Police Beat

Bike Thief Caught A suspect stole a bike from a home in South Hermosa last Saturday morning, but was apprehended when a witness followed the alleged thief and alerted police officers. The witness saw the suspect take a bike from the patio of a home on the Strand south of the Hermosa Beach pier about…

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Former hoops coach faces rape charges

  A former girl’s basketball coach at several local schools will stand trial on multiple counts of forcibly raping a 15-year-old girl in her Hermosa Beach home. During a preliminary hearing at Torrance Courthouse Monday morning, a teenage girl testified that the accused, Timothy Lee Lucas, sexually assaulted her on three separate occasions in January…

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Police Beat

Residential burglary An unknown suspect broke into a home while it was being fumigated last week, and stole five handguns from the home, police said. The burglary of the home on the 800 block of 15th Street was reported on Sept. 9, according to police. The house was tented for two days, and it is…

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abouttown

Special school board meeting The Hermosa Beach School Board will hold a special public meeting Monday to get input from community members regarding potential construction to address overcrowding in the district. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the City Council Chambers, and will be divided into two fifty-minute sessions. Each session will feature…

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Enrollment declines in HBCSD schools

  For the first time since the mid-1990s, the Hermosa Beach City School District reported a decline in enrollment for the academic year, with much of the drop coming from disenrolled kindergarteners. According to district enrollment figures, there are 28 fewer students than were enrolled when the last academic year finished in June, and 41…

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Fire chief exits after six years

Fire Chief David Lantzer resigned as head of the Hermosa Beach Fire Department last Thursday. Lantzer, who has served as fire chief for more than six years, expects that his last day will be Oct. 8. Lantzer said he is taking a new position as head of the City of Murrieta Fire Department in order…

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City faces potential lawsuit from Miller over police action

Anti-oil activist Chris Miller intends to file a lawsuit against the city of Hermosa Beach, alleging a civil rights violations and a variety of damages arising out of the city’s response to an election-night gathering last March. Miller and her attorney Morgan Ricketts, of the Burbank law firm Ricketts & Yang, submitted an amended notice…

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Police Beat

Spousal battery A man attacked his girlfriend last Sunday evening near the intersection of Pier and Ardmore avenues, police said. Witnesses reported the couple were walking through a parking lot about 9:15 p.m. when the male suspect allegedly grabbed his girlfriend by her hair, picked her up and dragged her behind him. When police arrived…

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abouttown

Barragan Resigns Nanette Barragan resigned from her post on the Hermosa Beach City Council last Wednesday. The first-term councilwoman had initially planned to step down on July 31. But Barragan said she later chose to extend her stay through the end of August in order to ensure passage of the city’s plastic bag ban. The…

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Council considers AES action

  Night-time steam releases prompted fresh concerns over Hermosa Beach’s response to the August 28 natural gas discharge at the AES Redondo Beach power plant. Fire Chief David Lantzer told the City Council Tuesday night that there were reports Monday night of “intermittent steam releases” from the power plant. Although the steam was just hot…

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