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Wed
16 May The International Gem & Jewelry Show San Mateo The International Gem and Jewelry Show is an event that will aim to showcase diverse range of gems, minerals and jewelry item…

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Thu
17 May The International Gem & Jewelry Show San Mateo The International Gem and Jewelry Show is an event that will aim to showcase diverse range of gems, minerals and jewelry item…

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Fri
18 May The International Gem & Jewelry Show San Mateo The International Gem and Jewelry Show is an event that will aim to showcase diverse range of gems, minerals and jewelry item…

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Pescadero Area News

County to bring in archeologists to examine hospital grave site

County officials said Wednesday they planned to call in archeologists to help identify the remains found in pine-box coffins unearthed by construction crews working on the expansion of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said the work crews had stumbled upon an old cemetery for indigent and unclaimed bodies that had long ago been forgotten and covered over by a parking lot.

“It’s been abundantly clear there was an old cemetery of some kind – people are calling it a potter’s plot -- but it was paved over many years ago,” he told KTVU.

“It’s my understanding,” he added. “That whenever these plots were paved over was long enough ago that there are few people around that were carrying that history in their minds.”

Among actions officials plan to take Friday is to go to court and get permission to remove 100 of the pine- box coffins and leave the other 1,350 in place.

“It’s not something we deal with here,” he said. “There is a human dignity issue here. We don’t know what will be used to determine the next of kin. Those two issues have to be dealt with right off the bat.”

Cortese said the progress of the construction project will be complicated and slowed for a while.

“We haven’t fully accessed the final impact yet.” He told KTVU. “Every construction project has delay provisions in it. Those usually run per day…Every day that goes by is going to cost something.”

The coffins were unearthed earlier this year, but the discovery did not come to light until this week.

The remains of as many as 1,450 people may have been buried on the hospital grounds between 1875 and until about 1935.

Officials believe from old maps that the crew has only uncovered an outer fringe of the old cemetery.

_{Wed, 16 May 2012 14:23:01 -0700}

Attempted murder suspect arrested in Richmond SWAT standoff

A 26-year-old man wanted in connection with an attempted murder in Richmond surrendered to a SWAT team Wednesday morning after an overnight standoff, a Richmond police lieutenant said.

A special investigations unit located attempted murder suspect Todd Gillard, of Richmond, as he was going into an apartment at Gately Avenue and Ells Street around 10 p.m., Lt. Bisa French said.

A SWAT team surrounded the apartment and was in contact with Gillard.

They negotiated with him throughout the night until he surrendered around 5 a.m. and was taken into custody, French said.

Gillard had a $1.5 million arrest warrant out for him in connection with a February attempted murder, French said. No one was injured in the standoff, she said.

_{Wed, 16 May 2012 12:52:26 -0700}

Tuberculosis patient jailed for not taking medicine

Authorities have taken the unusual step of jailing and charging a tuberculosis patient who they say refused to take medication to keep his disease from becoming contagious.

Health officials said Armando Rodriguez, 34, of Stockton has active tuberculosis, which can include coughing up blood or sputum and can spread through the air.

"He is noncompliant with his tuberculosis treatment and because of this there is a danger that he may become contagious and/or develop multidrug resistant tuberculosis," Ginger Wick, nursing director for San Joaquin County, said in a letter requesting a warrant for Rodriguez's arrest.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that usually attacks the lungs.

Rodriguez was arrested Tuesday and is expected to be arraigned Thursday on two counts of refusing to comply with a tuberculosis order to be at home at certain times and make appointments to take his medication.

He will likely be appointed a public defender.

The county has had more than 30 tuberculosis prosecutions since 1984, prosecutor Stephen Taylor said. It also has prosecuted a woman accused of knowingly giving syphilis to her sex partners and refusing treatment.

Taylor said San Joaquin County is more aggressive than other jurisdictions in prosecuting tuberculosis patients to get them to take their medication.

The criminal prosecutions are an extension of the practice of medicine, he said.

"The criminal cases we're dealing with generally involve drug users who are harder to treat and manage because the TB medicines conflict with street drugs," he said. "We have to throw these people in jail and treat them as in-patients. They don't cooperate as out-patients."

Rodriguez was discharged in March from San Joaquin General Hospital with four medications for active tuberculosis and agreed to take the drugs under observation by a county health official on weekdays and on his own on weekends, authorities said.

He failed to self-administer the drugs on one day, telling a nurse he had gone on an alcohol binge and taken methamphetamine and didn't want to hurt his liver, Wick said in her letter.

He allegedly refused to take the drugs on another day and then was not at home on three occasions and missed an appointment.

Each charge against Ramirez carries a maximum penalty of a year behind bars. In her letter, Wick said Rodriguez would need nine months of treatment.

_{Wed, 16 May 2012 11:48:46 -0700}

News Source: MedleyStory More Local News Stories