Well, lawdy, lawdy, lawdy Miss Clawdy; hear ye, feel ye, this way comes some of the worst of the worst in a December to disremember in the wonderfully wanky world of People Behaving Badly: Get it over with already edition. Lot of missing people not appearing well Monday morning. Dec. 9, San Diego. 5:58 a.m. A call comes in about a body washed ashore near…
The air in Escondido carries a strange weight today, an odd mix of nostalgia and finality. Chief Ed Varso—yes, the Ed Varso, the man who climbed the law enforcement ladder like a dog on a scent trail—has announced his retirement. December 5 marks the end of an era, or maybe just the curtain call for a long-running, bureaucratic drama that somehow stayed gripping. Varso’s journey…
Why bother stealing from an ATM machine when you can just steal the ATM machine. Who says ATM machine theft, like lightning, never strikes twice? Somebody, or somebodies, around Escondido’s Plaza Del Lago Center just east of newly renamed North County Mall has a recurring criminal fixation with this bit of advanced banditry. For yet another time, an in-store ATM at that small outdoor shopping…
The more things change the more they stay they same eerily reflects the appointment of a new Escondido police chief. That would be Ed Varso, announced Tuesday as new police chief come Dec. 27. Varso was Escondido police chief from January 2020 before leaving in June of this year to become Menifee’s second police chief. Varso served in the Escondido Police Department from 2002 until…
We are going to consider a few outstanding three-dot items stripped from below, well below, today’s headlines. But first, a reminder and salute about he who pioneered the three-dot way It’s been almost 25 years since famed San Francisco journalist Herb Caen (1916-1997) died. For journalists and San Franciscans, Caen was a superstar. Known as “Mr. San Francisco,” his columns were a vital piece in…
Escondido took a knee at high noon Wednesday, June 3, 2020. That’s when Mayor Paul “Mac” McNamara, Council member Mike Morasco, Escondido Police Chief Varso, Yusef Miller of Racial Justice Coalition San Diego, Rev. Meg Decker of Escondido Together and other leaders and community members held a peaceful vigil in honor of George Floyd at City Hall. An estimated 200 people attended. With the coronavirus devil…
Welcome to a sometimes continuing series covering a never-ending story, people doing bad things, allegedly. Frankly, The Grapevine takes a slightly different tack than TV stations and other outlets when it comes to the lawbreaking and fire making of modern society. We’re selective when it comes to reporting in this area. While, we don’t question interest in the subject matter, we question how it is…
Authorities said this week they had not ruled out anything when it comes to who started a small fire at Escondido’s Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque at 318 W. Sixth Ave. around 3:15 a.m. Sunday, March 24. Believed to be arson, a suspect reportedly left a note referring to the shootings Friday, March 15 that killed 50 people at mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The fire…
A ticking time bomb of hate went off around 3:15 a.m. Sunday as Escondido’s only mosque was torched by a suspect who left a note referring to the New Zealand mosque killings earlier this month. “During the early morning hours of March 24, 2019, the Escondido Police and Fire Communication Center received a 911 phone call from the Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque on (318 W. Sixth Ave)…
California, and other states deploy breathalyzers in cars to limit road deaths ’Tis the season to be a little too merry, and law enforcement officials across the country are once again reminding revelers not to drive if they’ve been drinking. Along with those warnings comes a bit of good news: Deaths involving drunken driving are only about half of what they were in the early…