Topics / POLICE BLOTTER

ARCADIA: A 50-year-old man was in good condition after being shot during a robbery attempt last week. The robbery victim, Dennis Dixon of Seal Beach, was walking across the parking lot of a restaurant in the 400 block of East Huntington Drive about 8:30 p.m. on April 13 when a man with a pistol approached him and demanded his wallet.

Dixon refused and attempted to push past the robber. In the struggle, the man was shot in the left side, police said. Dixon was transported to Methodist Hospital in Arcadia and is expected to recover fully.

No arrests have been made, police said.

MONROVIA: Charles Edwin Smith, 70, of Monrovia was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly set off a pipe bomb under his ex-wife’s truck while she was visiting her daughter in Lancaster. Smith allegedly placed the bomb under Duzanne Rini’s vehicle and then exploded it about midnight, deputies said. Rini, 51, was inside her daughter’s home when the device blew up, causing damage of about $4,000. Smith is being held on $500,000 bail.

PASADENA: A racially motivated brawl Thursday in a basement holding cell at Pasadena Superior Court at 300 E. Walnut St. injured two inmates. The fight between black and Latino prisoners broke out about 11:30 a.m. and lasted less than 10 minutes before it was broken up by deputies.

Inmate Manuel Miranda, 27, was treated and released at Huntington Memorial Hospital for head wounds. Manuel Martinez, 19, was admitted with more serious head injuries and was expected to be kept in the intensive care unit for several days, deputies said.

POMONA: Billy David Cole, 17, was shot and killed by a cash register clerk as he held up the North Hills Liquor Store at 2542 N. Towne Ave. about 11:30 p.m. Friday, police said. Cole had hit one of the store employees over the head with a sawed-off rifle and was advancing toward the cash register when the clerk picked up a handgun and shot him, police said.

ROSEMEAD: Deputies are searching for four men who shot two youths, 18 and 19, as they were walking in the 2000 block of Batson Avenue. Blair Ortega, 19, of Los Angeles, suffered a flesh wound on his arm, and Guillermo Melendez, 18, of Rowland Heights, received a minor chest wound. The shooting appeared to be gang-related, police said.

SAN GABRIEL: A man driving by the Cathay Bank at 825 E. Valley Blvd. about 2:15 Thursday afternoon thought something was wrong when he saw two men burst out of the front doors of the bank and run to a waiting car. So the driver, Thomas J. Hulick, 30, called police on his car phone and followed the car in question to the El Monte bus station--where officers arrived and arrested the two men Hulick had seen: Richard Cuellar, 32, of San Gabriel, and Jerry Martin, 31, of Los Angeles.

Police said the two were charged with bank robbery. Officers also recovered $1,100 taken during the heist, police said.

SOUTH PASADENA: A 72-year-old woman wielding a cane and tear gas canister drove off a youth who tried to rob her in the parking lot of a Thrifty Drug Store in the 900 block of Fair Oaks Avenue about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, police said. The youth ran off, jumped in a car and later attempted to rob a man of his cellular phone. This man also escaped from the robber and called police. Officers tracked down the car in which the robber sped off and arrested three suspects: Iam Simon, 18, Lavandis Caldwell, 18, and a 17-year-old. The three suspects, all of Pasadena, face robbery charges, police said.