Featured Articles from the Huntington Beach Independent

Three of the four teens who allegedly beat a man nearly to death with skateboards were charged Thursday with assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury, said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Mitch O'Brien. One suspect was released without being charged, O'Brien said. Viktor Silcock , 25, of Huntington Beach, was allegedly beaten by a group of skateboarders Friday in Murdy Park. Silcock is expected to survive, but he remains in critical condition in UC I rvine Medical Center's trauma unit after sustaining blunt-force trauma to his head when a group of teenagers allegedly attacked him inside a laundromat, police said.  According to public records, Silcock is a member of a Huntington Beach family that includes more than 40 adopted boys with special needs.

The Huntington Beach Park where a man was allegedly beaten with a skateboard is no stranger to crime, according to police. "It's an area where we need to keep a high visibility of police presence," Huntington Beach Police Chief Ken Small said. "Those kinds of incidents can happen pretty quickly. " Drug possession, loitering, battery and a single murder are among the crimes reported in the last five years.Nineteen counts of battery have been reported, five of them in 2012, along with eight cases of minors loitering and nine incidents of drug possession.

Seven people have been arrested on suspicion of a nationwide bank fraud scheme that may have deprived customers of more than $100 million, a spokesman from the Huntington Beach Police Department said. A federal task force that consisted of agents from the United States Secret Service and officers from the Huntington Beach police, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Police Department and Irvine Police Department arrested the suspects Aug. 21, according to a release from the Huntington police.

An unlicensed contractor was sentenced Friday to 16 months in jail for defrauding a Huntington Beach homeowner and a Yorba Linda family of more than $635,000 by taking their payments and failing to complete construction projects, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney's office. Alec Damos, 52, of Pawley's Island, S.C., pleaded guilty Feb. 20 in Orange County Superior Court to one felony count of unlicensed contracting for emergency residential repairs in a disaster area, one felony count of fraudulent use of a contractor's license, and one misdemeanor count of contracting for home improvement without a state license, according to the release.

After settling a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister Co., Robb Havassy ended up with 365 surfboards. Ever since then, he's set out to diminish that number. On Thursday, he'll be raffling off 150 of the boards in Huntington Beach. Sixteen years ago, the Costa Mesa resident painted and gifted a board to his friend - a Hollister Co. photographer who lived in Florida. When a photograph of Havassy's creation, with a purple phoenix on one side and a shield constructed from the words "peace," "love," "life" and "surf" on the other, reached the Ohio-headquartered apparel behemoth, it became a key part of the company's surf-centric ad campaign.

The class started out with 34 recruits -- upon graduation, there were only 20. "It takes a lot of effort, heart and help to complete this course," said Gary T. Knostman, graduate of Golden West College's Criminal Justice Training Center. "I couldn't have done it on my own." The 125th graduating class of Golden West College's Criminal Justice Training Center held its ceremonies in the larger and more spacious Robert B. Moore Theater at Orange Coast College on Friday.

Jeanne Tennant couldn't hold back her tears June 23 as she waited to see her son's name and picture raised up a light pole across from Huntington Beach City Hall. "It takes me back, and all my feelings, when he was there," she said. "I was a very nervous mother. " Her son, David Tennant, was among the first set of U.S. military personnel whose names and pictures were featured on the banners. He toured Iraq twice, his mother said. The city installed the first seven banners in its Hometown Hero program on Main Street's center median between Yorktown and Utica avenues.

Patrick Cottle does most of his work in a small shop in Norwalk, but he stays on call 24 hours a day. After all, he never knows when somebody is going to need a drum. Cottle, the owner of BoneYard Drums, has had bands call him at 10 p.m. en route to a gig, needing a small part for their drum kit. He’s had producers phone him at odd hours from the recording studio. Sometimes, drummers land at the airport and call him to provide an entire set for their upcoming show. For nearly three years, Cottle has made a living finding old and beat-up drums, outfitting them with new parts and selling them back to the music industry.

His nickname could be "Aqua Lung." His slogan could be: Banker by day, world-class swimmer by night. He is Richard Saeger, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist who has recently delved, or dived, back into the pool, breaking records all over again. Saeger, 41, who regularly trains at Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar High school pools, is fresh off a world-record performance in the 100-meter freestyle in the 40-44 age division at the Mission Viejo Masters Meet July 3. An Irvine resident since 1999, Saeger got back into competitive swimming in 2000 after taking a 14-year hiatus to focus on his career -- banking, basically.

A developer with local ties will try to make a long-delayed project - which eventually would bring condominiums, businesses and a hotel to downtown Huntington Beach - a reality. DJM Capital Partners announced in a press release last week that it purchased about 11 acres of the vacant 31-acre site designated for the Pacific City project. It will be the fourth developer to become involved in the project in the last eight years. Pacific City seeks to bring 516 residential units, shops, restaurants and an eight-story hotel to the site downtown on Pacific Coast Highway between First and Huntington streets.

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK Cops aren't like regular people -- at least that's what most people seem to think. It seems that most people have a bad opinion of cops, or none at all. I have to admit that I haven't always had a very good opinion of them. That changed when I got into journalism. My first job at a newspaper put me in contact with police officers on a weekly basis and I learned a lot about them. They are just like everyone else. They have families, they have lives outside of the police department and the same things that bother us, bother them.