Arrest made in April Castro Valley shooting
According to police, witnesses reported gunfire had been exchanged between two vehicles.
Arriving at the scene, officers were unable to locate involved vehicles or victims. The investigation was taken over by the Eden Township Substation Gang Suppression Unit.
Macy's employee punched during perfume theft
Investigating detectives were able to identify and locate the victim. Detectives determined that the victim had fired several rounds from a CO2-powered BB gun at another vehicle. In response, police said, the second driver, who was known to the victim, retrieved a firearm and fired multiple rounds at the victim.
Detectives identified 28-year-old Donovan Wright of Oakland as the suspect. A probable cause arrest warrant was obtained. On Thursday, Wright was taken into custody at his apartment with assistance from the Special Response Unit, Crisis Intervention Unit, Community Oriented Response and Engagement (CORE) Unit, the Dublin Police Services K-9 Unit, and the Small Unscrewed Aircraft System (sUAS) team.
A search of Wright's residence revealed an illegal assault rifle, two loaded revolvers, and a small quantity of cocaine. Wright was arrested and booked into Santa Rita Jail.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
15 hours ago
- USA Today
US reaches 10-year high for executions as Florida puts inmate to death for double murder
With Michael Bell's death in Florida on Tuesday, the U.S. has now executed more inmates than any given year since 2015. At least nine more inmates are set for execution this year. Florida has executed death row inmate Michael Bernard Bell, marking a 10-year high for executions in the U.S. Bell was executed on Tuesday, July 15, for the revenge killings of 23-year-old Jimmy West and 18-year-old Tamecka Smith outside a Jacksonville bar on Dec. 9, 1993, when Bell went on a rampage with an AK-47. Bell, who was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. ET, became the 26th inmate executed in the U.S. this year, eclipsing the 25 executions conducted in the nation during all of last year. The U.S. also has now had more executions in any given year in the U.S. since 2015, when there were 28. 'We're in the midst of something historic,' Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, told USA TODAY. Another nine executions are scheduled this year, with more expected to be added to the calendar. Not only is the nation seeing a rise in executions, but so is Florida. Bell's execution marked the eighth in the state this year, which has only happened twice in the last five decades: in 1984 and 2014. The state has another execution later this month, meaning the state will hit a record if it moves forward. Here's what happened during Tuesday's execution and what you need to know about the rising numbers in Florida and the U.S. What was Michael Bell convicted of? In June 1993, a man named Theodore Wright killed Michael Bell's brother in self-defense. Afterward, Bell broadcast his plans for revenge, even saying: "Wright belongs in the morgue," according to court records. Almost six months later, Bell spotted what he thought was Wright's distinctive yellow Plymouth Fury outside a Jacksonville bar. But Wright had sold his car to his half-brother, 23-year-old Jimmy West. West left the bar with 18-year-old Tamecka Smith and another woman. As they were getting into the car, Bell used an AK-47 to spray the group with bullets and then fired on people nearby, according to court records. Though Bell didn't realize West had bought the car, he recognized him as Wright's brother before he opened fire and proceeded anyway, court records say. Bell later told his aunt: "Theodore got my brother and now I got his brother," court records say. At trial, Judge R. Hudson Olliff lamented how Bell received early release from prison three separate times before West's and Smith's murders, including once for an armed robbery, following years of repeated arrests and convictions. "Seven months after that early release the defendant committed this savage double murder of an innocent 23-year-old man and a teenaged girl," Olliff said during Bell's sentencing. "These two murders can be laid at the doorstep of the Florida Parole Commission for the irresponsible early prison release of this violent habitual criminal who should have been in prison at the time the murders were committed." Olliff said the murders "were cold and calculated and with heightened premeditation." Bell's attorneys fought to win him a reprieve but were unsuccessful. Most recently, the Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments that witnesses who helped convict Bell wanted to recant their testimony, with the justices citing the "overwhelming evidence" in the case. Why are executions on the rise? After Tuesday's execution, at least nine more inmates are set to be executed by the end of the year. If they all proceed, that would mean at least 35 executions this year − a 40% increase over last year. Though it would still be a far cry from the busiest execution year ever in the U.S. − 98 in 1999 − the stage is set for the nation to reverse a long-term downward trend. Some experts say the current political climate in the U.S. and a conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court is driving the increasing execution numbers, according to interviews conducted by USA TODAY with a half dozen experts and a Republican lawmaker in Florida who has has been pushing pro-death penalty legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court − shaped by three conservative appointments made by President Donald Trump during his first term in office − has proved far less likely to issue stays of execution than previous courts, they say. 'I think that President Trump has had a bigger impact on the death penalty than he might even realize,' Frank Baumgartner, a death penalty researcher and political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told USA TODAY. 'No defense attorney wants to bring their case in front of the Supreme Court," he continued. "It's very hostile territory." Dunham pointed to a spree of 13 federal executions during the last six months of Trump's first term in office. At the time, he said, the new Supreme Court 'went out of its way to lift stays of execution that were granted by lower federal court judges.' What's going on in Florida? Florida has executed more inmates than any other state this year, with eight already carried out and another scheduled for July 31. Florida state Rep. Berny Jacques, a Republican who has spearheaded multiple recent pieces of successful pro-death penalty legislation in his state, chalked up this year's increases to "the political environment not only in our state but nationwide." "You have a president who won in such strong fashion. Certainly his messaging and the policies he ran on resonate with the American people at large," he said. "There is a renewed interest in law and order ... and you're seeing that filter up to the elected officials and the executives that want to pursue tough-on-crime, law-and-order policies." He continued: "State officials are taking their cues. This is what the people want." Jacques pointed to the social unrest in the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police in 2020, and recent ongoing immigration protests taking place in the U.S., saying a lot of Americans are frustrated with "rioting in the streets" and want leaders to be tougher on crime. Among the pro-death penalty legislation that Jacques proposed this year is House Bill 903. Signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in May and effective on July 1, the law expands the state's options for execution methods from lethal injection and the electric chair to other methods. 'The bill doesn't call for any particular method as long as a method is not deemed unconstitutional. Everything's on the table," Jacques said. "The department of corrections could pick something other states are currently doing or another method that I can't really conceive of now." Jacques also spearheaded a law this year expanding the death penalty to be used for a crime that doesn't involve murder: the sexual trafficking of children under 12 or of people who are mentally incapacitated. It goes into effect in October. On July 8, Tampa Pentecostal minister Demetrius Minor marched to Gov. Ron DeSantis' office in Tallahassee, carrying a letter signed by 100 Florida Christians asking him to stop the executions. 'The death penalty is not about public safety. It's about power," Minor told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network. "The governor alone decides who lives, who dies with no checks or balances. That is not justice. That's what we call vengeance and it's very dangerous." When asked for comment, the governor's office pointed to DeSantis' thoughts on the issue in May, when he said that he signs death warrants to help bring closure to families who've been waiting sometimes decades for their loved one's killer to be executed. "There are so some crimes that are just so horrific, the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty," he said, adding that there are backstops for wrongfully convicted offenders, and he supports that. "But anytime we go forward, I'm convinced that not only was the verdict correct, but that this punishment is absolutely appropriate under the circumstances," he added.
USA Today
3 days ago
- USA Today
Florida inmate's execution for 'savage' killings to mark 10-year high in US. What to know.
Michael Bell is set to be executed on July 15 for murdering two people outside a Jacksonville bar on Dec. 9, 1993, when he went on a rampage with an AK-47. The U.S. is set to reach a 10-year high for executions next week, with Florida expected to administer a lethal injection to Michael Bernard Bell for the revenge killing of two people in 1993. Bell is set to be executed on Tuesday, July 15, for murdering 23-year-old Jimmy West and 18-year-old Tamecka Smith outside a Jacksonville bar on Dec. 9, 1993, when he went on a rampage with an AK-47. Should the execution move forward as expected, Bell will be the 26th inmate executed in the U.S. this year, eclipsing the 25 executions conducted in the nation during all of last year. It will also be the most executions in any given year in the U.S. since all of 2015, when there were 28. Another nine executions are scheduled for later this year. 'We're in the midst of something historic,' Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, told USA TODAY. Not only is the nation seeing a rise in executions, but so is Florida. Bell's execution will mark the eighth in the state this year, which has only happened twice in the last five decades: in 1984 and 2014. Here's what you need to know about Bell's execution and why we're seeing more executions this year. What was Michael Bell convicted of? In June 1993, a man named Theodore Wright killed Michael Bell's brother in self-defense. Afterward, Bell broadcast his plans for revenge, even saying: "Wright belongs in the morgue," according to court records. Almost six months later, Bell spotted what he thought was Wright's distinctive yellow Plymouth Fury outside a Jacksonville bar. But Wright had sold his car to his half-brother, 23-year-old Jimmy West. West left the bar with 18-year-old Tamecka Smith and another woman. As they were getting into the car, a ski mask-wearing Bell used an AK-47 to spray the group with bullets and then fired on people nearby and the front of the bar, according to court records. Though Bell didn't realize West had bought the car, he recognized him as Wright's brother before he opened fire and proceeded anyway, court records say. Bell later told his aunt: "Theodore got my brother and now I got his brother," court records say. At trial, Judge R. Hudson Olliff lamented how Bell received early release from prison three separate times before West's and Smith's murders, including once for an armed robbery, following years of repeated arrests and convictions. "Seven months after that early release the defendant committed this savage double murder of an innocent 23-year-old man and a teenaged girl," Olliff said during Bell's sentencing. "These two murders can be laid at the doorstep of the Florida Parole Commission for the irresponsible early prison release of this violent habitual criminal who should have been in prison at the time the murders were committed," he said. Olliff said the planning involved in the killings so long after Bell's brother was murdered "showed an attitude of hatred and revenge ... These murders were cold and calculated and with heightened premeditation." Why are executions on the rise? After Bell's execution, at least nine more inmates are set to be executed by the end of the year. If they all proceed, that would mean at least 35 executions this year − a 40% increase over last year. Though it would still be a far cry from the busiest execution year ever in the U.S. − 1999 when there were 98 − the stage is set for the nation to reverse a long-term downward trend. Some experts say the current political climate in the U.S. of seeking law and order and a conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court is driving the increasing execution numbers, according to interviews conducted by USA TODAY with a half-dozen experts and a Republican lawmaker in Florida who has pushed pro-death penalty legislation in the last two years. They say that the U.S. Supreme Court − shaped by three conservative appointments made by President Donald Trump during his first term in office − has proved far less likely to issue stays of execution than previous courts. 'I think that President Trump has had a bigger impact on the death penalty than he might even realize,' Frank Baumgartner, a death penalty researcher and political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told USA TODAY. 'No defense attorney wants to bring their case in front of the Supreme Court," he continued. "It's very hostile territory." Dunham pointed to a spree of 13 federal executions during the last six months of Trump's first term in office. At the time, he said, the new Supreme Court 'went out of its way to lift stays of execution that were granted by lower federal court judges.' 'That emboldened states,' Dunham said. 'That has meant in this current surge of executions, the lower federal courts aren't stopping them and the U.S. Supreme Court is not intervening ... That increases the number of executions.' What's going on in Florida? Florida has executed more inmates than any other state this year, with nine set to be carried out by the start of August. Florida state Rep. Berny Jacques, a Republican who has spearheaded multiple recent pieces of successful pro-death penalty legislation in his state, chalked up this year's increases to "the political environment not only in our state but nationwide." "You have a president who won in such strong fashion. Certainly his messaging and the policies he ran on resonate with the American people at large," he said. "There is a renewed interest in law and order ... and you're seeing that filter up to the elected officials and the executives that want to pursue tough-on-crime, law-and-order policies." He continued: "State officials are taking their cues. This is what the people want." Jacques pointed to the social unrest in the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police in 2020, and recent ongoing immigration protests taking place in the U.S., saying a lot of Americans are frustrated with "rioting in the streets" and want leaders to be tougher on crime. Among the pro-death penalty legislation that Jacques proposed this year is House Bill 903. Signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in May and effective on July 1, the law expands the state's options for execution methods from lethal injection and the electric chair to other methods. 'The bill doesn't call for any particular method as long as a method is not deemed unconstitutional. Everything's on the table," Jacques said. "The department of corrections could pick something other states are currently doing or another method that I can't really conceive of now. They would be within their right to make sure the sentence is carried out.' Jacques also spearheaded a law this year expanding the death penalty to be used for a crime that doesn't involve murder: the sexual trafficking of children under 12 or of people who are mentally incapacitated. It goes into effect in October. "For me, it's a matter of conviction," Jacques said. "Even if the political winds weren't in this posture, I would still be calling for more executions." Michael Bell has little hope for a reprieve The many efforts of Bell's attorneys to win him a reprieve so far have failed. Most recently, the Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments that witnesses who helped convict Bell wanted to recant their testimony, with the justices citing the "overwhelming evidence" in the case. The only remaining hope for Bell is the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed Bell's death warrant in June. On July 8, Tampa Pentecostal minister Demetrius Minor marched to the governor's office in Tallahassee, carrying a letter signed by 100 Florida Christians asking him to stop the executions. 'The death penalty is not about public safety. It's about power," Minor told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network. "The governor alone decides who lives, who dies with no checks or balances. That is not justice. That's what we call vengeance and it's very dangerous." When asked for comment, the governor's office pointed to DeSantis' thoughts on the issue in May, when he said that he signs death warrants to help bring closure to families who've been waiting sometimes decades for their loved one's killer to be executed. "There are so some crimes that are just so horrific, the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty," he said, adding that there are backstops for wrongfully convicted offenders, and he supports that. "But anytime we go forward, I'm convinced that not only was the verdict correct, but that this punishment is absolutely appropriate under the circumstances," he added. Bell is set to be executed just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 15, at the Florida State Prison near Starke.
New York Post
08-07-2025
- New York Post
Two Pokémon card fanatics arrested over stabbing in line at California GameStop
Two men were arrested and another was injured after the suspects allegedly cut the line at a Pokémon card sale in California, sparking an all-out brawl that ended in a brutal stabbing. Pokémon fans and scalpers lined up bright and early outside a GameStop in the town of Colma on Saturday for a highly anticipated restock of the franchise's coveted trading cards. 5 Two men were arrested after a brawl outside a GameStop over Pokémon cards. KRON All it took was one wrong step, and suddenly three men were fighting on the sidewalk. 5 The GameStop had restocked the trading cards that morning. Google maps One of the suspects, 49-year-old San Francisco resident Miguel OrellanasFlores, tried to cut the line to buy the Pokémon cards, the Colma Police Department said. The unidentified victim, who was wearing a black hoodie with the franchise's famed unofficial mascot Pikachu on the front, confronted him, as captured in a video obtained by KRON. 'I apologized and everything,' OrellanasFlores said while another man tried to push the victim away. 'Nah, get your hands off me,' the victim said. The victim lunged to try and reach OrellanasFlores before pivoting and smacking 27-year-old Isaiah Calles across the face. 5 Miguel OrellanasFlores allegedly tried to cut the line. KRON OrellanasFlores and Calles pounced on the victim and allegedly shoved him to the ground while frantic bystanders tried to intervene. 'There's kids watching!' one woman shouted as she set her belongings down and tried to pull them apart. All three men scrambled back to their feet, throwing blind punches until they collapsed in a pile on the ground. Somewhere in the mix, OrellanasFlores grabbed a mason jar and smashed it on the back of the victim's head, according to the CPD. Calles, meanwhile, reached for one of the shards and allegedly stabbed the victim multiple times. 5 The victim was hit on the back of the head with a mason jar, then stabbed repeatedly with a glass shard. KRON The two men fled the scene in separate vehicles, but the victim was somehow still aware enough to obtain photos of their cars — with the license plates included, police said. OrellanasFlores and Calles were both arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury, battery with serious bodily injury and conspiracy to commit a crime, according to the CPD. Pokémon cards tend to sell for an hefty prices online, both because of the price gouging spurred by scalping and the high value of some 'special illustration rare' and 'hyper rare' cards. Matters in the trading card world have only been complicated by the worth placed on professional sports authenticator, or PSA, cards. 5 The two men fled the scene but were quickly caught after the victim turned over photos of their vehicles to police. KRON Cards rated a PSA 10 can be worth thousands of dollars, depending on the subject and rarity. Still, clinching a perfect card is rare and comes down to aspects outside of the collector's control, including how the card is printed and the logo's centering. The child-friendly gambling ploy drives some people to desperate measures. In late May, two hammer-wielding crooks nabbed thousands of dollars worth of the collectible cards in Detroit. The cards, locked in a display case, were rare ones that have been out of print for years. In January, a restock at a Los Angeles Costco turned violent as shoppers fought just to grab the cards off the shelves, still having to trek through the chaos to the cash register before they were home free.
