Occasionally, reporters deal with a scattered blast of stories. I did this a lot in Stockton years ago when I was a 
crime reporter there: the mayhem round-up.
Today, it was a shooting of a robbery suspect by USC public safety officers near the school’s fraternity row, this coming early in the a.m. A sensitive event, as last week two USC grad students from China were killed in a car late at night.
Then at noon, a press conference about an ex-con who allegedly developed a business model of driving around town in a Mercedes convertible looking for cars to break into, mostly near movie studios. Usually the cars had property in plain sight. They charged him with receiving stolen property, something he was on probation for already.
Cops displayed a few tables of loot they’d confiscated at his house (see photo), most of which they were still sorting through but some of which was already shown to be stolen.
A remarkable haul: cameras, lenses, iPads, iPods, cellphones of various brands, laptops, external hard drives, comic books, backpacks, watches, jewelry, foreign currency and $24,000 in U.S. cash.
Then there was the death — no foul play suspected — of a CSU San Bernardino student in his dormitory. This is the school where my old Claremont High School friend (CHS ’77) Sid Robinson is the director of communications. Cheers, Sid!
