The parents of an unarmed, mentally ill man shot and killed by Los Angeles police in South LA have filed a wrongful death suit against the city, the LAPD and the two officers, saying the officers intentionally shot the 25-year-old even though he was "posing no threat to anyone."

Edsell and Tritobia Ford say their son, Ezell, was killed despite complying with officers by lying on the ground at their request.

Their lawsuit, filed Friday in state court, seeks damages for wrongful death, civil rights violations and negligence by the department. They have already filed a federal civil rights suit over his death.

Ford, 25, was shot Aug. 11 when LAPD Officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas confronted Ford, who police said was making "suspicious movements" when he turned and "grabbed one of the officers."

But his family says in their lawsuit, filed in state court Friday, that Ford was "posing no threat to anyone, nor breaking any law, and had complied with orders" by Villegas and Wampler "to lie on the ground." The two officers "intentionally and/or negligently fatally shot unarmed" Ford, the suit charges.

Ford's family has said before that he was mentally ill and was harmless, and a family friend has said she witnessed the confrontation and didn’t see Ford struggle.

His parents' new suit also accuses Wampler and Villegas of violating civil rights laws and of "prejudice, disdain and contempt for African Americans or persons of black skin tone." It accuses them of having "intentionally engaged in the use of excessive and deadly force," motivated by the fact that Ford was black.

The LAPD declined to comment Monday to NBC4 regarding the lawsuit.

Ford's autopsy report, released in December 2014, showed Ford died in the operating room after being shot three times. One of the three, a nonfatal shot, struck Ford in the right arm. The two fatal shots struck him in the lower right side and the right back.

The fatal wound to the back had a muzzle imprint surrounding the entrance, the report showed, indicating the shot was fired at very close range.

The family's attorney Steven Lerman earlier accused the police officers of "almost animalistic" brutality.

"They went after him in a way that was almost animalistic, and it's just terrible to see how this has rolled out. But the shot to the back does not surprise me," Lerman said.

His family late last year filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the department and the two officers who shot him. They also filed a $75 million claim — a precursor to a state lawsuit — against the city.

A woman fatally shot by Anaheim police was both paranoid and schizophrenic, and had a history of violence, family members said Monday.

Monique Jenee Deckard's mental illness began when she was a child, said her brother, Nick Deckard. As a teenager she became dangerous.

“She shot at me,” he said. “She was able to get to a gun that was in the house and she literally pulled the trigger.”

The Anaheim man was not hurt, but the incident landed his sister behind bars even before she became an adult.

“She's like a tea pot,” said Marquis Deckard, the woman’s sister-in-law. “As long as she sits there, she’s fine. But once you turn on that heat, she starts to boil.”

Family members said  the 43-year-old woman had been asking around for a gun since Friday. Her brother and his wife called the county's emergency mental health line about 3:30 p.m., who advised them to call police.

No one answered at Deckard's apartment Sunday.

Two hours later, a different set of officers responded to a 911 call about a stabbing at a laundromat in the 900 block of South Euclid Street..

Police were led to an apartment complex behind the business, where witnesses told officers the woman may have been hiding.

"At this point we didn't know that the suspect in this stabbing at the time the call comes in was the person we had been out on earlier," Anaheim police Lt. Bob Dunn said.

Police contacted the woman and ordered her out of the apartment complex, but she told them through the door that she would not come out, so crisis negotiators were summoned, he said. But before they arrived, the suspect came out armed with two knives, officials said.

"At this time several Anaheim police officers were involved in an officer-involved shooting," Dunn said.

Deckard was struck by gunfire and taken to a hospital, where she died.

"You could've tased her and got her the help that she needed," Marquis Deckard.

The woman with whom Decker had been fighting was treated at the scene for a minor wound to her back.

"This incident doesn't seem entirely right," Deckard's brother said.

Records show Deckard had voluntarily checked herself in to mental hospitals since 2005.

Police released the 911 call from the laundromat operator telling them one woman had stabbed another and gone to her apartment behind the laundromat.

NBC4's Jason Kandel contributed to this report.

A man police say drunkenly drove the wrong way and crashed head-on into a Burleson woman's car Sunday, killing her and her two young sons and wounding her teen half-sister, has been arrested on murder charges.

Ricardo Martinez, 53, of Fort Worth, had a blood alcohol content of .240, three times the legal limit, nearly three hours after the crash, Alvarado police said. He has two previous convictions for driving while intoxicated, one in Denton County and one in Tarrant County.

Police said they obtained three arrest warrants for Martinez for the murders of 22-year-old Maranda Abshire and her sons 5-year-old Christopher Adrian Dominguez and 2-year-old Cruz Dominguez. A fourth warrant was obtained for intoxication assault of Abshire's 13-year-old half-sister Lindsey Reynolds, who survived the crash but was hurt.

Martinez is in the hospital and in Alvarado police custody. Once he's discharged, he will be transferred to Johnson County Jail, police say.

Wrong-Way Crash Kills Mother, Two Sons

Maranda Abshire was driving along U.S. Highway 67 in Alvarado at about 1:30 a.m. with her two sons and her 13-year-old half-sister when a Toyota pickup traveling the wrong way on the highway hit their Ford Mustang head-on.

Abshire and two sons were killed in the crash. Her family said Reynolds was treated at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth for injuries that were not life threatening.

Family members said Abshire worked at Chili's restaurant in Cleburne. She had just picked up her boys and her half-sister after work when the pickup truck slammed into their car.

Alvarado police had already been alerted that there was a wrong-way driver on the road and were responding to that call when Abshire's car was hit.  Few details are available, but police say all four people in the Mustang were properly restrained with seat belts or car seats.

Alcohol containers were found in Martinez's truck, police say.

Apple unveiled a first-of-its-kind app designed to empower breast cancer survivors and fighters to join the research process as a way to "Share the Journey."

The app, Share the Journey: Mind, Body and Wellness after Breast Cancer, is part of Apple's new ResearchKit, a digital toolbox to help hospitals and research centers bring iPhone users into the world of data collection.

"By collecting all this data through the smart phones I'm imagining that there are going to have so much great information to analyze that maybe we can get the drugs going even faster," said two-time cancer survivor Janet Klein.

She has been part of a clinical trial for six years, and said she could use the app to more easily share her experiences with doctors.

The app will track five common experiences during breast cancer treatment: fatigue, cognitive difficulties, sleep disturbances, mood changes and a reduction in exercise performance.

Klein said she's seen the treatment developments come leaps and bounds in recent years, and that she believes this will help it get even better.

"Today stage four is something you can live with it doesn't have to be a death sentence," she said.

She noted how markedly different the options were for her than for her mother years before.

"We're excited to use these new ResearchKit tools to expand participant recruitment and quickly gather even more data through the simple use of an app." UCLA researcher Dr. Patricia Ganz said. "The data it will provide takes us one step closer to developing more personalized care."

Apple joined the UCLA School of Public Health, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Penn Medicine and Sage Bionetworks to create Share the Journey.

Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of operations, said Monday the company is working with researchers to develop apps for studies including diabetes, asthma, Parkinson's disease, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease.
 

Can you afford a home in some of the top metro areas across the country?

A mortgage research site has calculated the yearly salary needed for median-priced homes in markets across the country, from the priciest to more affordable cities such as Pittsburgh.

To be able to make the monthly mortgage payments in San Francisco’s expensive market, you would have to earn $142,448, according to data compiled by HSH.com.

San Francisco’s median home price of $742,900 led the country’s housing market in the final quarter of last year.

Rounding out the top five were San Diego at $95,433 a year, Los Angeles at $89,665, New York at $87,536 and Boston at $80,050.

Other selected metro areas: Washington, D.C., $77,395; Miami, $58,431; Chicago, $54,346; Philadelphia, $50,914; and Dallas, $48,787.

The cheapest city on HSH.com’s list of 27 metro areas is Pittsburgh, where the median home price was $135,000. You would have make $31,716 to pay the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments.

The difference between home prices in San Francisco and San Diego was nearly $250,000. The gap between San Francisco and Pittsburgh: $607,900.

Pittsburgh was the most affordable area on the list for the third quarter in a row, according to the data, which was released last month. It tied Washington, D.C., for the lowest mortgage rates at 3.98 percent.

HSH.com used fourth-quarter data for median-priced homes from the National Association of Realtors. It assumed 20 percent down and a 30-year fixed mortgage.

Fourth-quarter prices dropped when compared to the third quarter, but on a year-to-year basis, home prices continued to rise, HSH.com noted. On average they rose 25 percent over the past three years, it said.

For a home priced at the country’s median, with a 20 percent down payment, a buyer would have to make $48,604. With 10 percent down, the income needed rises to $56,140, which also includes the cost of private mortgage insurance or PMI required by the smaller down payment.

The National Association of Realtors also calculated the qualifying salaries for 5 percent and 10 down payments.

A five-day nationwide operation targeting undocumented convicted criminal immigrants subject to removal from the US ended with over 2,000 arrests, over 200 in Southern California alone.

The operation, dubbed "Cross Check," involved hundreds of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) focused on the arrests of public safety threats.

"This nationwide operation led to the apprehension of more than 2,000 convicted criminal aliens who pose the greatest risk to our public safety," said Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. "Today, communities around the country are safer because of the great work of the men and women of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

Cross Check began March 1, and ended March 5 with 2,059 people arrested, including 218 in the Southland. Those arrested are from 94 countries and more than half have felony convictions, including voluntary manslaughter, child pornography, robbery, kidnapping and rape.

One of the arrestees in LA, Freddy Giovanni Tojin, said he wasn’t expecting immigration agents to rush him outside his grandparents’ home during the nationwide sweep.

"Once I saw immigration, yeah, everything changed," Tojin said. His rap sheet points to convictions for domestic violence causing injury in 2010 and a weapons violation in 2012, to tattoos on his forehead of horns to go along with his street moniker of "Little Demon."

Tojin said he was in the process of turning his life around after a judge agreed to place him on probation.

"He gave me the opportunity to take off my tattoos, for the same reason, for my daughters," he said, choking up as he spoke of a 2-year-old and 4-year-old he could soon leave behind. "He saw my daughters going to court and I asked him for the opportunity, for the chance, and he said yes. He gave me three years probation and told me you've got to take off your tattoos and everything. I was trying to get my life straight again."

According to a spokesperson with ICE, the sweep's Los Angeles-area arrests were in six counties — Los Angeles (101); Orange (51); San Bernardino (24); Riverside (22); Ventura (16); and Santa Barbara (4).

Nearly two-thirds of the foreign nationals taken into custody locally had prior convictions for serious or violent crimes, such as child molestation, grand theft and firearms violations.

Fourteen of those arrested had ties to street gangs. While the vast majority of the criminal aliens arrested in the Southland were originally from Mexico (167), a total of 18 countries are represented, including Peru, Egypt, Armenia and South Korea.

A team of seven ICE agents swarmed Tojin the morning of March 2 in South LA. Sitting in a detention facility in downtown, Tojin spoke through tears as the seriousness of his situation sunk in.

"I don’t know, I’m just nervous for my daughters, I don’t want to be away from them," he said.

Tojin is on probation for a weapons violation but ICE agents say because of California’s AB 109, which allows for the early release of nonviolent prison inmates, and because of the January 2014 enactment of the Trust Act, rounding up fugitive immigrants has become a tougher and more dangerous job.

"That impacted us because they couldn’t hold these guys any longer, we didn’t have time to interview them," said Deputy Field Office Director of ICE, David Marin. "They were just released back onto the streets before we had a chance to either interview them, place a detainer, ask to have them placed into our custody."

But Tojin, like the thousands arrested in the five-day sweep, was targeted.

"We wouldn’t be targeting them unless we were sure we could remove them from the country," Marin said. "There are other obstacles in the way, it’s an immigration judge that makes that final decision."

For Tojin, he speaks with the hopes of the thousands taken into custody during the sweep, when he says he prays for relief in his case.

"I don’t want my daughters to look at me coming in and out of jail," he said. "They’re small right now and I don’t want them to look up to me or anyone like that, that’s not what I want."

For more information, visit www.dhs.gov.

A good Samaritan helped to stop a driver who was allegedly under the influence of drugs as her out-of-control vehicle wove in and out of traffic on Staten Island over the weekend. 

Aiman Youssef was driving behind the allegedly impaired driver in Midland Beach when he and his passenger noticed the car drifting over double lines and narrowly missing other vehicles on the road, he told NBC 4 New York. 

"She was extremely dangerous. She was jumping on other cars, and other cars were trying to avoid her," he said. 

"She put a lot of people in jeopardy," he added. 

Youssef's dash cam captured the woman's car swerving on the road as he followed closely behind her. His passenger called 911, and when they reached the corner of Rockland Avenue and Richmond Street, he said he knew he had to make a daring move to stop the driver.

As the driver slowed down at a red light, Youssef cut her off and boxed her in.

"I stopped, jumped out, took off her keys, and she said, 'It's OK, I'm not going to drive anymore,'" he said. "I said, 'You're drugged out, you can't drive anymore.'"

Seconds later, police arrived, and the 30-year-old woman behind the wheel was arrested and charged with driving while impaired by drugs. 

No one answered the door at the woman's listed address Monday. 

Youssef runs Half Table Man, a charity that's grown out of his makeshift donation tent on Midland Avenue days after Sandy hit Staten Island, and was out picking up produce and other donations for local Sandy survivors when he encountered the allegedly drugged driver. He said he never thought twice about stepping up. 

"I'm not a hero. I'm just a regular human being who cares," he said. 

How long is a Southern California summer?

That depends upon how you define the concept of "summer" -- is it a season or a lifestyle? -- and the person asking. (We all get a little braggier, despite our noblest intentions, when speaking with someone from a colder clime.)

Street Food Cinema is kindly helping us with this age-old conundrum via its 2015 schedule. If you're thinking that these are the people who put on the outdoor movies during the warmer months, along with special guest appearances, live music, food trucks, and other spirit-raising to-dos, you're correct.

If you're thinking that the season runs from mid-June-ish to the middle of September, like summer does in most places, we'll have to au contraire you right there. The Street Food Cinema schedule was revealed near the start of March, and it actually fills six whole months.

As in half a year. As in the second day of May to Halloween. Could that be considered LA's own summer season? It surely is, cinema-under-the-stars-wise.

The first movie up? It's "The Breakfast Club" on May 2 at Exposition Park (and it is the 30th anniversary, no less -- chew on that for a moment). The last movie out? It's also at Exposition Park, but on Halloween night, and, yes, it's "Shaun of the Dead (you probably guessed it would be something like that).

Between the spring date and autumn evening? Lots of movies, dozens in fact, covering the wide, wide gamut. "Purple Rain" and "Thelma & Louise" and "10 Things I Hate About You" and the 40th anniversary of "Jaws" are on the out-sized schedule, a schedule that will spread over multiple park-nice settings around SoCal, and not just Exposition Park.

Surely there'll be one near you.

If you want to total up all of the big numbers behind this extended outdoorsy laze-upon-a-lawn summer season, the organizers have your tally: 50 events, 27 weeks, 11 locations. Pretty impressive for something a couple years shy of its first half-decade (translation: It started in 2012).

So will you go to every single event? From the start of May to the close of October? Maybe if you want to up your brag-a-tude over how long and luxurious the summer season 'round SoCal tends to be.

But should we be bragging or inviting our pals in colder climes to come join us on the lawn? The latter, of course.

A 9-month-old baby girl found dead Monday in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood was killed with a power saw, apparently because she wouldn't stop crying, sources tell NBC5.

The baby was found unresponsive around 9:40 a.m. in the 2800 block of South Avers Avenue with “visible trauma” to her body, according to Chicago Police News Affairs. 

Police sources told NBC5 a saw was used to kill the baby, apparently because she wouldn't stop crying. Sources said the saw was used after a failed suffocation attempt.

The baby was pronounced dead at the scene, and a 52-year-old woman -- a relative to the baby -- was taken into custody. The woman was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in stable condition with self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said.

The relationship between the woman and the baby was not immediately clear, but a domestic-related murder investigation was underway Monday afternoon. Sources say the woman may have been the infant's grandmother.

Neighbors said a couple with their two grown daughters and at least one infant lived in the home.

"They're great people," said neighbor Francis Arreola. "I've known them over 20 years."

Witnesses said emotions were high outside the home Monday.

"I saw a young girl with a man, and she was crying saying, 'When am I going to see her again? When am I going to see my mom again?'" said neighbor Virginia Otero. "It's terrible news to hear that, because I'm a sentimental person and you know, to see something like that... terrible, terrible."

Check back for details on this developing story.
 

A string of four violent crimes at a state college campus in the Inland Empire, including kidnapping and rape attempts around the library, has left some students at the Southern California school heading to class worried and on edge.

The most recent took place Sunday afternoon, when a student was standing outside a library at Cal State San Bernardino when a man grabbed her, covered her mouth and tried taking her to his car.

An attempted rape, carjacking and a strong-arm robbery also took place within 14 days, a school spokesman said.

"I'm shocked, I just can't believe it because we've never had this problem on campus," said student Kariuna Guido.

The attempted kidnapping shocked students, especially because the library was the scene of an attempted rape, as well. No one has been taken into custody for either attack. It's unclear if the two incidents were related.

Student Monique Lopez said she worries the assailant could be "capable of anything." 

"Anyone can be a potential victim," she said.

The university has more than doubled its police staffing in response to the incidents, said the school's president, Tomas D. Morales, in a statement.

"I have personally called on our city and county leaders to significantly increase their police presence of the neighborhoods surrounding CSUSB," he said.

School officials are also advising the campus community to take extra precautions: avoid walking alone, request an escort if you feel unsafe and report suspicious activity.

Investigators will be taking a look at surveillance video in hopes of identifying a suspect.

"I might actually get some pepper spray now after hearing what's been going on," said student Amanda Ridder.

One person was killed during a fatal shooting near E. 105th and San Pedro streets in South Los Angeles Monday afternoon, police said.

Around 5 p.m., officers responded to a shooting call, according to LAPD’s Southeast Division Twitter account.

An ambulance was requested at the scene, but the police response shifted to a homicide investigation around 5:30 p.m., according to tweets from the division.

Additional information was not immediately available.

It’s tough enough to cope with the sudden spike in gas prices, but the fact that Californians are paying more to fill their tanks than any state in the U.S., with the exception of Hawaii, is making drivers here feel even worse.

After hitting a five-year low in late January, the cost of fuel in California has shot up more than a dollar per gallon, with drivers paying an average of $3.52 for regular at stations in the greater Los Angeles area. That’s nearly triple the average increase nationwide.

The oil industry blames rising gas prices on an explosion at the Exxon-Mobil refinery in Torrance last month, which brought production in the damaged units to a standstill. The facility produces nearly 2 billion gallons of gasoline each year, contributing as much as 20 percent of California’s supply.

An ongoing strike at the nation’s Tesoro refineries, including one in the Bay Area city of Martinez, is also contributing to the production slowdown.

Both factors are pushing up prices nationwide, but in California, the impact on fuel costs is more severe.

State air quality requirements control the types of fuels sold, and making cleaner burning gas costs more, says Allison Mac, a petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com.

The annual switch to a more pristine fuel mix drives up prices even more.

"Summer blend gasoline is kind of like low fat food," Mac says. "It’s more expensive to produce."

But Santa Monica-based advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, said there’s another force driving up prices. According to Liza Tucker, the group’s consumer advocate, while other states have a 24-day supply of gas reserves on average, California has just a 10-day reserve.

Reached for comment by the I-Team, Western States Petroleum Association spokesman Tupper Hull issued a statement, quoted, in part, below:

"The assertion that California maintains a 10-day supply of fuel is not correct. The California Energy Commission reports on inventories of gasoline and diesel at refineries only and does not include products that are stored at the many fuel terminals in the state or is in the extensive intrastate pipeline system. National inventory data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Service does include those facilities, making it impossible to compare the two sets of data."

Consumer Watchdog agrees there is gas in those pipelines and terminals, but says it’s just not enough. The group is urging passage of a state law that would mandate a minimum of 24 days of gasoline supply be kept on reserve to keep prices from skyrocketing when production lags.

Petroleum analyst Mac says that might not solve the problem.

"Gasoline is not like fine wine, we can’t store it for a long time because it does lose many of its distinctions."

California drivers won’t be seeing relief anytime soon. With the sunny weather, and spring break approaching, more people will be outside in their cars, often traveling long distances. According to Mac, that’ll keep prices climbing for at least the next four to six weeks.

Here are the only places in the greater LA area where you can still get a gallon for less that $3.00, according to website gasbuddy.com:

Chevron
1628 Washington Blvd. & S. Vail Ave, Montebello
2.69/gallon (cash)

USC Fuel
226 W. 35th St. & S. Grand Ave. Los Angeles
2:98/gallon (need USC ID)

Costco
1099 E. Hospitality Lane near Tippecanoe Ave San Bernardino
2.97/gallon (need membership)

Pacific Pride
1405 W. Rialto Ave. & N. Pico Ave., San Bernardino
2.97/gallon (cash)

Sam’s Club
1055 Harriman Pl. & Gould St., San Bernardino
2.99/gallon (need membership)

Use the links below to find the cheapest gas around SoCal:

Los Angeles County

Orange County

San Bernardino County

Riverside County

Ventura County

The mother of two missing New Jersey boys publicly pleaded for help finding her young sons after police say the boys' father abducted them. 

Sandye Dohm has not seen or held 8-year-old Parker and 7-year-old Jaxon in over a month. Police said they were abducted in Hopatcong by her ex-husband Kristopher Dohm, who had shared custody.

"I don't know where they are, but I know I want them to be returned as soon as possible," said Sandye Dohm in an emotional news conference Monday. 

Parker is asthmatic, and his 36-year-old father is diabetic and relies on insulin. Sussex County prosecutors say the medical conditions have them concerned for the health and safety of the two boys. 

Authorities said Kristopher Dohm's gray Nissan Pathfinder was last spotted in Maryland with stolen plates. They believe he was headed to Nevada and may have shaved his head and the boys' heads to alter their appearances (see video). 

Parishioners at the church Jaxon and Parker attended vacation Bible school are praying for the boys, and over the weekend they used Legos -- the boys' favorite toy -- to build a house of hope. 

"To think they disappeared, not knowing where they are, I can imagine this mother is tormented every night," said Ledgewood Baptist Church Rev. David Holwick. 

In a message to her boys Monday, Sandye Dohm said: "Parker and Jaxon, I want you to know that I love and miss you, and I will never, ever stop looking for you, no matter what." 

Anyone with information on their whereabouts should call the Hopatcong Police Department at (973) 398-5000 or the New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center at (609) 963-6900 ext. 1.
 

The schools that train the doctors of tomorrow are warning that the industry is facing a crisis as a growing number of students are opting out of medical school, daunted by high debt levels, just as more and more physicians are beginning to retire.

UCLA is beginning to reach out to prospective students, trying to bring them into the field before more decide it isn’t the way to go.

Nima Nassiri, a fourth-year UCLA medical student, said he faces upward of $100,000 in debt when he’s done, the cost of attending one of the premier schools in the country.

"The level of competition is super-high, and it's much easier to make money doing other things," he said.

Rebekah Rogers is one of the luckier ones, who received a full-ride scholarship, courtesy of the Geffen School of Medicine.

But she admitted that If it weren't for that support, she may not be there.

"I would probably not want to spend the rest of my life 'paying off a dream,'" Rogers said.

Dr. Clarence Braddock, Geffen's vice-dean of education, says it's one of the main reasons many students are opting out of medicine these days.

"The average debt at graduation for a medical student in the United States is about $180,000 to $200,000," Braddock said.

The numbers come at a time when an even bigger problem looms. More and more existing doctors are opting out too.

As many as one in three are predicted to retire in the next decade.

Among the reasons are changing technology, new requirements for re-certification and the high cost of running a practice.

This, as America's aging baby boomers will be requiring more health care.

"The question is, how do we fill that gap? How do we provide new doctors for the nation?" Braddock said.

The concern is that if these potential doctors are discouraged before they can even begin, the rest of society will definitely feel the effects 10 or 20 years down the line.

UCLA is reaching out to high schools, as well as university undergraduates, to nurture students into pre-med professions.

They want students like Jessica Pasqua -- also a full-ride scholarship winner -- to stay focused.

"There's a struggle to not only spend time studying, but spend time applying for scholarships and research grants," Pasqua said.

A man was shot dead in Port Hueneme late Monday.

He was gunned down inside a park on the 500 block of Surfside Drive, the Port Hueneme Police Department said.

Investigators are looking for two subjects, though there is no description, and will be interviewing some witnesses.

It is unknown if the shooting was gang related.

Firefighters rescued a family from an apartment fire in South Los Angeles Monday night.

A young girl was one of three people pulled from the second floor home the 450 block of West 80th Street. There were also reports from the scene of people climbing out of the building.

It took 39 firemen 13 minutes to extinguish the blaze, Los Angeles Fire Department said. There were no injuries.

A missing 1-year-old boy was found safe in Mexico on Monday night just hours after police issued an Amber Alert to help find him.

Jayden Santiago was found in Tijuana by U.S. Marshals, Los Angeles Police Department said. He had been taken in San Pedro at around 1 a.m.

The youngster was taken by his father Giovany Santiago-Enriquez, with investigators saying he had slashed the boy's mother and her new boyfriend with a knife in a confrontation beforehand.

"He's good, from what I hear... so I'm happy," the boy's mother Christy Martinez said, "I have to go down there to Mexico to pick him up."

And she said she does not bear any grudges against her ex, despite what happened.

"Honestly I wish him the best, I hope it goes good for him. I don't wish him anything bad. I'm just glad that the baby's fine, that he didn't hurt the baby. All I care about is the baby's wellbeing," Martinez said.

Michael Larkin contributed to this report

A man told emergency services he was injured when an electronic cigarette he was smoking blew up in his hand.

In his 911 call, he claims the device exploded as he enjoyed a puff at his apartment in the 100 block of East MacArthur Boulevard in Santa Ana at about 1:30 a.m.

His face and hands were burned in the incident, which also caused a fire in his apartment.

"I'm freaking out. I just had an electronic cigarette blow up in my hand... it's stuck in the wall... it caught on fire... it blew up in my face," he told the 911 dispatcher.

The man told firefighters he heard a humming sound before the explosion, which caused him to pull it out of his mouth just before it blew up.

Last month, an Anaheim teen was hospitalized after his electronic cigarette exploded. His hand was badly burned in the explosion, which his girlfriend described as sounding like a gun going off.

Police were searching for a knife-wielding woman who went on a carjacking spree and stole a man's vehicle in Irvine on Monday night.

Investigators said the woman first tried to carjack another woman who was sitting in a vehicle that was in a parking lot in the 17000 block of Von Karman Avenue shortly before 6 p.m., officials with the Irvine Police Department said.

The woman ordered the driver out of the vehicle, but she refused.

Moments later, the woman approached a man who was sitting in his car that was parked in the same lot. Police said she pulled out a knife and demanded he get out of the car.

The man complied and the woman drove off in his car.

Investigators said the carjacker ditched the vehicle near the Costa Mesa Police Department.

Police arrived to the Irvine parking lot in response to a 911 call and found both victims uninjured.

Costa Mesa police also said there was a carjacking or an attempted carjacking in their city at at around 6:15 p.m, before another attempted carjacking also happened in Tustin at around 7 p.m. Tustin PD said all the incidents are connected.

In the latter incident she attempted carjack a woman in a parking lot of a shopping plaza at intersection of Jamboree and Edinger in Tustin at around 7:09 p.m.

Witnesses saw the incident and scared her away. When the suspect ran from scene she flagged down a passing vehicle and told the driver that she needed a lift. Witnesses saw her get into that car and making her escape, and told cops that they thought it was a getaway vehicle. However officers later tracked the car down and the driver told officers she only asked for a lift and she had dropped her off at the intersection of Edinger and Redhill Avenue.

The woman was described as 5-foot-2-inches tall, weighing 130 pounds. She was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and jeans.

Anyone with information was asked to call Irvine police at 949-724-7000