PAGA reforms are a step in the right direction for California’s small businesses

• July 5, 2024

As a member of our local community and a decades-long advocate for significant legal reform in California, I am optimistic about the negotiated reforms signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom this week. 

As the Southern California regional director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CA CALA), our grassroots organization has long championed the need for reforming the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). We also have advocated for significant legal reforms to address abuses tied to the American Disability Act (ADA) and other tort reform efforts that would improve the business climate in our state. 

In the years leading up to these critical reforms being enacted, we would hear from local small business owners about the direct challenges of operating a business associated with frivolous lawsuits tied to PAGA. 

PAGA was originally signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis in 2004 to give employees the means to sue their employers for labor code violations. But PAGA instead became an abused policy with systemic misuse and exploitation through the courts. 

Essentially, bad actors, and the trial lawyers who took up their cases, were able to sue small businesses and cash in on settlements even when a suit seemed suspect at best. Many small businesses who were sued under PAGA did not have the monetary means to defend themselves in court. Many chose to settle to not risk losing their businesses. Many small business owners who did choose to fight were forced to later shut their doors when the court fees eventually became too expensive to continue operating.

The reform legislation enacted by Gov. Newsom on July 1, is a step in the right direction for California’s local small business economy. These reforms address the need for certainty that small businesses need to survive and tackles some of the more egregious issues with PAGA. 

Employers need to know they can operate in a fair and competitive business environment and not one that is legally stacked against them. These reforms help do just that by leveling the playing field. In the past, a PAGA lawsuit being brought on a small business could be a death sentence. Many who didn’t close left the state taking good paying jobs with them.

In the agreed upon reforms, we see many of the fixes CA CALA has long championed. The newly enacted law aims to lessen the burdens being placed on small business owners. The changes in the agreed upon reform package look to be much better for both the employer and employee. It also gives employers an incentive to come into compliance with PAGA policies. What a novel concept!  

The reforms also set a statute of limitations on when a claim can be filed, and the reasonable requirement that the plaintiff personally suffered each of the violations alleged. Both are key reforms that will limit the ability to file frivolous lawsuits.

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Thankfully, the reforms should also put a stop to some of the more egregious examples of PAGA lawsuits filed including those for typos on wage statements. Some employers faced lawsuits for failing to place the beginning date and ending date on a check stub even when the employee received his check on time and the check cleared the bank. Reforms also addressed a flaw that penalizes an employer, who pays employees on a weekly basis, being subject to paying twice the penalties compared to an employer who pays employees every other week.

Just as the new PAGA reform law is a step in the right direction for California’s small businesses, it’s no secret that additional reforms are needed in legislative sessions to come. The new reforms will certainly give back some of the needed certainty that businesses have not had for quite some time. And that is certainly a good thing for local employers, employees, and the future of our small business economy. For now, businesses can breathe a sigh of relief but there is still much more work to be done to curb lawsuit abuse in our state.

Maryann Marino is the Southern California Regional Director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CA CALA)

​ Orange County Register 

California rents, per square foot, rank 5th-highest in US

• July 5, 2024

“How expensive?” tracks measurements of California’s totally unaffordable housing market.

The pain: California apartment dwellers not only face sky-high rents, they don’t get much space for the dollars they pay to landlords.

The source: My trusty spreadsheet reviewed a RentCafe study of average rents and apartment sizes by state as of March 2024, tracking what kind of bang for the buck California tenants get.

The pinch

California rents in early 2024 equaled $2.96 per square foot, the fifth-highest expense among the states and 55% above the $1.91 per square foot charged nationally.

And where is this cost yardstick higher? Washington, D.C., is tops at $3.20 per square foot, New York is at $3.18, Massachusetts is at $3.06, and Hawaii is at $2.98.

Now, if you’re seeking a space bargain, North Dakota is the spot by this math at $1.08 per square foot. Next is Oklahoma at $1.17, Arkansas at $1.19, South Dakota at $1.23, and Mississippi at $1.26.

Oh, California’s big economic rivals? Texas was 29th highest at $1.64 and Florida was No. 19 at $2.

Pressure points

How did we get to this cost absurdity? Well, it’s a painful mix of California’s tiny units at big prices.

Let’s start with what space a renter gets.

California’s average apartment size was the 11th-smallest nationally at 851 square feet, which is 5% below the 899 square feet for the U.S.

The nation’s smallest apartments were found in Alaska at 703 square feet, then D.C. at 747, Vermont at 813, and New Mexico at 828. Texas was the 19th smallest at 880.

The biggest rentals were in Georgia at 1,016, Mississippi at 1,014, South Carolina at 998, West Virginia at 989, Alabama at 984 – and Florida at 970.

Next up: What the landlords are charging.

California rents ranked fourth-highest in the U.S. at $2,521 a month. That’s 47% above the nation’s $1,713 average.

Other pricier places to rent were Massachusetts at $2,714, New York at $2,673 and Hawaii at $2,522. Florida was No. 9 at $1,939. Texas was No. 31 at $1,441.

Renting’s cheapest spots were found in Oklahoma at $1,001, North Dakota at $1,048, Arkansas at $1,067, South Dakota at $1,106 and Wyoming at $1,120.

Bottom line

California is tough enough for the typical renter’s wallet, even before measuring the cost against paychecks.

California monthly rents compared with per-capita income equals 38% of pay. That’s the third-biggest affordability bite among the states. Only Hawaii at 46% and New York at 40% were worse.

And where’s the smallest shares of income paid by renters? That’s North Dakota and Wyoming at 17%, and South Dakota at 19%.

By the way, this rent pain in Texas ranked No. 35 at 26%, but Florida costs were No. 8 at 34%.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

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​ Orange County Register 

Madame X painting returns to Pageant of the Master lineup as show starts

• July 5, 2024

Ten years ago, Elise Allen didn’t know what she was getting into when she volunteered to be part of the cast at the Pageant of the Masters.

“I totally went in blind,” the San Clemente mother of two said, adding all she knew was that it was a seven-day commitment every other week for July and August. “I had never even seen the show and had no idea of how it worked or what the pieces would be.”

Allen was chosen to portray Madame X, a painting by the late American artist John Singer Sargent. The experience hooked her, and when she was offered the part again this year for the pageant’s 91st show, titled À La Mode: The Art of Fashion and opening on Friday, she didn’t hesitate.

In the artwork, Allen is made up to portray Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, a young French socialite known for her beauty and the topic of gossip for her infidelities. The somewhat controversial Sargent painting debuted in the Paris Salon in 1884.

In the painting, Gautreau is shown wearing a black satin dress with jeweled straps. One strap hung off her shoulder when Sargent first painted her in his private studio. When the painting debuted in Paris, that image caused such a stir that Sargent later redid the piece with the strap back on her shoulder.

“I love Sargent so much, I just couldn’t say no,” Allen said. “I love the story behind it. It’s a beautiful painting and I got to see it at the Met in New York.”

This year, 30 tableaux vivants, or living pictures, will be created when cast members including Allen appear in paintings, sculptures or renderings based on their measurements.

There will also be other surprises longtime pageant attendees may not expect to see, including the recreation of a giant high-heeled shoe made by Alexander McQueen in 2010. The shoe comes from the McQueen’s Angels and Demon collection.

The show is produced with two casts of 150 people who rotate each week. The volunteers, wearing costumes, makeup and headpieces, pose in the artwork, doing their best to stand perfectly still for more than a minute. Allen is part of the blue cast.

The show — a tribute to fashion in art — is produced by Diane Challis Davy, the pageant’s longtime director who developed her passion for fashion as a college student studying stage costume design.

“I love costume history,” Challis Davy said, adding that she has designed costumes in the past.

Other artworks that will appear in the pageant are by French artists Édouard Manet and James Tissot and British painters Thomas Gainsborough and David Hockney.

There will also be brooches, pendants from early 1900s jewelers and figurines by artist and designer Erté. Legendary Hollywood designer Edith Head will also be recognized with sketches and movie posters from her collaboration with director Alfred Hitchcock, Challis Davy said.

“Modern fashion shows are very theatrical, and designers are always pushing the envelope of outrageousness and showmanship,” Challis Davy said. “The 2019 Dolce and Gabbana runway show was an extraordinary spectacle. I’ve also been inspired by the annual Met Gala ball and shows like ‘Project Runway’ and ‘Fashion Police.’”

Challis Davy, who produced her first pageant in 1996, said fashion is an art, and she appreciates all the craftsmanship and hard work that goes into designing, pattern making, stitching and embellishing.

This year’s production also required Reagan Foy, the pageant’s costume director, to step up her own creativity.

“At the pageant, most of our costumes are usually painted cotton muslin, so it will be a special pleasure to let her work with a variety of luxe materials,” Challis Davy said. “I think we are both pretty excited about the opportunity to showcase some show-stopping outfits.”

Some of Foy’s unique creations will be part of the show’s opening act: a fashion show. The styles shown on stage come directly from paintings later displayed as living pictures.

Madame X is making a return, Challis Davy said, because it fits perfectly into her tribute to the Metropolitan Museum of Art that ends Act I.

“It’s an iconic black dress and the whole scandal of Sargent and how he painted it and how the strap slipped off the shoulder,” she said. “It was a 20th-century wardrobe malfunction, and it fits perfectly into our theme.”

Challis Davy said she is excited that Allen — who has volunteered at the pageant almost every year since her debut in 2014 — is returning to play the part.

“She looks great in it,” Challis Davy said. “She has her movement down perfectly.”

If you go

What: Pageant of the Masters

When: 8:30 p.m. nightly through Aug. 30

Where: Festival of Arts, 650 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna Beach

Cost: $35 and up

Information: PageantTickets.com

​ Orange County Register 

Trump wants Republicans to vote early. In California, that’s a message the GOP has pushed for years

• July 5, 2024

Former President Donald Trump has instructions for GOP voters this fall: Cast those ballots early.

The Trump campaign recently launched what it’s calling the “Swamp the Vote” effort, encouraging Republicans to vote early or submit an absentee ballot, ensure registration status and encourage other Trump supporters to vote as well. That’s a reversal for the former president, who has long decried mail voting as “corrupt.”

For California Republicans, that plan may sound a little familiar.

Over multiple cycles now, the California Republican Party has implored voters to drop off ballots as soon as possible

In California, registered voters are mailed ballots about a month before Election Day. Voters can fill them out as soon as they receive them and return them by posting in the mail, by sliding them through the slot of a ballot drop box or by delivering them in person at a vote center.

“We may not agree with all the means that Democrats have made legal here in California, but until we elect more Republicans, we have to make sure we’re playing by the same rules,” said CAGOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson.

“If we allow Democrats to run up the score on us for three-quarters of the game, it’s going to be very difficult to make that all up in one day,” she said.

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A benefit to voters casting ballots early: The party will know who it needs to target and encourage to vote.

“Part of it is a benefit to the voter,” said Patterson. “You will stop getting mail from me. You’ll stop getting phone calls. You’ll stop getting door knocks … all of the ways that we utilize to turn out a voter, you’ll stop getting that, and you can go about your day knowing that your vote is in.”

But for the party, it’s also economics.

“When we are spending time and resources turning out a voter who will likely vote but has not voted yet, we cannot move on to new universes, people who are less likely to vote,” said Patterson, who was elected to helm the CAGOP in 2019.

She pointed to Assemblymember Greg Wallis, who won his 47th district seat in Riverside and San Bernardino counties by just 85 votes.

Republicans who voted early in that race allowed the party to target those who may not have otherwise voters, she said.

The CAGOP has embraced early voting for several years now — the party also adopted ballot harvesting in recent elections, where people can turn in a ballot for someone else, under certain conditions — and Patterson said this year’s primary showed success.

More than 300,000 Republicans (about 14% of all Republicans who voted) returned a ballot earlier this year than they traditionally did, according to CAGOP figures. And more than 200,000 (8% of Republicans who voted) had never returned a ballot early but did so in the primary, said Patterson.

“We’re seeing the work that we’re doing pay off,” she said.

Still, it hasn’t been easy to convince Republicans to relinquish their ballots early or to someone else, party leaders said.

“The natural reaction was, ‘Hell no, I’m not giving you my ballot,’” said Randall Avila, the executive director of the Orange County GOP.

The former president changing his position on early voting has helped assuage concerns for some, Avila said, but the party has also worked for the last two cycles on building trust in neighborhoods.

OCGOP, for example, assigns volunteers to be “neighborhood precinct captains” in their own neighborhoods. They’d go door-to-door and talk to voters, their neighbors and friends, about upcoming elections.

It’s a lot easier to hand over your ballot to or receive voting information from someone you trust, Avila said.

This year, the OCGOP’s main focus is targeting former Republican voters who changed their registration to no party preference or libertarian, bringing them back under the GOP umbrella. And they want to encourage voters who may not cast a ballot every election cycle to do so this year “in whatever method they’re willing to do,” said Avila.

While pushing Republicans to vote early this year, Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, continued to peddle falsehoods about his 2020 election loss.

He also vowed to institute same-day voting, voter ID requirements and paper ballots for future elections if he wins a second term in the White House.

“We’re going to do it properly. We’re going to have good, secure, beautiful elections,” Trump said.

Multiple investigations following the 2020 election found very few cases of voter fraud — not to a scale that could have impacted the outcome of that contest.

Trump, however, was convicted in May of 34 felony counts related to a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actress.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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​ Orange County Register 

Murder by suicide: Serial killer and a book lead to more questions in Linda Cummings’ case

• July 5, 2024

In June 2018, the FBI and several California law enforcement agencies asked for the public’s help in identifying the “Golden State Killer,” a mysterious nocturnal serial murderer they linked by common DNA to 13 homicides, more than 50 rapes and hundreds of burglaries between the early 1970s through 1986.

Editor’s note

Former Orange County Register reporter Larry Welborn covered Linda Cummings’ story from 1974 until his retirement in 2014 and still pursued the truth in the following years. He wrote about it in the new book “Murder by Suicide: A reporter unravels a true case of rape, betrayal and lies,” which is available on Amazon. This is part five of a seven-part series.

Part one: 50 years ago, Linda Cummings died and the pursuit of the truth started

Part two: Search for evidence leads to more heartbreak

Part three: After 31 years, an arrest is made

Part four: Judge’s ruling a ‘gut-punch’

Part six: Coming Saturday

A reader contacted me and asked if it could be Louis Wiechecki?

For a moment there, I thought, yeah, maybe that’s him.

But in checking records, Wiechecki was cleared, and another man was later identified as the serial monster.

Before I could report back, the reader pinged me again on Instant Messenger. She had an update: Louie Wiechecki was dead.

The life-long smoker died of congestive heart failure in April 2018 after suffering for years from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The obituary posted on dignitymemorial.com said simply: “Lou, beloved husband and friend.”

I called one of Lou ‘s neighbors in Henderson to verify that the information was accurate. Mary MacGregor said there had been a nice turnout at his memorial.

She also said she remembered me as the reporter who was there the day Louie was arrested by SWAT, and she wondered if I’d read Louie’s book.

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “What book?”

•••

“Through the Eyes of a Criminal,” a self-published novel by Lou Stanley – the name Wiechecki changed his to – was a revenge tale about a juvenile delinquent-turned-master criminal who commits kidnappings and murders to finance his vendetta against “the cops, prosecutors, and others who’d tried to ruin my life.” Chief among the others, it turned out, was a “Los Angeles area journalist” who had written about his link to a cold case rape-murder that originally went down as a suicide.

According to Wiechecki’s protagonist, the journalist needed to be “sliced and diced. Nothing too messy, just enough to make sure he dies.”

My literary close encounter with Louie’s black heart reminded me there were still questions I’d not yet answered. The one that bothered me most after all these years was who Deputy Coroner Joe Stevens called that night in 1974 after Linda died? Who was the voice on the other end of the line who convinced him to rule it a suicide?

Goaded by Louie’s vengeance fantasy, I made finding out a priority.

•••

A year later, I sat across a table at Wood Ranch in Irvine from a retired Santa Ana policeman who had been first on scene at the Aladdin Apartments in 1974 in response to an emergency call about a suicide in Apartment 8.

Larry DeSantis agreed to talk about the case he never forgot. “It still haunts me,” he said. “That guy got away with murder.”

He remembered that day like it was 48 hours ago. Wiechecki was his first contact at the Aladdin Apartments. He recalled the first words out of Louie’s mouth: “She committed suicide. She’s in there.”

And Louie’s continuing obsession with suicide – what DeSantis called “his shtick the whole time. He was adamant about the suicide part. It was really weird.” He said Wiechecki kept telling detectives that Linda had been a mental patient.

Deputy Coroner Stevens wasn’t someone easily fooled, DeSantis said. In fact, Stevens’ first impression of the death scene was that it appeared staged, plus he was disturbed by the rare event of a female killing herself in the nude.

But alone in the coroner’s office a few hours later, Stevens put aside all those doubts and suspicions based on a single late-evening phone call he made to a local telephone number for Dr. Vincent Mark, supposedly Linda’s personal physician treating her for depression.

The voice on the other end of that line convinced Stevens that Linda had been hospitalized recently for depression, was taking the powerful anti-psychotic drug Thorazine and was “very suicidal.”

More than 30 years later, the real Dr. Mark told Orange County investigators he didn’t know Linda Cummings; he didn’t treat psychiatric patients, and he never prescribed Thorazine.

“I did not talk with any coroner … in ’74,” the real Dr. Mark told investigators. He paused for emphasis. “No, I did not.”

So, who was it? Who told Stevens the big lie that persuaded him despite all the conflicting evidence at the scene that Linda’s death was self-inflicted? How did Stevens get the local doctor’s name and a phone number in the first place?

“Because Louie wrote it down on a piece of paper,” DeSantis told me, his memory still scanning the Aladdin courtyard from 45 years away.

“Did he give it to you?” I asked.

“No – “ He started, but stopped in mid-response. “Wait a minute. He did give it to me. I passed it on. It had the name of the doctor on it. He gave it to me and I passed it on to Sgt. Enos.”

Yes, Louie no doubt used his own phone number – or that of a nearby pay phone – a phone he could easily monitor over the next several hours. When Stevens reached for his phone that night to call Linda’s doctor, it was Wiechecki waiting to take the call. And the voice that answered, “Doctor Mark,” was the voice of Linda’s killer.

And when the deputy coroner completed his report with a big red SUICIDE stamp, he pretty much doomed any future prosecutions.

When Judge Fasel dismissed murder charges against Louie – in the face of faded memories, dead witnesses and lost evidence – it was the end of Linda’s shot at redemption through the justice system. But good journalism, operating in the court of public opinion, can sometimes do what is beyond the power of justice and the courts.

The official record still had her story wrong. It had to be fixed.

Coming Saturday, part six: Linda Cummings’ brother seeks an important change.

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​ Orange County Register 

Bureaucrats no longer judge, jury and executioner

• July 5, 2024

SACRAMENTO – After reading progressives analyze the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, I’m wondering if many of them read it or understand the underlying doctrine the court overturned. Common overwrought hot takes claim Loper Bright will obliterate federal regulations, give corporations power to self-regulate and even usher in fascism. Seriously.

In reality, the court simply put federal bureaucracies in their rightful constitutional place, rather than allowing them to make stuff up as they implement ambiguous statutes. For a quick grade-school refresher: The legislative branch (Congress) writes laws. The executive (president and federal agencies) executes laws. The judiciary (federal courts) interprets law. Each branch is independent and serves as a check on the others as a means to limit power.

In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court concocted a doctrine in an obscure case (Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council) called “Chevron deference.” The court determined that when a federal law is ambiguous – and Congress often writes imprecise laws – the courts must defer to whatever the agency decides with some caveats. Although the decision wasn’t viewed as particularly significant at the time, it gave agencies the power to fill in the blanks. It influenced thousands of cases.

This gave the executive vast powers over the judiciary, which is the proper place to mediate disputes. For average citizens, it obliterated their ability to stand up to governmental abuse. Chevron deference only applied at the federal level, but let’s say you have a dispute with the authorities. Would you want a) the agency’s opinion to be the final word or b) just one part of a record adjudicated by a judge? In a free society, the answer (b) is easy.

To progressives, whose entire political project is built upon empowering the administrative state, this is an outrage. Vox’s Ian Millhiser complainsthat the decision “expands the court’s authority so that it is also the final word on thousands of questions that hardly anyone cares about at all – questions like what the cable television rates should be on one of Hawaii’s islands, or how much nitrogen can be discharged by a wastewater treatment plant in Massachusetts.”

Try to unpack the elitism in that statement. Many people care about those questions, as they directly infringe on the freedoms and finances of Americans who are on the receiving end of arbitrary rule-making. Loper Bright involves small New Jersey fishing fleets that were required, by edict from the National Marine Fisheries Service, to pay $700 a day for federal monitors to protect against overfishing.

Congress wrote a law requiring government overseers to tag along on these boats when they entered certain waters, but the fishermen objected to paying the observers. That was never in the law. Enforcement specifics were ambiguous. The self-serving payment scheme was the idea of the agency – and then Chevron deference basically forced courts to defer to its decision. But no one cares, right?

The decision will not obliterate regulations, even if many businesses use it to file lawsuits against similarly absurd agency creations. As Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority: “The very point of the traditional tools of statutory construction … is to resolve statutory ambiguities. That is no less true when the ambiguity is about the scope of an agency’s own power – perhaps the occasion on which abdication in favor of the agency is least appropriate.”

In other words, courts might not be experts in herring populations, but they are experts in dispute resolution. And it’s no surprise that government agencies, when given carte blanche to rule on their own powers, will almost certainly err in their own direction. As Public Choice Theory explains, government officials are not unbiased doers of the public good. They pursue their own institutional interests.

The court also noted that agency decisions change over time, so how are normal citizens supposed to comply with such arbitrariness? Contra progressive hysterics, this ruling does not stop judges from considering agency expertise. It’s just the agency no longer is judge, jury and executioner. Maybe Congress might even spend more time drafting laws in a precise manner. (And courts have long expected adjustments to Chevron, so it’s unlikely to cause earthquakes.)

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Ironically, progressives are now hyperventilating (and perhaps with good reason) about the prospect of another Trump administration. Some Trump allies have released a 900-plus page document (Project 2025) that advocates having the likely new administration exert “unitary” political control over federal agencies. If that happens, shouldn’t they celebrate Loper Bright, which lets judges rather than agency officials make the final call?

Some progressive critics have forgotten – or maybe never knew – that Chevron deference originally was viewed as a conservative victory as it forced the Environmental Protection Agency to defer to President Reagan’s administration appointees. It’s a warning for conservatives, too. Be careful that your short-term victories (did someone say presidential immunity?) don’t cause you 40 years of sorrow.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

South Coast Repertory to perform final outdoor series at San Juan Capistrano Mission

• July 5, 2024

It’s the last chance to catch the Outside South Coast Repertory play series this summer at the San Juan Capistrano Mission.

Going on four seasons, this is the final year for the outdoor theater program at the Mission, said SCR spokesperson Brian Robin.

Since 2021, the Mission has collaborated with SCR, the theater company behind the Emmes/Benson Theatre Center in Costa Mesa, when the COVID-19 pandemic prevented live indoor performances, said Robin.

“It was our way of returning to live performances, and we approached the Mission about partnering with us,” Robin said. “We have enjoyed our time at the Mission and are grateful for our collaboration with them.”

Representatives from the Mission did not respond to requests for comment.

SCR is still exploring options for future outdoor productions, Robin said.

The final show hosted at the Mission, located at 26801 Ortega Highway, through the Outside South Coast Repertory series is “The Old Man and The Old Moon.”

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The play, directed by SCR’s Associate Artistic Director Kim Martin-Cotten, follows a moon-keeper who wakes to find his wife has gone missing, according to the Mission’s website. His search leads him through bizarre encounters and into the belly of a fish, all in pursuit of his wife.

This show will run from July 20 through Aug. 11, starting at 7:30 p.m. each night. An American Sign Language version of the show will be performed on Aug. 4 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased on South Coast Repertory’s website.

​ Orange County Register 

2 killed, 3 hurt in Huntington Beach attack; 1 in custody

• July 5, 2024

A stabbing in Huntington Beach left two people dead and three others injured with non-life threatening wounds, with one person in custody, authorities said.

The attack was reported about 11:15 p.m. Thursday, July 4, near 16th Street and Pecan Avenue, according to Huntington Beach police.

It is a neighborhood of multi-family buildings.

“Upon arrival, officers located several victims with significant injuries,” police said.

“The investigation is still ongoing and more information will be provided as we are able to,” police said.

Authorities told Fox11, the victims had been stabbed. It was unclear if the person who was in custody was one of the injured.

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​ Orange County Register