Guard who killed sword-wielder at Scientology center won't face charges

A security guard who shot and killed a man wielding samurai swords on the grounds of a Scientology facility in Hollywood will not face criminal charges, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Wednesday.

The decision by prosecutors was in line with the conclusion of Los Angeles police detectives, who determined that the guard, a 64-year-old retired Seal Beach police officer, acted in defense of himself and other guards at the church's Celebrity Centre.

A former Scientologist, Mario Majorski, 48, died from a single gunshot wound in the Nov. 23 incident. Majorski, a Hollywood native who had moved to Oregon several years ago, had driven a rented convertible onto the church grounds and confronted the guards with swords. According to a prosecutor's report, Majorski threatened the guards and said "something about revenge." He dropped one sword and began walking back to his car, but then unsheathed a second sword and said he would kill anyone who tried to arrest him, the report stated. The guard shot him after he made "one last run" with the sword at the guards, according to the report.

Det. Wendi Berndt said security videotape left no doubt that the guard was justified in shooting Majorski.

"The video is so very, very, very vivid," she said. "This man was mentally ill, and it's just a wonder he didn't kill people."

Majorski had made at least a dozen threatening phone calls to Scientology offices in Oregon and California, according to the church. Berndt said detectives interviewed Majorski's relatives and compiled information about recent run-ins with the law, including an incident in which he threatened an Oregon judge and another in which he was accused of threatening a tow truck driver.

-- Harriet Ryan
SANTA ANA
Officer convicted of felony battery

An off-duty police officer from Central California was convicted Wednesday of throwing a man down concrete stairs and fracturing his skull at a baseball game.

A jury found David Myles Hackman, 36, a San Benito County sheriff's deputy from Los Banos, guilty of one felony count of battery causing serious bodily injury. He faces a maximum of three years in prison at his Jan. 9 sentencing.

Hackman, a Red Sox fan, was leaving Angel Stadium in Anaheim on Oct. 6, 2004, when Angels fan Christopher Slama tapped him on the head with an inflatable thunder stick, prosecutors said.

Hackman mistakenly thought that Slama's brother Daniel had tapped him, and followed Daniel Slama up a set of stairs. Hackman grabbed Slama's throat with one hand and the back of his shirt with the other, threw him backward down the stadium steps and ran down to kick Daniel in the leg as he lay on the ground. The victim suffered a fractured skull and a spinal injury.

-- Tony Barboza
SANTA ANA
Murder jury may be deadlocked

After deliberating for 5 1/2 days, a Santa Ana jury indicated Wednesday it was deadlocked on the charge against a woman who is on trial for the 1969 murder of her toddler in Huntington Beach, and requested testimony of key witnesses be reread before jurors make their final decision.

The seven-woman, five-man jury will continue to deliberate in the trial of Donna Prentice, 61, who left Huntington Beach in 1969 with her boyfriend after her daughter disappeared. Prentice is accused of helping to kill the girl.

Prosecutors say Prentice's role in the crime was to bury the body in a canyon in south Orange County.

The body of 3-year-old Michelle Pulsifer has never been found. Prentice's ex-boyfriend, James Michael Kent, who had also been arrested in connection with the girl's alleged murder, has since died.

Prentice's lawyers argued that Prentice was a loving mother who was abused by Kent, and that Kent was the probable killer.

In Prentice's first murder trial in 2007, the jury deadlocked 10 to 2, leaning toward conviction.

Two jurors requested Wednesday to be read the testimony of two key witness- es: Jamie Kent and Richard Pulsifer Jr., the sons of Kent and Prentice from other marriages.


In 1969, Prentice and Kent abruptly left their Huntington Beach home and moved to Illinois in 1969, taking Jamie Kent and Richard Pulsifer Jr., both 6-years-old at the time, but not Michelle.

-- My-Thuan Tran
NORTHRIDGE
CSUN seeks financial probe

The president of Cal State Northridge has asked campus police to investigate a former employee accused of "questionable financial dealings," according to a news release.

Shirley Bowens, a longtime advisor in the Office of International Programs, was placed on administrative leave last summer during an internal investigation of a June complaint of financial "irregularities" and has since retired, authorities said.

An outside investigator was enlisted in the fall, leading to President Jolene Koester's decision Tuesday to call in police.

"The in-depth investigation raises the possibility of criminal wrongdoing. I thus turned over the matter to law enforcement for criminal investigation," Koester said.

Police Chief Anne P. Glavin said the allegations involve a "significant" amount of money, and if true, could lead to felony charges. Bowens could not be reached for comment.

-- Gale Holland
LOS ANGELES
Murder suspect is 'devastated'

A Swedish hip-hop artist accused of murdering a jazz pianist in an episode of road rage "is devastated by these events," his attorney said Wednesday.

The lawyer for David Jassy, 34, said the fact that the dead man, John Osnes, 55, was "a fellow musician makes it all the sadder."

Jassy's arraignment was postponed to Dec. 17 to allow his attorney, Donald Etra, more time to prepare.

Jassy, a rapper and songwriter who arrived in the United States in October, punched, kicked and drove over Osnes after a confrontation in a Hollywood crosswalk, police allege. The assault began, authorities say, after Osnes, who was crossing the intersection on foot, struck the front of Jassy's SUV as it edged into his path.

Jassy's girlfriend, Therese Fischer, was in court. Police say she was in the SUV when Jassy allegedly attacked Osnes. Witnesses to the Nov. 23 incident include an off-duty Anaheim police officer and two vacationing patrolmen from Australia.

Half a dozen of Osnes' friends attended the hearing. Jim Crowley, a friend of 25 years, said the fact that both men were musicians was not the only irony in the case. Osnes, who grew up in Minnesota, was "100% Norwegian" and very proud of his Scandinavian ancestry, Crowley said.

"It doesn't seem right that these two people would collide like this. Jassy's life is ruined. John's life is gone. Everybody is devastated and for nothing," he said.

Jassy is being held in lieu of $1-million bail. A prosecutor said he would seek an order to move Jassy's passport from the jail property lockup to court custody.

-- Harriet Ryan
LOS ANGELES
Hahn says voters should pick supt.

City Councilwoman Janice Hahn called Wednesday for her colleagues to consider allowing voters to elect the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

One day after school board members postponed a vote on district Supt. David Brewer III, Hahn said she will would introduce a motion to begin studying the possibility of a directly elected education executive.

Hahn, who represents such neighborhoods as San Pedro and Watts, said she is tired of the politics that surround the superintendent selection. Voters would need to amend the City Charter to put such a change into effect.

"I think there needs to be a real reorganization so that somebody could actually come in and be a real superintendent of that district," she said.

-- David Zahniser


Source: latimes.com