An Orange County man who worked as a youth counselor was arrested and accused of inappropriately touching young girls. The suspect was identified as Elijah Domminic Barrera, 29, according to the Garden Grove Police Department. The alleged incidents took place in August 2014 while Barrera worked as a counselor at the Boys & Girls Club located at 9860 Larson Avenue in Garden Grove. Both victims were young girls who were 6 and 7-8 years old at the time of the alleged incidents. In March 2023, police were contacted by a victim who said they were touched inappropriately by Barrera. During ..read more

A high school baseball team in Orange County is raising money after thieves broke into lockers and escaped with thousands of dollars worth of equipment. The theft happened on March 24 at Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley in the early morning hours. The suspects were captured on surveillance cameras jumping a fence onto school property and using bolt cutters to break into a storage container containing the players' lockers and valuable equipment. When the team checked in for practice on Monday morning, that's when they realized they had lost everything. “Everything. I mean they wiped us ..read more

Police arrested a man accused of threatening an Orange County business while keeping a rifle in his car. In a post to Instagram on Friday, the Garden Grove Police Department said a man had been investigated for threatening employees of a local business in the midst of an apparent contract dispute. According to investigators, the man told the employees that he "had a gun" and would shoot them with it. Over the course of the investigation, police identified the man as 61-year-old Stephen Joseph Strigas and determined that he had multiple firearms registered in his name. The Garden Grove Police D ..read more

A suspected EBT scammer wanted by the FBI in Southern California was taken into custody in Florida. The alleged scammer, known only by the alias "Walerian Grabowski," was taken into custody on Wednesday by the U.S. Marshals Service, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Seamus Hughes of Court Watch connected Grabowski's arrest to the alleged bank fraud and identity theft ring that operated in Southern California from about November 2021 to September 2022. Grabowski and four others — Birdal Osman, Ilie-Sebastian-Laur Vasilescu, Bogdan Adrian Purgariu and Silviu-Florin Spiridon  ..read more

A Garden Grove man faces a felony manslaughter charge after he shot and killed a homeless man who threw a shoe at him during an altercation in September, the Orange County District Attorney's Office said. Craig Sumer Elliott, 68, has been charged with voluntary manslaughter and a felony enhancement of personal use of a firearm, the OCDA said in a news release. On Sept. 28, Elliott was jogging with his two dogs and pushing a pushcart on the sidewalk in the 10400 block of Katella Avenue when he came upon a sleeping 40-year-old Antonio Garcia Avalos. Avalos was in the middle of the sidewalk, the ..read more

Two teenagers were arrested after an alleged robbery and high-speed pursuit in Garden Grove on Friday night. The suspects were identified as Martin Eusebio and Vivian Martinez, both 18 years old, according to the Garden Grove Police Department. Officers received calls of an armed robbery near the area of Brookhurst Street and Westminster Avenue around 6:40 p.m. The victim told police she was sitting in a parking lot and eating with a friend when the suspects approached them with a handgun. They allegedly threatened to shoot the victim before escaping with around $200 in cash, police said. They ..read more

Two Southern California men face decades or even life in federal prison for allegedly supplying fentanyl-laced pills and methamphetamine for online sales. Omar Navia, 38, of South Los Angeles, and Adan Ruiz, 27, of Garden Grove, are accused of providing "counterfeit M30 oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and other narcotics" for sale on darknet, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release. They were indicted last month and arrested on Thursday. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of "conspiracy to distribute and to possess with the intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetami ..read more

The family of an elderly man who was killed by a transient inside his Garden Grove apartment on Wednesday night is speaking out about the tragic incident. Chuong Pham, 87, was killed after being attacked by Mario Brancato, a 26-year-old homeless man, inside his apartment on the 9900 block of Central Avenue at around 7:30 p.m., according to the Garden Grove Police Department. Surveillance video from Pham's Ring doorbell camera captures the moment Brancato somehow made it inside Chuong’s home where he stayed for over an hour. It’s unclear what the two were speaking about, but footage captures th ..read more

A transient fatally assaulted an elderly man in Garden Grove Wednesday night, according to police. Garden Grove resident Chuong Pham, 87, died after he was attacked by Mario Brancato, a 26-year-old homeless person, in the 9900 block of Central Avenue at about 7:30 p.m., the Garden Grove Police Department said in a news release. The incident was initially reported to officers as a burglary, but when police arrived, they found Brancato "being restrained on the ground by numerous residents who live in the area," the release said. Those residents took officers to Pham, who was unresponsive and lat ..read more

A man who scaled the famous Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier last week has been charged, officials said Wednesday. Juan Gonzalez, 37, of Garden Grove, faces charges of making criminal threats, making a false bomb report, false imprisonment and resisting arrest, according to the Santa Monica Police Department. The incident unfolded around 2:35 p.m. Oct. 9 at Pacific Park ..read more