worker and his roommate were stabbed to death in their Anaheim apartment early last month. The special circumstances of “lying in wait” and multiple murders make Fahim eligible for the death penalty, officials said. Police allege that Fahim attacked...

California Democrats are building a wall of money to defend the congressional seats they took from Republicans in 2018, new Federal Election Commission financial reports show *** In the Central Valley, Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock (Stanislaus County), took in $789,093 in the quarter that ended March 31, leaving him with $3.5 million in campaign cash. His Republican opponent, veterinarian Ted Howze, raised $71,147 in the first quarter, leaving him with $100,575 in the bank. *** Brian Maryott, a San Juan Capistrano city councilman, is challenging Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in a district that bridges San Diego and Orange counties. But...

A former employee and another woman in hoodies and painted faces were arrested after they walked into a Costa Mesa restaurant, at least one of them with a bat, and started vandalizing and disrupting the establishment Saturday afternoon, the Costa Mesa Police Department said in a news release. Passion Shenay Coleman, 27, walked in at about 1:30 p.m. and smashed a television, table settings and plates with a bat, causing thousands in damages at the restaurant in the 3300 block of Bristol Street in the South Coast Plaza area, police said. Restaurant staff recognized her as a former employee. Another...

[T]he officer tried to pull over Williams' gray rental SUV for speeding when she apparently intentionally collided with the officer's patrol vehicle... Then Williams made an abrupt U-turn into oncoming traffic and came to a skidding stop facing the wrong way... ... the teenager had exited the SUV and took what police described as a "shooting stance" while holding a replica handgun on the eastbound 91 Freewa "It is our belief that the officer who shot Hannah violated Fullerton Police Dept. policies and procedures given the way he handled what certainly would have been determined to be a felony stop...

Body camera video released Friday by Fullerton police shows that the 17-year-old girl killed in a police shooting on an Anaheim freeway had exited her vehicle and was holding a fake gun, according to police. Hannah Williams can only briefly be seen outside the gray rental SUV she was in before she's shot on the eastbound 91 Freeway near Kramer Boulevard on July 5. Fullerton police say the replica Beretta later found near her body can be seen in her hands, pointed at the officer. The bodycam's audio was not activated when the officer opened fire, so it's unclear exactly...

A plane crashed and exploded into flames at the Fullerton Municipal Airport on Thursday, officials said.The incident was first reported just after 7:50 p.m. at the airport, 4011 W Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton Police Department officials said.Initial reports were that the twin-engine plane had become engulfed in fire, police said.The Beechcraft Duke crashed during takeoff from Runway 24, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.Footage of the scene posted to social media showed intense flames rising up from the tarmac.It was unclear how many people were on board, police said.FAA records show the airplane was registered to a company based in...

A faculty member at California State University, Fullerton has been suspended after striking a College Republicans member during a campus protest earlier this month. The altercation occurred Feb. 8 as pro-Palestine students and counter-protesters marched peacefully through campus. Anthropology part-time lecturer Eric Canin reportedly approached the group of counter-protesters — many of them being CSUF College Republicans members — and tried to rip a sign out of a student’s hand. Mr. Canin was accused of then striking another student who tried to step between them. The group’s president, Chris Boyle, said he witnessed the hit and proceeded to restrain Mr....

Police are investigating an incident where a lecturer at California State University, Fullerton, allegedly assaulted a student while the College Republicans club was counter-protesting a “No Ban No Wall” protest held by the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The description for the protest event mentioned that “a large population of students at CSUF have been attacked because of the identities they hold.” The agenda for the event included a protest, march around campus, and a group prayer led by the Muslim Student Association.

Two Troy High School students have been taken into custody on accusations they plotted a school shooting, police announced Wednesday. The two 16-year-olds were arrested on charges of making criminal threats and conspiracy to commit a felony, the Fullerton Police Department reported. According to police, the two suspects were overheard Tuesday night at a Troy High athletic event plotting to “shoot up” the school. A witness told police the suspects discussed various types of guns and described the shooting plot as being “bigger than Columbine,” referring to the 1999 school shooting that left 13 innocent people dead. The witness snapped...

A commencement ceremony turned unruly over the weekend when the keynote speaker, María Elena Salinas, one of the most prominent journalists in Spanish-language news in the U.S., underscored the achievement of the Latinos among graduates and made some remarks in Spanish. Non-Latino graduates and their guests at California State University, Fullerton’s College of Communications booed the Univision anchor and yelled at her to leave the stage, according to a student who was at the ceremony. In social media posts following the incident, the Peabody Award-winning journalist said she didn’t notice the uproar and chalked it up to "sad racism on...

Two California police officers who were videotaped in a violent struggle with a homeless man during an arrest were acquitted Monday of killing him. It was a rare case in which police officers were charged in a death involving actions on duty. One of the officers acquitted had been charged with murder. Jurors took less than two days to reach their verdicts. ormer Cpl. Jay Cicinelli was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force. Spectators let out a gasp as the verdict was read.

The verdicts came after two years of hearings, recalled Fullerton city council members, a Police Department roiled by protests and firings. SANTA ANA – A former policeman sat with his head bowed Monday as an Orange County jury found him not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of a homeless man during a 2011 encounter captured on videotape. Manuel Anthony Ramos, who was a Fullerton police officer for 10 years, then clasped his hands, wiped tears from his eyes and hugged his attorney as the jury also found him not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Kelly...

An Orange County jury has begun deliberating the fates of two former Fullerton police officers accused of killing a schizophrenic homeless man during a violent encounter at a city bus depot in 2011. Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli are charged with striking Kelly Thomas with a baton and a stun gun in a beating that left the homeless man comatose. He died five days after the altercation. The case went to the jury following Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas' rebuttal after three days of closing arguments... Rackauckas told jurors that the former officers had abused their authority on the...

Jurors in the trial of two former Fullerton police officers accused of beating a mentally ill homeless man to death will probably be told to disregard the opinions of witnesses who said the two acted within department policy.The admonition is expected to be part of jury instructions that are still being negotiated by attorneys in the trial over the beating death of Kelly Thomas.“You are ordered to disregard those opinions,” a draft of the admonition says. “It is up to you to determine whether the defendants used excessive or unreasonable force based on all the evidence that has been presented...

Day One of the prosecution's case against two Fullerton cops accused of using excessive force in 2011 to kill an unarmed homeless man had an eerie resemblance to another trial that landed Orange County in embarrassing international headlines a decade ago. In Corona del Mar, three young men--including the son of a wealthy, corrupt assistant sheriff--got a 16-year-old girl highly intoxicated and, after she'd fallen unconscious, stripped her before videotaping themselves sexual assaulting her vagina and rectum with a Tree Top Apple Juice can, pool cue, Snapple bottle and lit cigarette. Defense lawyers put Jane Doe, that victim, on trial...

Former shuttle commander C. (Charles) Gordon Fullerton, veteran of two space missions who also flew NASA's B-52 launch aircraft and was one of only two non-Russians to fly the Tu-144 supersonic transport during a legendary 50-year career, died Wednesday. He was 76.

A judge has denied two Fullerton police officers' request to drop charges against them in the fatal beating of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill homeless man, according to court documents obtained by NBC4 on Friday. In a Jan. 4 decision (PDF), Orange County Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg ruled there was enough "competent evidence to show the commission of a crime or the defendant's connection with it." According to the ruling, the judge didn't want to rule on whether or not reasonable force was used. Instead, that matter should be left to a jury, he wrote.

(CNN) -- A graphic video played at a hearing Monday to determine whether two California police officers should stand trial in the beating death of a homeless man showed them kicking and punching the mentally ill man as he lay on the ground -- screaming in pain and begging for help. The victim, Kelly Thomas, died five days after the beating on July 5. Manuel Ramos, a 10-year veteran of the Fullerton, California, police department, is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, while Cpl. Jay Patrick Cicinelli faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and felony use of excessive force in...

On the ground and screaming that he was "sorry," a shirtless Kelly Thomas is shown being hit again and again with fists, a baton and finally the butt of a stun gun by Fullerton police officers in a dramatic video that was shown for the first time Monday in an Orange County courtroom. The grainy black and white video of Thomas' violent encounter with police outside a bus depot is the centerpiece of the prosecutions' case against two officers accused of escalating a standard police encounter with a homeless man into a fatal beating. At one point, Thomas — a...