BRIEFLY IN THE NEWS Woman assaulted outside...

BRIEFLY IN

THE NEWS

Woman assaulted outside gas station

A 35-year-old woman reportedly suffered a shoulder injury on

Tuesday afternoon after a teenager snatched money from her hand when

she was walking to her car at a gas station in Costa Mesa, police

said.

The woman was holding some money in her hand as she was walking

outside the Texaco station in the 2500 block of Harbor Boulevard,

Costa Mesa Lt. Dale Birney said.

“She was then assaulted by a person described as a male between 14

and 17 years old,” he said. “[The teenager] snatched the money and

fled.”

The woman went to Hoag Hospital for her shoulder and reported the

incident, Birney said. No further description of the teenager was

available.

No charges yet in doomsday case

The Riverside County district attorney is yet to file charges

against a Corona couple who reportedly told police they had poisoned

their children because they believed the world was coming to an end,

Corona police officials said Wednesday.

When Corona Police, acting on a tip, arrived at the family’s home,

they found the oldest son left alone.

Costa Mesa Police found two of their three children, 6 and 10

years old, in a local hotel Saturday night, Lt. Dale Birney said.

Meanwhile, the parents returned to their home and were detained by

the waiting Corona officers.

“Our officers merely took the children from the hotel to the

hospital,” he said. “It’s Corona Police’s case.”

The couple had told police that they had given drugs to their two

youngest children at the hotel. But police said tests determined that

the children were unharmed and had not been given any drugs. The

parents were taken to a mental facility in Riverside for a

psychiatric evaluation, and the three children were taken into

protective custody, officials said.

Police were alerted to the family by a Corona mortuary where the

couple had tried to buy cemetery plots early Saturday, saying they

were to be put to sleep that night and the world was going to end on

March 30.

The mortuary’s general manager referred the couple to Sunnyslope

Cemetery, where they paid $14,000 cash for five plots, officials

said.

-- Deepa Bharath