Good morning and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday, November 30th. I’m justin ray
A scandal involving one of the best high school football programs in the country includes allegations of a brutal ritual of harassment in which a former player was sued to suffer a traumatic brain injury, according to a lawsuit.
The soccer player’s family has filed the lawsuit in the Orange County Superior Court, naming Mater Dei and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange as defendants. It describes a ritual known as the “body” in which two players fight “bis” [one] can’t take it anymore and gives up. “
Mater Dei has not yet submitted a response to the court.
The former Mater Dei player’s family accuses of negligence, violation of the California Penal Code, failure to adequately protect the player and causing emotional stress. They are demanding damages found during a lawsuit, as well as medical and legal fees.
The incident
An athlete identified as teammate 1 in the lawsuit encouraged the plaintiff to compete in bodies with teammate 2, the son of a Mater Dei soccer coach.
The lawsuit found that the student consented to attend. Due to his decision to attend the February 4 ritual, Orange County prosecutors have no plans to bring charges on the case and are viewing the altercation as a mutual battle, according to the Southern California News Group, the first on history.
The plaintiff’s family received video of the incident. According to a video watched by the Southern California News Group, it was a clear mismatch where the plaintiff’s swings were severely lacking and Teammate 2 repeatedly hit punches on the head and face that knocked the smaller athlete to the ground.
According to the lawsuit, no Mater Dei employee intervened on behalf of the injured player who was trying to stop the blood from his face. According to the lawsuit, he was told not to “whistle,” and when a sports coach finally examined his injuries, he said his face hit a sink.
The lawsuit alleges that when the plaintiff’s father arrived at school he questioned coaches about the explanation for his son’s injuries before taking him to a nearby emergency room.
The fallout
The player was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and a specialist determined that his nasal fractures required immediate surgery to repair and reconstruct his nose. He stayed home from school for weeks, recovering and experiencing pain, slurred speech and cognitive dysfunction, the lawsuit says.
“Recent media coverage highlights deeply troubling allegations about our football program and our administration, suggesting that they contradicted our unwavering commitment to student safety,” said Mater Dei President Rev. Walter E. Jenkins in a recently published statement. “It pains me to hear that any student on our campus is suffering some kind of damage. My sincere prayers go to the affected student and her family. “
Bruce Rollinson’s future as a coach could be jeopardized considering coaches at almost every level have been ousted when a worrying incident is confirmed, the Times reported.
Mater Dei will be attending the CIF State Championship Open Division Bowl game at Saddleback College on December 11th.
There are so many more details, but as this is a newsletter, I cannot include everything. I encourage you to read more about the complaint, which describes how the school allegedly responded to the incident.
And now this is happening across California:
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Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc., is stepping down and handing over the position to the company’s chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal. The move is effective immediately, although Dorsey will remain on the board of directors of the San Francisco-based social media company until his term expires in 2022, Twitter said in a statement on Monday. “I made the decision to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move forward from its founders,” Dorsey said in the statement. “My trust in Parag as the CEO of Twitter is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformative. I am deeply grateful for his skills, his heart and his soul. It is his time to lead. “Los Angeles Times
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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
To protest against COVID mandates, this Californian city declared itself a “constitutional republic”. For Oroville Vice Mayor Scott Thomson, the father of two young boys, Governor Gavin Newsom’s mandate for schoolchildren to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was the last drop. He believed the government had no right to tell him what to put in his body or that of his children. Many of his constituents agreed when it came to pandemic mandates. And so he had a great idea for his small town in Northern California. Oroville declared itself a constitutional republic. Los Angeles times
Montgomery Street, in downtown Oroville, at dusk.
(Hailey Branson-Potts / Los Angeles Times)
The Californians have legalized cannabis, but some cities still don’t have outlets. The Californians voted to legalize adult marijuana in 2016. However, some of the state’s largest cities don’t have licensed cannabis companies. Of the state’s 482 cities, 174 are without. Many of these cities only allow cannabis businesses outside of retail, such as manufacturing or distribution, “and therefore are missing the most important part of the legal supply chain,” says Hirsh Jain of Ananda Strategy, a marijuana consultancy. That’s because Proposition 64, the electoral initiative that legalized adult marijuana use in the state, contained a provision that gave local jurisdictions the power to choose whether to allow retail cannabis activities within their borders. Sacramento bee
CRIME AND COURTS
How the theft of 44 firearms from an LA gun shop turned into an LAPD scandal. Archi Duenas, manager of the gun shop at Los Angeles Police College, had been reprimanded over the years for being late and sloppy records, but he never took time off, district attorneys wrote in a memo. As the shop’s closure manager, he was there every night to close – and to count the inventory by hand. If someone else had received this count, they might have discovered that dozens of guns had disappeared and that Duenas stole them and sold them for cash, prosecutors wrote in the memo. This went on for years, made easier by a lack of oversight and safety logs. The Times explains how it all collapsed in February 2020. Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park on November 22nd in Los Angeles.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Family members say a 12-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet while celebrating Thanksgiving in a San Diego backyard. Maria Gaspar-Casillas said her nephew was hit in the back by a bullet that pierced at least one fence. She said family members tried to help Angel Domingo Gaspar Gallegos before paramedics arrived at the house in the Skyline neighborhood. She says the boy was taken to a hospital where he died. San Diego Union Grandstand
HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT
A 64-year-old man was killed and two other people were rescued late Sunday after a giant tree fell on an Encino home, authorities said. The oak tree – an estimated 100,000 pounds – was smashed into a two-story house around 11:14 p.m., according to Los Angeles Fire Department officials. According to the authorities, the weather conditions were calm when the tree fell. Video of the scene shows a badly crushed house amid a chaotic tangle of leaves and branches. Los Angeles times
“If he goes to prison, he will die”: John Samuel Maurer, the 10th of 11 siblings, was an intelligent, charming and handsome student when the first cracks in his winning personality showed. As his sister Sarah rose to prominence in Los Angeles political circles, John got caught in a vortex of mental illness and slipped a safety net through virtually every institution so torn that even his savvy siblings couldn’t get it to work. There are thousands of others like John Maurer, whose mental illness, aggravated by drug use, keeps them in a cycle of homelessness, hospitalization and prison. Los Angeles times
CALIFORNIAN CULTURE
Home is where the malls are. An Uong explains how her relationship with the San Fernando Valley was heavily influenced by shopping malls. “Since my family has never owned a car, so much has been out of our reach in Southern California,” writes Uong. “The malls around the corner provided us with affordable housewares, products, and take-away on days when there wasn’t much to eat at home. We got to know the owners and workers in every store. ”The story begins with a funny anecdote about her father’s insistence on a special at a restaurant. catapult
The Drop in Coalition is a Santa Cruz foundation established in memory of entrepreneur Tushar Atre. It has teamed up with other local organizations to introduce young Latinas to surfing. The girls travel to Pleasure Point – from Live Oak to Seaside – to learn how to ride waves and discover the vast ecosystem of Monterey Bay. Amid the pain of Atre’s two-year anniversary of October 1, the group’s founders felt reassured thanks to the success of the Drop in Coalition in its first year, which included nine groups and 24 alumni of the program. “As a Latina, I just couldn’t imagine myself out there,” said Amy Canizal Flores, Junior High School at Harbor High School. “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of white people, but I’ve never seen anyone like me, so I was like, ‘Oh, maybe this is not for me’ or ‘Who’s going to teach me?'” Lookout Santa Cruz
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CALIFORNIA ALMANAC
Los Angeles: 78 San Diego: Cloudy 69 San Francisco: Cloudy 64 San Jose: 75 Fresno: 68 Sacramento: This cat likes his tie. 65
AND FINALLY
Today’s California memory is from George Donoho Bayless:
In 1939, my mother sat me on the curb of a gas station in Texaco to watch the annual Rose Bowl Parade. I was 8 years old. I got a Texaco fire helmet. I loved the music of the marching bands. I played in marching bands during college.
If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please limit your story to 100 words.)
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