Long Arm of the Law Strikes Back on the Streets of San Diego

Street stories.

A woman who works in downtown San Diego is walking near Horton Plaza at noontime.

A kid on a bicycle comes up behind her at full speed and snatches her purse. She’s stunned, but then reacts:

“I had a split-second reaction and I said, ‘I’m not going to let that you-know-what get away with this.’ I started running, screaming down the street, screaming, ‘Stop that kid. He stole my purse.’ ”

The kid is pedaling, the woman is screaming, and suddenly a taxi driver and another driver give chase in their vehicles. Pedestrians and shopkeepers join in.

At its max, the ad hoc posse numbers a dozen.

“It was great teamwork!” says the woman. “You should have seen it in action.”

The thief ditches purse and bike. A pedestrian finds the purse, just a whisker ahead of the kid’s accomplice. The kid is tackled and turned over to the cops.

The name of the purse owner/victim?

S. Gay Hugo-Martinez, former Del Mar City Council member and still an assistant U.S. attorney, and prosecutor of Nancy Hoover and others.

* Reserve cop Steve Albrecht in his article “Streetwork: How to Read a Crook Like a Book” in this month’s The Informant, the official publication of the San Diego Police Officers Assn.:

“Some of the more nefarious people we deal with act just like animals. They move around like animals, think like animals, and in some cases, eat and even look like animals.

“If you know how to read the signs of impending danger, you can take the necessary steps to avoid injury.”

* It’s not unusual for friends and admirers to come to court when gang-bangers caught in the Operation Bandanna sweep are being sentenced to prison.

But in a recent such supportive crowd, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pete Deddeh spotted a familiar face: a Bandanna suspect still on the loose.

The guy insisted he was somebody else and had a name and identification to prove it. But he made the mistake of answering to the suspect’s nickname, Chino.

Now he’s in custody and awaiting trial, where undercover videotapes of him making drug buys at 27th and L streets in Barrio Logan will be featured.

Taking on the Rich Boys

Quoted.

* Actor/sailor/writer Gardner McKay in the New York Times:

“America’s Cup yacht racing is indeed a rich man’s sport, but it is as democratic as it gets. Any American with, say $20 million, or a syndicate behind him can be a contender for the 1995 America’s Cup.

“In fact, just yesterday my plumber showed me his preliminary sketches for his horizontal keel.”

* Interesting timing.

As thousands of General Dynamics workers in San Diego worry about losing their jobs, their big boss is smiling from the cover of the current Forbes magazine: “People at the Top, What Do They Earn?”

GD’s William Anders’ $4.5-million annual salary puts him 58th among 800 executives nationwide. His partners on the cover include Dan Rather ($3.6 million) and Mafioso Thomas Gambino ($3 million).

(For the record: Anders’ salary is in addition to his $7.6 million worth of GD stock.)

* San Diego bumper sticker: “Equal Rights for Unborn Women.”

Too Much Skin Is Too Much for Paper

After running the ad once, the advertising department at the San Diego Union-Tribune decided that an ad featuring super model Linda Evangelista is too risque.

The ad shows the bare-backed Evangelista in a suggestive pose: “Help Fight AIDS and Put a Shirt on Your Back.”

It’s for a fund-raiser for the AIDS Foundation: a $15 T-shirt (showing the same picture) is now for sale at the Garment Center stores in Old Town and Solana Beach.

Dexter La Pierre, the U-T’s director of display advertising, says the ad was rejected after numerous reader complaints about the bare skin. He added that the paper will continue to run other ads involving AIDS programs and fund-raisers.

A compromise offered by the paper--that Evangelista be altered to add a T-shirt or other cover-up--fell flat.

“That’s like telling Leonardo to airbrush a frown on the Mona Lisa,” harrumphs Rich Wise, whose agency placed the ad.