Subject: Lyn Tomioka

• SF Cops Nab Dozens of Criminals in Citywide Sweep

  San Francisco Police arrested 39 fugitives on Thursday over a 12-hour period. The citywide sweep targeted high-risk parole and probation violators who were wanted for robbery, narcotics and sexual predator crimes. There were four women among those arrested. The arrests were made as a result of a coordinated effort between numerous agencies including the SFPD, San Francisco Sheriff’s Office and U.S Marshals. “Hopefull crime will go down because of these arrests,” says Sgt. Lyn Tom

  November 14, 2008

• Holocaust Memorial Vandalized -- Yes, Again. The Culprit: All of San Francisco

  For the third time in a period of only several months, an unknown vandal hit San Francisco's Holcaust memorial -- meaning, whatever other adjectives you could use to describe someone who sees fit to desecrate the memories of 6 million Jews and 11 million victims of the Nazis, add "unoriginal." Also unoriginal was the description police released of the man witnesses claim they saw defacing the monument: Six feet tall with a black bike messenger bag. Good Lord! That's ... ME! But it's not just me

  December 31, 2008

• Hot Shit: Serial Porta-John Arsonist Torches Another S.F. Commode, Well on Way to Becoming Dillinger of Outhouse-Related Crime

  By Joe EskenaziFirst there were the Zebra Murders. Then Zodiac. And now -- the serial porta-john arsonist. As the 13th smoldering outhouse since November was doused early this morning, the realization was unavoidable: The city is, once again, host to a disturbed individual terrorizing our denizens with bursts of random crime ... except now he (or she) is not killing people but immolating outhouses on Russian Hill. Certainly our city government will tell us that this is progress. Is this toilet-t

  January 6, 2009

• Mission Possible? SFPD Nails 100 Percent of Homicide Suspects in 2009

  Maybe the SFPD ate their Wheaties. Maybe they made a New Year's resolution. But you know that bit about the San Francisco Police Department having one of the worst arrest rates of homicide suspects in the United States? It appears that it's a new day, folks (in the first 16 days of 2009, at least).With an arrest of a laughing, incoherent Peter Fong after he allegedly slit the throat of a sushi restaurant owner on January 7, followed by the Wednesday arrest of Tommy Thomas -- who allegedly stabbe

  January 16, 2009

• Police: 'Device' Detonated Near Kezar Stadium Wednesday Was Just Duffel Bag Full of Clothes

  The "device" that exploded last night at the intersection of Waller Street and Kezar Drive loudly enough to be heard a mile off was just a gym bag full of old clothes pre-emptively destroyed by the SFPD. Police spokeswoman Sgt. Lyn Tomioka told SF Weekly that police at Park Station were informed that a suspicious package was sitting in their driveway. In police jargon, the "EOD crew" (explosive ordinance disposal -- the bomb squad) was called and it "rendered the package safe" (that is, blew it

  January 22, 2009

• Breaking News: French Authorities Conclude De La Plaza Death '100 percent homicide.' S.F. Police Refuse to Read Report

  A formal report recently produced by French investigators and coroners regarding the San Francisco stabbing death of Hugues de la Plaza concludes that the French national's demise was "100 percent homicide," according to his former girlfriend. Melissa Nix was informed of the news by de la Plaza's father, Francois. De la Plaza was found dead in his Hayes Valley apartment in June 2007; the case sparked international attention when the San Francisco Police Department ruled it a suicide despite the

  January 26, 2009

• SFPD: News Report in Error, Police Didn't Witness Weekend Shooting

  "Man Shot Dead in Front of San Francisco Police in Broad Daylight" is a headline that raises troubling questions, particularly when it's followed by: "No suspects were arrested." That was the gist of a Bay City News brief yesterday appearing in the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, and Santa Cruz Sentinel that identified Myron Edward, a 40-year-old San Francisco resident, as the sixth homicide victim of the year. But a police department spokeswoman now says that report contained error

  February 9, 2009

• Breaking: Police Identify Man Accused of Stabbing Bike-Riding, Off-Duty Cop

  The man accused of stabbing a bicycle-riding, off-duty San Francisco Police officer is Nicholas Batchelor, a 27-year-old white male from the Peninsula. Batchelor is charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon stemming from a still-murky incident at Haight and Steiner Streets Tuesday afternoon. Witnesses described Batchelor and the cyclist exchanging words before Batchelor got out of his older, green Cadillac and stabbed the officer. Batchelor fled the scene, but witnesses eyeb

  February 11, 2009

• As Second Potrero Hill Outhouse Smolders, Police Insist This Is Not Funny

  An erudite citizen on the 400 block of Kansas Street called 911 at 10 minutes to midnight on Tuesday reporting "the glow of a fire." It turns out it was the immolation of outhouse No. 24. After preying on porta-johns in the Russian Hill and Nob Hill areas for months, the outhouse arsonist -- or arsonists -- had just burned their second toilet on Potrero Hill's Kansas Street in 72 hours. News of the 23rd outhouse to go up in flames hit the Internets with a bang this weekend. In fact, this local c

  February 18, 2009

• Father of Hugues de la Plaza Says SFPD Now Considers Case a Murder -- Two Years Later

  Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi addresses the media as François de la Plaza (right) listens in. After nearly two years of pitching François de la Plaza scenarios in which his son, Hugues, stabbed himself three times and then washed the knife or threw it away to never be recovered, the visiting Frenchman informed a crowd of reporters this afternoon  that the San Francisco Police Department has told him they finally agree that his son was murdered. At a Wednesday meeting with SFPD officials "[Cap

  February 26, 2009

• Early Nominee for San Francisco's Vaguest Crime of 2009 (Booze and Bullets Prominently Involved)

  Robbed ... somewhere ... by somebody ... somehow. The San Francisco Police Department is often raked over the coals for its failure to solve -- or even attempt to solve -- a number of the city's crimes.But sometimes you've got to give the Boys in Blue a break. Take the following case reported at 11 p.m. on Sunday night. A 45-year-old man took a cab ride from a bar with a 21-year-old man he met there to the younger fellow's home. Once there, the 21-year-old brandished a pistol, causing the older

  March 17, 2009

• San Francisco Arson Case Involving Man With 'Box on Fire' Who Torched Car Grows Weirder and Weirder

  Marvel ComicsAn artist's rendition of San Francico's bizarre vehicular arson case. That artist is, of course, Jack Kirby. How does a reported Monday-morning arson case in which a mysterious man toting a "box on fire" immolating an occupied car get any stranger? How about if the person who fled the burning vehicle for his life morphs into a pair of women and the whole thing becomes an accident? That sounds weirder -- and that's the official line now coming out of the San Francisco Police Departme

  April 1, 2009

• A Horse's Gift

  City rules draw a fine line between manure and crap.

  April 1, 2009

• ATM 'False Front' -- A.K.A Skimmer -- Discovered Near a San Francisco Bank

  Just when you thought you knew every way you could be scammed out of your identity and money and potentially everything you own, something like this pops up.   Skimmers -- or high-tech false fronts that are placed over ATM and gas pump card slots for the purpose of stealing information -- remained pretty obscure for about a decade. But now that relatively inexpensive miniature digital cameras and card readers have become widely available, 

  May 6, 2009

• How will the cops enforce S.F.'s new club loitering law?

  May 13, 2009

• Warrants Indicate Hundreds of Pot Plants Seized From Property Adjoining Bayview Warehouse That Suspiciously Burned Last Month

  Persons of interest...Search warrants indicate that police confiscated 860 marijuana plants growing in a structure a stone's throw from a Bayview warehouse that burst into flames last month -- a strong indication that initial theories blaming careless pot-growers for the blaze may well be accurate. A firefighter was injured in the fire last month at a warehouse located at 2265 Revere; an illegal converter box clued police in that a marijuana growing operation might be tied to the blaze (known as

  June 12, 2009

• Pair of Decorated Police Horses Head Out To Pasture -- Equine Who Killed Man at 49ers Game Still Working, Incidentally

  Starting tomorrow, it'll be all carrots and no sticks for Kenny and Chip. The pair of longtime San Francisco police horses will be retired in a Tuesday morning ceremony at the Golden Gate Park stables, curtailing a combined 22 years of police work for the pair of horses -- in which, unlike their human counterparts, they never once attempted to forcefully steal San Franciscans' food or were featured in racy videos.  Kenny, 20, and Chip, 15, just showed up for work day-in and day-out; other t

  June 15, 2009

• Critical Ass: SF's World Naked Bike Ride 2009

  On Saturday at noon, Justin Herman Plaza was sun-drenched and buzzing with the activity of particularly open-minded crowd, and passersby were beginning to take notice. "What the hell are all these people doing half-naked and shit?" one man cried.He was obviously not familiar with the way things are here in San Francisco, where bare and body-painted cyclists have pedaled to Golden Gate Park and back once a year, for the past six years, as part of the larger international World Nake

  June 15, 2009

• SFPD: Dead Man Discovered In Kezar Stadium Parking Lot 'Definitely a Homicide'

  View Larger MapThe unidentified man police discovered at around 2:30 this morning is "definitely a homicide" according to San Francisco Police Department spokeswoman Sergeant Lyn Tomioka -- making the man the city's 21st homicide victim of the year. The victim -- whose identity, age, race, and other information has not yet been released -- died of multiple stab wounds. Tomioka confirmed that the wounds were not of a nature that they could have been self-inflicted. The man, discovered in the wes

  June 17, 2009

• Officer concludes distinguished career while being investigated by the FBI

  June 24, 2009

• SOMA residents peeved about Stanlee Gatti's noisy Sunday night bash

  July 1, 2009

• How undocumented aliens shopping on Market Street can find an inexpensive trip home

  July 8, 2009

• Distraught Friends Stick Up for Man Accused of Slaughtering Dog in S.F. Catholic Church

  Joseph Byrnes' longtime friends have trouble believing he'd ever harm one of his beloved dogs -- but note the San Francisco musician's battles with mental illness ​On Monday, SF Weekly broke the disturbing story of a nude man eyewitnesses and police claim hacked his pit bull to death in a Bernal Heights church with a hatchet before telling officers that he was forced to kill the dog as it was possessed by the devil. Longtime friends of Joseph Byrnes, 41, have offered up a scenario that portra

  August 13, 2009

• Veiled Accusations Leveled at Arson Suspect Prompt Question: How Fast Can 61-Year-Old Homeless Woman Get Around Town?

  www.lcpstc.orgWhodunnit?​The San Francisco Police are quick to note that 61-year-old homeless woman and convicted arsonist Fafa Chan is not a suspect in the series of car fires that plagued the city last month. But SFPD spokeswoman Lyn Tomioka was quick to note to SF Weekly that once Chan was arrested on July 30, the fires mysteriously ceased. It's a point the Chronicle noted yesterday -- as is the notion that this is just about the only "evidence" the cops have against Chan in the car fires.

  August 20, 2009

• Hello Holiday Inn: Mesa Cops Aiding SFPD Chief Gascon's Transition Scrimping on San Francisco-Paid Expenses

  The SFPD's new model for tight-fistedness​The Arizona Republic Thursday ran an article reporting that new San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon is enlisting officers from his former post of Mesa, Ariz. to fly out west and help him get the San Francisco Police Department up and running to his standards. First up was Mesa police spokesman Sergeant Ed Wessing, who landed in San Francisco last Tuesday for two days of advising the SFPD's historically tight-lipped public

  August 27, 2009

• Yesterday's News Tomorrow! SFPD Release Tally For DUI Checkpoint -- Eventually.

  The Colonel's chain of eateries remind us of ... DUI checkpoints​I got it from Agnes. She got it from Jim; we all agree it must have been him. ... Now she got it from Harry, who got it from Marie. And everybody knows that Marie got it from me. -- Tom Lehrer Thanks to the official tally of last Saturday's DUI checkpoint haul being passed to a succession of San Francisco Police Department officials reminiscent of the above ditty before it was put in the hands of Sgt. Lyn Tomioka -- who, as alwa

  August 31, 2009

• Police: Weekend's Flaming Car Had Nothing to Do With Other Flaming Cars

  www.lcpstc.orgWait! This time there was a logical reason for a car to be found on fire.​San Francisco cops arriving at the scene of a blazing automobile must now ask themselves a modified version of the most famous of Passover queries: "How is this burning vehicle different from all other burning vehicles?" Over the weekend, police discovered an incinerated car on the 800 block of Grove Street in the wee hours of the morning. When we called to query if this was related to last month's spree of

  August 31, 2009

• Facebook Scam Targets Grandparents of Military Personnel

  When Johnny comes marching home -- he'll be POed that grandma sent that scammer posing as him some cash​We're not sure how many grandparent-age readers we have here in blogland, so we thought we'd relay word of this heartless scam to readers that may know some older folks.As if military families needed one more problem, scam artists have been trawling through Facebook profiles to target grandparents of military personnel deployed in Iraq. The scammer poses as the grandchild, saying he or she i

  September 3, 2009

• Cops Who Shot and Killed Cleaver-Wielding Man in Visitacion Valley to be Nominated for Medal of Valor

  ​A group of San Francisco police officers who last weekend gunned down an apparently deranged man wielding a meat cleaver are to be nominated for a medal of valor by their station commander.SFPD Captain David Lazar, who heads the Ingleside station, said in his most recent newsletter that he plans to submit the nomination. This particular award, the department's highest honor for bravery in the line of duty, was last given out in February to four officers who shot and killed Tatiana the tiger,

  September 9, 2009

• Cops: Man Accused of Dousing Neighbor in Boiling Oil Had Lengthy Criminal Record

  ​When San Francisco police followed a trail of splattered grease down the hall of the Rose Hotel to William Pious' room and arrested him for allegedly dousing a sleeping neighbor with a pan of boiling cooking oil, it was not the 50-year-old's first brush with the law. The SFPD states that Pious was convicted in San Francisco on a burglary charge in 1995 and a narcotics rap in 1981, and spent the years in-between -- and perhaps since -- racking up a "long history of counts" in Los Angeles. Poli

  September 10, 2009

• Details Emerge In Fatal Lower Haight Pedestrian Incident

  ​Earlier today we wrote about how residents of the Lower Haight wandered out of their homes at around 7:15 to gape skyward at a loud, low-flying helicopter. "Why would Trauma shoot a scene now?" some must have wondered. It turned out this was no TV show, but a fatal car-on-pedestrian incident on Fell and Broderick around 6:30 a.m. Police spokeswoman Sergeant Lyn Tomioka has more details:

  September 15, 2009

• Drug Deal in Pacific Heights Goes Bad -- Really Bad

  ​When you're buying drugs, all kinds of bad things can happen -- but losing your clothes usually isn't high on the list of concerns (particularly when you are buying your drugs in Pacific Heights). At 1:30 this morning, a 27-year-old guy trying to score drugs from two older men on the 1800 block of Pacific Avenue instead got pushed to the ground, beaten with an unidentified object, and stripped of his clothing. San Francisco Police Department spokeswoman Sergeant Lyn Tom

  October 2, 2009

• Support Your Local Police: Cops Ask Permission to Accept Key Chains and Pistols

  ​Everyone harbors suspicions that police are enjoying deep discounts on coffee and donuts all over the city -- and, as department spokeswoman Sergeant Lyn Tomioka tells us, they usually are. But it's protocol to never accept anything for free. If the clerk insists, the common practice is to toss the price into the tip jar. There's a sound reason for this. It requires a ruling of the Police Commission in order for a cop to accept a "gift" of any value. A police officer must petition his or her

  October 9, 2009

• Is 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez Responsible for an Unsolved 1984 S.F. Murder?

  A police mugshot of Richard Ramirez​The San Francisco Police Department just issued an advisory stating that a press conference to be held at 3 p.m. today at the Hall of Justice will explore the possibility that serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka "the Night Stalker," (so named for his propensity to break into victims' homes in the wee hours) was responsible for an unsolved Bay Area murder that occurred in 1984. The majority of Ramirez' killings took place in and around Los Angeles. Ramirez, wh

  October 22, 2009

• Breaking: Suicidal Person Threatening to Jump on 500 Block of Valencia

  View Larger Map A man on the scene has informed us that a suicidal person is threatening to leap off a building on Valencia between 16th and 17th Streets, and the area has been closed off since around 5:45. Police spokeswoman Sergeant Lyn Tomioka confirmed that the 500 block of Valencia -- the "old Valencia Gardens" is off-limits to the public because of the potential jumper. Details were sparse -- including, even the sex of the person atop the building. Negotiator teams are purportedly in plac

  October 28, 2009

• Jury Convicts Attempted Murderer Despite Disappearance of Victim Allegedly Scared Off By Private Investigator

  ​A San Francisco jury convicted Phil Pitney, 19, of attempted murder Thursday, even after the victim he shot at was a no-show for the entire trial -- apparently because he was threatened by the defense attorney's investigator.The Chron reported last week that Steve Vender, a private investigator working with defense attorney Eric Safire, had called Ladarius Greer, 21, on the eve of the trial and threatened that he would be arrested if he showed up for trial. The victim played police the i

  October 29, 2009

• Yelp Deathmatch Update: Business Owner Says Yelper Started Fight, Yelper Calls Tale 'Crock of Shit'

  Knock, knock...It's Diane Goodman. ​We wrote earlier this week on the wrestling match that transpired after a business owner tracked down the address of a Yelper who'd given her bookstore a bad review on Sunday night. According to Sean C., as he's known on Yelp, the woman who'd labeled him "pussy boy" and "stupid person" in e-mails pushed her way into his house and the two engaged in a shoving match.   Well, the owner of Ocean Avenue Books, who was cited for battery at the scene, has

  November 6, 2009

• Saturday's '48 Hours' Episode Fills Missing Pieces in de la Plaza case

  Hugues de la Plaza​ Saturday's episode of CBS' 48 Hours is dedicated to examining the bizarre 2005 death of French-American citizen Hugues de la Plaza in his Hayes Valley apartment. He perished in a pool of blood after he'd spent time walking around bleeding in his apartment. Blood stains also appeared on his porch. Police investigators indicated he'd probably killed himself -- though the knife was nowhere to be found. The medical examiner said there wasn't sufficient evidence to determine whe

  November 9, 2009