A woman pedestrian was critically injured in a hit and run and an Arcadia police officer suffered injuries in a second mishap, both in heavy traffic outside Santa Anita Park. The female victim also suffered the theft of her purse just minutes before the auto mishap.
The death of Sean O'Brien who was killed walking across Campus Drive from the High School, has caused increased concern over the need for greater traffic safety measures in the area.
James Bates of Arcadia was ordered to spend 6 months in county jail for the freeway deaths of Denise Wilson and David Hawkins. A two-year sentence was suspended. Bates is on five years probation and must abstain from use of alcoholic beverages. Though Bates had been drinking during the afternoon before, his blood alcohol level was only .03 after the 1 A.M. accident.
Despite the protests of relatives and friends of the victims, 21 year old Arcadian Jim Bates will face only misdemeanor charges for the freeway deaths of two people. Bates drove across three traffic lanes in an attempt to make the Baldwin Avenue offramp of the Foothill Freeway. The accident happened on April 16, 1982.
Arcadia police, working with other law enforcement agencies, uncovered a major auto theft ring operating in the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys. Two men were arrested and four cars were recovered from a warehouse in Arcadia.
The Arcadia Police Department has filed murder charges against Lisa Melinda Welchert, an alleged drunk driver involved in a fatal accident on Huntington Drive which killed John Chan.
A memorial trust fund is being set up to finance the education of the children of Steven and Cathy Jones, an Arcadia couple who were killed in and auto accident August 17 near Val Verde.
The Arcadia intersection of Huntington Drive and Sunset Blvd. was one of the nine worst in Los Angeles County in 1998 according to a study by the Automobile Association of Southern California.
22-year-old Miguel Fernandez of Arcadia was thrown from the back of a pickup truck and killed when the truck careened out of control and flipped upside down at the intersection of Del Mar Boulevard and Hill Avenue.