Image: Tempe police Police captured a mentally ill man this morning in Tempe who stands accused of bludgeoning to death his mother and 14-year-old nephew. Phoenix police report this afternoon that Erick Lampert, 35, was caught in near 8600 South River in Tempe it was reported that someone suspicious was…
Two women who work in a Valley Wells Fargo bank claim their manager instructed them to stop speaking Spanish to Spanish-speaking employees, says a civil rights lawsuit filed in Superior Court. The white manager “didn’t like” when they spoke Spanish and told them to speak English, even when trying to…
Where is 24-year-old Ivan Ibarra Garcia? The local car dealer was kidnapped at gunpoint yesterday near Van Buren and 27th Avenue and spirited away to an unknown location. His relatives received ransom-demand calls throughout the night, police say, but he’s still in the custody of thugs…
Phoenix stripper Samantha Abernathy (pictured) was arrested yesterday after cops discovered she’d left her two little kids, 1 and 3 years old, alone in the house for hours. Neighbors called the cops at about 7:30 a.m. because the kids were running around loose in the apartment complex. Abernathy had left…
A Queen Creek mom is under investigation over the possibility that she failed to report her 14-year-old daughter’s sexual tryst with a young transient she’d invited to live in her home. Angel Green, (a.ka. Daniel Green — pictured above), was 18 when the mom-of-the-year candidate invited him to move in…
Semper fake! A Scottsdale man is in big trouble for playing dress-up. Authorities say John William Rodriquez, 31, (pictured) presented himself at several local functions as a highly decorated U.S. Marine. A list of possible charges (see below) indicates Rodriquez may have been trying to earn money with the ruse,…
Antonio Reid Cops want the public’s help to find two people suspected of involvement in a March murder. About 4 a.m. on March 14, Christopher Smith, 20, had been hanging with other partiers in front of a house near Indian School Road and 7th Avenue…
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas just announced grand jury indictments against Johnathan Hock, a Phoenix man accused of raping a woman live on the Internet. Hock, 20, has been indicted on two counts of sexual assault and one count of voyeurism. Police believe he raped the unconscious woman on February 26…
Mesa cardiologist Richard Lewis was booked into jail recently on suspicion of fondling the breasts of two female patients. Lewis, 53, is alleged to have fondled one woman in late 2008 during a pre-surgery exam. Cops say last Thursday he fondled a woman’s breasts who was just waking up from a surgery he had…
A former National Park Services employee has been charged by the federal government with leaving a fire unattended that grew out of control and spurred the evacuation of Crown King, a small, mountain town northwest of Phoenix. The “Lane 2” fire burned nearly 10,000 acres before it was brought under…
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has charged a Glendale man who stabbed his family members with two counts of first-degree murder.
The founder of the call-girl-finding Web site, www.theeroticreview.com, David Elms, has been arrested in California after two months on the lam from Maricopa County criminal charges. Phoenix police say Elms: …was arrested today south of San Diego while trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. It…
Police are accusing a Phoenix woman, her two young sons, and their friends of a series of local robberies, comparing the woman to the infamous Midwestern criminal of the 1930s, “Ma” Barker. Actually, this crime makes Ma Barker look like Mother Theresa. “It’s absolutely scary — and it’s disgusting,” says Detective…
A California man tried to drive through the international border at Naco last week with about 13 pounds of liquid meth in his pickup’s windshield washer reservoir. The find is part of an ongoing trend in the world of illegal drugs to package methamphetamine in ways that make smuggling easier…
Phoenix police arrested three members of an Ahwatukee street gang in connection with an aggravated assault that left a man with a ruptured ear drum. Cops believe the gangbangers have committed armed robberies and other crimes. What’s the name of this suburban gang, which — judging by the suspect pictures…
Will this victim who died of heat exposure … Marcia Powell…
A man who stole a pipe from a Mesa smoke shop slammed his car into a manager who had tried to stop him, police say. The incident began on Saturday just before 3 p.m. when the man, who wasn’t identified immediately by police, walked out of DJ’s Smoke Shop, 2034…
The Arizona Department of Public Safety should open a farmer’s market. This morning, the agency told us about a truck driver busted with 508 pounds of pot hidden with watermelons. A few minutes ago, DPS announced it had made an even bigger produce-related seizure on Monday: More than 5,000 pounds of marijuana…
Police are warning women to take precautions when out and about after a Phoenix resident was brutalized in a field near 7th Avenue and Indian School. The 47-year-old woman had been walking through alleyways on her way home from work about 2:30 a.m. Thursday when a man grabbed her, hauled her into a…
It was a close shave for two people shot and wounded last night in Mesa barber shop. Cops say a guy walked into Horacio Styles, 724 E. University, just after 9 p.m. — when the shop usually closes. He “exchanged words with employees and customers.” Then he pulled out a…
A Mesa father and engineer has pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about his involvement in a charity organization tied to Hamas. Between 1994 and 1997, Akram Musa Abdallah, 54, raised funds for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which the federal government accuses of…
Phoenix police announced the arrest Tuesday of a person suspected of shining a laser beam at airplanes flying into Sky Harbor International Airport, as well as a police helicopter.Common sense suggests this kind of crime could cause a full-blown catastrophe, though we’re not aware of any case in which an…
