A 5-year-old Menlo Park girl narrowly escaped being hurt Dec. 11 when she picked up a loaded gun and pulled the trigger. The gun went off, but no one was injured. The incident happened at 3 p.m. when Menlo Park officers were investigating a call about a disturbance on the 1300 block of Madera Avenue and heard gunshots, said Sgt. Paul Lucia. The officers saw two young men running away, and one of them ran through the apartment complex at 1300 Willow Road and dropped a gun. The girl picked up the gun and pulled the trigger, but the bullet didn't strike anyone, Lucia said. No arrests were made.
A two-alarm fire in an East Palo Alto apartment building Dec. 13 forced a family of five to run to safety ahead of a wall of flames. The 12:45 p.m. fire was first seen by a child and caused Kimberley Villegas to gather up her three children and flee her apartment at 320 East O'Keefe St. with her husband, said Charlie Fasso, deputy chief of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District. The fire fully engulfed the Villegas' apartment and damaged two adjoining apartments, Fasso said, causing $100,000 to $150,000 in damage. The fire went to a second alarm before it was brought under control by fire crews from Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Redwood City. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The Shell Gas Station on Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto was robbed of less than $100 in coins Dec. 11 as the station was closing for the night at 11:30 p.m. Detective Jim Coffman said a man showed the gas station attendant a gun and demanded money, then fled on foot. The man was described as black, 30-40 years old, 6 feet tall, and wearing brown short and black jeans. Coffman said he was also wearing a distinctive white motorcycle helmet with a blue strip.
About 100 cotton balls soaked in a solvent, possibly a poison, were found in a dish in the street Dec. 13 near the Pope Street/Chaucer Street bridge between Menlo Park and Palo Alto. A Palo Alto Public Works Department crew first saw the cotton balls about 11:15 a.m. and called in Palo Alto firefighters, who in turn called Menlo Park firefighters because the dish was on the Menlo Park side of the creek, said Charlie Fasso, deputy chief of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District. The South County Haz-Mat Team was called in to remove the cotton balls and turned them over to the San Mateo County Health Department. "It appears to have been a deliberate act, possibly left to poison rats or other animals," Fasso said. Anyone with information is asked to call the Menlo Park Police Department at 858-3300 or the Menlo Park Fire Protection District at 688-8400.
A man suspected by Menlo Park police of robbing the Wells Fargo Bank in Sharon Heights Dec. 3 was arrested by the FBI in San Francisco Dec. 11, said Menlo Park detective Ed Estrada. No other information about the man, including his name, is being released. The man has been charged with robbing a San Francisco bank.
An East Palo Alto man who was arrested Nov. 10 and charged with domestic violence had the charges against him dropped Nov. 27. Ola Wallacee, 47, also known as Robert Reynolds, had been charged after an altercation with a 20-year-old woman. Wallacee, a candidate in the recent East Palo Alto City Council race and host of a local cable TV program, said the charges against him were dropped because the police report was wrong. Sgt. Don O'Keefe of the East Palo Alto Regional Investigative Bureau said the District Attorney's Office dropped the case because of insufficient cause to prosecute.
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