MAN WITH RIFLE SHOT BY POLICE...

Las Vegas police are investigating an officer-involved shooting early Thursday morning that left a suspect wielding an assault rifle in the hospital.

Spokesman Jacinto Rivera said officers stopped a vehicle for a routine traffic stop in front of a residence in the 2000 block of McLeod Drive, near Karen Avenue, at about 2:30 a.m.


Immediately after the vehicle was released from the traffic stop, a garage door to a nearby residence opened and a man with an assault rifle confronted the officers, Rivera said.

The man refused to drop his weapon, and an officer shot the suspect, Rivera said. No one else was injured in the shooting.

Rivera said the traffic stop was unrelated to the officer-involved shooting, and it's unclear why the suspect confronted police with a weapon.

"Only he (the suspect) knows that," he said.

According to police event logs and county assessor records, the shooting took place at a home owned by Juan and Blanca Solis. Booking records at Clark County Detention Center indicate that Juan Solis-Diaz, 32, was arrested Thursday for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, as well as resisting a police officer with a weapon.

Police have not yet identified the suspect.

The suspect was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries not expected to be life threatening, Rivera said.

A next-door neighbor who asked to remain anonymous, said she was watching television in her bedroom when she heard gunshots.

"I heard, 'ping, ping, ping,' and then five or six more shots," said the neighbor, a woman in her 70s who has lived at the home for more than 40 years.

"I said, 'Oh my God, I don't know if I should call police,' but before I knew it all the police were there already," she said.

She only knew her neighbor by his first name, Juan, she said, who had lived next door for several years.

"He was always nice to me," she said. "We never had much of a conversation together, but he was always very nice and polite."

The officer who fired the shots was placed on paid administrative leave, as is required by department policy. The officer's name will be released within 48 hours.--http://www.lvrj.com/

SUSPECT CHARGED IN HOLLYWOOD RESTAURANT MURDERS..

(CNN) -- A man has been charged in a shooting that left four dead at a North Hollywood, California, restaurant on a Saturday night earlier this month, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced Thursday.

Nerses Arthur Galstyan, 26, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of multiple killings.

He was arrested Tuesday near Seattle, Washington, after being at large since the April 3 shooting. Extradition proceedings are pending, the district attorney's office said Thursday.

The district attorney's office said that it won't decide whether to seek the death penalty until the case moves closer to trial.

Galstyan was also charged with one count of mayhem involving a victim who survived the attack and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He is accused of using a handgun to carry out the slayings, the district attorney's office said.

The shooting occurred on April 3 at the Hot Spot Mediterranean Restaurant. It is believed to have followed a dispute inside the restaurant, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said earlier this month.

Two people were injured in the attack, police said.

Galstyan was arrested at a home in Kenmore, Washington, on Tuesday, the district attorney's office said, citing Washington state news sources. He is being held without bail---http://www.cnn.com/

INDIANA MAN FOUND GUILTY IN THE BRUTAL MURDER OF HIS WIFE...

A jury deliberated just two hours today before returning guilty verdicts against Michael Yang in the brutal beating and strangulation of his wife in the estranged couple's Lawrence home. He had maintained his innocence, but DNA testing found traces of Amenda Yang's genetic material in spots on his work uniform. Jurors also heard testimony about a letter found by the woman's body, addressed to her divorce attorney and casting blame on another man. Experts testified that in her state, she couldn't have penned such a letter; the handwriting also was suspect.


Another part of Michael Yang's plot, prosecutors said, was leaving behind a newly purchased wallet with another man's lost photo identification, which Yang may have found on the ground months earlier. He also staged a robbery by opening drawers, they said, but forgot to take anything of value.


"We're not saying he's perfect," Deputy Prosecutor Stephanie Wade said during closing arguments. "We're saying he's cold." Defense attorney Charles Hayes challenged the DNA evidence and cited coworkers' accounts and time card records to argue that Yang, who worked near the house, couldn't have slipped away long enough to kill his wife and clean up the mess. Yang, 53, faces 45 to 66 years at sentencing May 12 on convictions for murder and invasion of privacy.


He reacted to the verdicts with stoicism, even telling jurors as they filed out: "God bless all of you." This wasn't his first conviction -- in 1997, he was convicted of attempted rape for attacking a woman inside the home of an acquaintance.


At the time of the killing last May, Amenda Yang, 43, had a protective order and had filed for divorce a month earlier. Her four youngest children discovered her body in a bloody scene when they returned home from school.


Amenda Yang's brother, Tayu Lee, and his wife, Mayuree Billie Lee, were in the courtroom today. "We are profoundly grateful that the state of Indiana and its citizens were able to deliver justice for my sister Amenda," Tayu Lee, who lives near St. Paul, Minn., told me outside the courtroom. "She can now rest in peace." Of his former brother-in-law, Lee said: "They were married 23 years. I saw evilness in him in every sense."


Lee asked me to convey his gratitude for the prosecutor's office -- including Wade, Deputy Prosecutor Marci McCoy and victim advocate Linda Crocheron -- as well as all of the Lawrence police detectives and others who helped build the case.--http://www.indystar.com/



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73 YEAR OLD MAN ARRESTED FOR MURDER....

A 73-year-old man was behind bars today on suspicion of killing a Hollywood woman, whose slaying was believed to be connected to the 2008 double-homicide of her husband and their daughter.

Alberd Tersargyan was booked on suspicion of killing Karine Hakobyan, 38, whose body was found slumped in the driver's seat of her Honda CRV about 8:20 p.m. March 26, according to Capt. Kevin McClure of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery/Homicide Division.

McClure said Tersargyan was also being looked at as a possible suspect in the December 2008 shooting deaths of Khachik Safaryan, a 43-year-old Armenian man, and his 8-year-old daughter Lusine. Their bodies were found in their home in the 1200 block of Tamarind Avenue by the couple's then-12-year- old daughter when she came home from school.

Last month, that same daughter also discovered the slain body of her mother, who was found in her car in the 5800 block of Lexington Avenue. The woman had been shot in the head, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The couple's older daughter was taken into protective custody.

Police said the victims had not been linked to any criminal activity in the United States or Armenia. Law enforcement sources told City News Service earlier this month that the killings appeared to be targeted "hits" that may have stemmed from a disagreement Safaryan had with someone over money or romance. ---http://www.dailybreeze.com/

TEACHER CHARGED WITH MOLESTING FIVE LITTLE GIRLS...

A twisted fourth-grade teacher brazenly molested five little girls at his desk while fellow students sat feet away inside his Queens classroom, sources said.

"Don't tell anybody," accused serial pervert Simon Watts reportedly told one of his victims after pinching her rear end and groping her thigh inside Public School 15.

The hulking Watts, 38, forced three other girls to grab his genitals in the classroom, a criminal complaint says. It adds that he fondled a fifth victim and unzipped his pants as she stood there.

The repeated assaults came with creepy chatter, with Watts telling one scared child, "I love you," and another, "I can see your butt," authorities said.

The abuse began after he arrived at the Springfield Gardens school in 2007 and continued until March 9, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

Two of the girls, all ages 8 to 10, were abused repeatedly as Watts was moved with them from the third grade to the fourth grade last September, a law enforcement source said.

Police busted him after the most recent victim told her mother Watts steered her hand to his crotch at a classroom desk, the source said.

Watts, 5-feet-10 and 230 pounds, was being held on $200,000 bail. He faces up to seven years if convicted.

"Children should be allowed to be children," Brown said. "Such alleged conduct cannot go unpunished."

Watts' wife, answering the door at their St. Albans home, declined comment on the stunning charges of sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

"I don't want to speak about it," she said. "It's upsetting."

A lawyer for Watts, who began working as a city substitute in 2000, did not return a call.

Parents at the elementary school were outraged that school officials kept them in the dark until after Watts' arraignment.

Students came home Wednesday with a written notice about the arrest.

"I should have known about this before," said Winston Walcott while picking up his 10-year-old daughter Toniza. "These are babies we're talking about."

Watts was the second Queens teacher arrested this week.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/

MAN SHOOTS 20 MONTH OLD GIRL....

The suspect apparently was targeting the girl’s father but a bullet struck Cynia Cole in the head as she sat with her two young sisters in the back of a car Wednesday night in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

Cynia, who loved cruising around on her Big Wheel, died just before noon at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, a hospital spokesman said. Cynia — called “Coco” by her family — was just 20 months old.

Meeks, a state senator, said he helped the suspect turn himself in at the Calumet Area detective headquarters.

The suspect’s mother called Meeks and asked him to help because the alleged killer was scared for his safety, Meeks said.

“This family did the right thing,” he said.

The suspect was “melancholy” when he turned himself in, Meeks said.

Meeks described the killing of the girl as being “heinous.”

Police believe the girl’s father, Jerome Hendricks, was the intended target.

The shooter — a reputed Black P Stone member — fired on the family’s car as it sat parked in the 640 block of East 92nd Place, a source said.

Hendricks — described by sources as a rival Gangster Disciples member — said the gunman had accused one of Hendricks’ pals of trying to kill him.

Hendricks identified his accused friend as Michael Johnson, but court records identify the man as Michael J. Wilson, 24. Wilson, who allegedly shot the suspect in the pelvis on March 7 in the 700 block of East 92nd, is charged with attempted murder.

Hendricks said the family was returning home from a visit to the girl’s aunt’s home and was picking up cigarettes from a man who sells them from his home when the gunman opened fire.

“He came in the middle of the street, shot eight times,” the father said.--http://www.suntimes.com/