Escondido Bomb Scare

A half hour before the Escondido City Council meeting of December 15 was set to begin, two police officer stormed the council chambers looking for a bomb. According to a witness, the officers pulled right up to the front door on motorcycles and rushed in. Three audience members who had planned to speak fled the building.

One witness, Melinda Santa Cruz of Escondido, said she was attending the meeting to speak out against police brutality. According to her, officers had badgered, bullied, and harassed her during a recent protest out in front of Parkway Pet Clinic.

"I didn't think the police were there (at the meeting) because of me," she said. "But it was just too much. How ironic that they would be there to protect me on the night I was there to complain about them."

She went on to say that officers concentrated on the area underneath the desk where councilwoman Olga Diaz sits. "They returned to that spot again and again," she said. Later, Santa Cruz overheard an officer talk

to the city clerk. He said the police were on the lookout for an intoxicated man wearing a brown jacket. "In light of the school board shooting in Pensacola Florida yesterday," she said. "We were terrified."