People and Events

It isn’t often that a suspect is caught literally red-handed.

But such was the case with the guy who flung a pomegranate at tow-truck driver Michael Shesterkin. Shesterkin, attempting to be a Good Samaritan, had stopped on the 605 Freeway near Downey on Tuesday to pick up a large piece of wood in a traffic lane.

Then a flatbed truck whizzed by. Splat. The pomegranate splashed on Shesterkin. What really irked him, the tow-truck driver said later, was that the fruit-flinger laughed.

Shesterkin set chase. He eventually pulled in front of the flatbed, forcing it to stop. He confronted the passenger, who denied all. But, authorities said, the passenger’s hands told a different story . . . a red-stained story.

Shesterkin hooked up the flatbed to his tow-truck and lumbered over to the Santa Fe Springs office of the California Highway Patrol.

“He (Shesterkin) was bigger and burlier than them so they apparently didn’t resist,” said Lyle Whitten, a CHP spokesman.

CHP officers photographed the throwing hand of the assailant, who was not identified. Whitten said the CHP will seek a misdemeanor complaint against him for throwing an object at an automobile.

“First time we’ve had a pomegranate,” Whitten added.

Milk-case rustling shows no sign of waning.

Are you listening out there, you swap-meet fans, garage-sale gurus and assorted other pack rats?

About $12 million worth--or 2.4 million of the metal and plastic crates--disappeared in this state alone last year, despite the efforts of the Los Angeles-based California Coalition for Milk-Case Recovery, says board member Mike Massey.

Massey, whose watchdog group represents 12 dairies, recently helped law enforcement authorities build a case against an El Monte man accused of possessing more than 500 cases.

But it’s the countless small instances that worry Massey--average folks who seem to think nothing of pilfering a few stacked behind a store. The 5-year-old coalition’s efforts to educate the public don’t seem to have made a dent yet.

“What we’re fighting is people who use them at swap meets, garage sales, in college dormitories,” he said. “A whole generation has discovered the illegal use of milk cases.”

You can’t fight City Hall at 2 a.m. without attracting some attention in West Hollywood. A burglar chose that hour to break a small window and pay a visit. He nabbed a radio from the city’s rent stabilization office before he was scared off by the burglar alarm.

A political crime?

These days, said Sheriff’s Sgt. John Powell, thieves will “break into anything.”

Sure, it was rechristened Olympic Boulevard from plain old 10th Street in honor of the approaching 1932 Olympics. But fame somehow has eluded the street over the years. In “I Love L.A.,” Randy Newman saluted several rues--”Century Boulevard (We love it!)” etc.--but no mention of Olympic.

Hence, the Olympic West International Design Competition, intended to create a memorable 10-block stretch in West Los Angeles. The contest, sponsored by Raleigh Enterprises and Executive Life Insurance, has advanced to the semifinals with three Los Angeles architectural firms among the five finalists: Aks Runo, Cigolle and Coleman and Snyder-Bridgwater.

Each generally envisions a mixed business-residential district with plenty of greenery and open spaces for pedestrians--Cigolle and Coleman proposes a botanical garden. The winning plan will be announced Nov. 15 and then it’s up to the city to find a developer.

Among the 81 rejected entries were a Gate of Angels topped by two angels with trumpets, a building exterior featuring a stack of five Porsche front ends and a rooftop drive-in movie. Too bad the rooftop drive-in wasn’t chosen, in a way. It would have been another world first for Los Angeles.