California state parks identifies the man who was killed Saturday while riding an off-road vehicle on the Oceano dunes. He’s 32-year-old Alejandro Espinoza Ruiz of Santa Maria. Two other men were seriously injured when the vehicle went off a 20 foot dune.
A 73-year-old Santa Maria man is charged with vehicular manslaughter for causing an accident last December which caused a crash that led to the death of a Paso Robles woman on a motorcycle. Lesley Leaney turned his VW into the path of a Harley Davidson traveling NB on 101. The motorcycle driven by 31-year-old Nichole Grantham of Paso Robles. She died from injuries sustained in that crash. Leaney will be arraigned July 12th in Santa Maria superior court.
In Siskiyou county, sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a man after he pointed a gun at them as they tried to stop a vehicle at the entrance to a large cannabis farm under evacuation because of the Lava fire. That fire has burned 13 thousand acres. Officers tried to stop a man after the fire crossed highway 97 north of Weed. The subdivision has been converted into a massive network of marijuana grows run primarily by Hmong families. When the driver brandished a hand gun and pointed it at the officers, they opened fire. The dead man’s name has not been released. That occurred Monday.
