The incident took place Thursday around 12:19 p.m. near 16th Street and Imperial Avenue, outside of a construction site. Witnesses and survivors told about the terrifying moment that pedestrians were crushed under the weight of a walkway collapse in East Village. The incident took place Thursday around 12:19 p.m. near 16th Street and Imperial Avenue, outside of a construction site. According to San Diego fire officials, a walkway built to protect pedestrians instead sent them running for their lives. What followed was chaos and panic. One woman, identified as Tina Allen, watched in horror as her husband was trapped inside. “I was walking through the boardwalk — everyone was eating lunch and walking around — and I was walking out to go meet my husband, the whole thing collapsed, with everyone under it,” she said. Abigail Ruckerman was walking with a friend when the collapse happened. “We were right here talking and out of nowhere, the wood started falling down and they were like run, started running and the thing hit him, fell on top of us,” she said.Like a series of dominoes, she said the wall came tumbling down with part of it landing on her foot.Ariel Medina, 34, was uninjured but saw a board fall onto the back of a man she was talking with.”It was a living nightmare,” Medina said. “The whole thing just caved in. People were trapped.” Morris Choo, 35, heard the crash from a store where he was buying a lottery ticket moments after chatting with fellow shelter residents along the walkway. Choo ran outside to find a trapped friend who recently moved from Chicage with his wife and was trying to get back on his feet while battling epilepsy. “His whole head was split open,” Choo said. “He was jelly.”When it was over, 16 people were hurt, three of them critically. Those critically injured include a 60-year-old woman, a 50-year-old man, and a 57-year-old woman, fire officials said. The ages of the victims range from 16 to 64-years old. NBC 7/39 learned the incident was caught on surveillance tape, according to officials at St. Vincent de Paul. However the tape has not been released to the media as of Thursday night. Father Joe Carroll, president of St. Vincent de Paul Village, said many of those injured had just eaten lunch or were living at the homeless shelter he runs across the street. The shelter had served lunch to about 1,000 people.Nine ambulances tended to the injured who were scattered on the street on stretchers. The walkway was adjacent to a construction site, managed by Allgire General Contractors, Inc. of Carlsbad. The building was designed to have 275 units for low-income residents. Construction started about a year ago and was scheduled to be completed early next year. “The site is secured. We are very concerned about those injured individuals and we are working with Cal/Osha officials at this time,” Allgire said in a statement. Allgire General was fined three times over the last decade for safety violations, according to U.S. Department of Labor records. The cause of the collapse is under investigation.

Some resources are saying divorce rates are skyrocketing up to a 60% divorce rate for first time marriages. Second and third marriages have about a 20% chance of lasting. In times like these its smart to have a quality family law attorney. If you or a friend is going through a divorce contact a San Diego divorce lawyer at Kraffert & Shaffer. Not only are they great at what they do but they handle cases with great care and respect for their clients.

Everybody likes options so if you’d like, another recommendation I have for a San Diego divorce attorney is Wilkinson Finkbiener. They understand the emotional and financial issues that face men and women who are contemplating a change, or being forced into a change, of family dynamics.

I hope this helps, best to you and your family.

Jose Leon Jr. was identified by the Medical Examiners Office as the victim of a motorcycle crash on I-5 at about 3:15 yesterday morning. The Medical Examiner’s Office said Leon was driving north on I-5 just north of Dairy Mart Road about 3:15 a.m. when he lost control and the motorcycle struck the center divider. The motorcycle then skidded across several lanes of the freeway. California Highway Patrol officers and San Diego Fire-Rescue Department paramedics responded, but Leon was pronounced dead at the scene.

The San DIego Police have arrested a 17 year old under suspicion of sexual assault against a young lady in the College Area. The teenager, whose name was not released, was arrested Monday night, according to police. Details of the arrest were not available immediately. Police released a composite sketch of the attacker last week after a woman reported she was sexually assaulted in her home. The assailant entered the victim’s home through an unlocked window about 4 a.m. Wednesday, police said. Detectives are scheduled to release further information about the case later.

In Vista yesterday a 46-year-old Fallbrook man riding a bicycle was killed when he was struck by a SUV. The accident happened about 6:30 p.m. at East Vista Way and Arcadia Avenue, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said. The cyclist, whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the SUV remained at the scene after officers arrived, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said. The cause of the accident was under investigation.

I’ve definitely had close calls with cyclists before. It is the responsibility of the driver to pay attention to his/hers surroundings but sometimes it seems as though the cyclists are not paying much attention at all. Things like this need to remind everyone to be more careful.

San Diego Gas & Electric is being blamed in the deaths of four Marines who were killed when their helicopter hit power lines in January 2004. “They were in a night training mission wearing night-vision goggles, and they needed to have those towers marked because that would have been reflected in the night-vision goggles,” said attorney Jim Frantz. Night-vision goggles allow pilots to see at night and are extremely sensitive to any light source. The lawsuit against SDG&E alleges that SDG&E did not have electrical towers marked. Capt. Adam Miller, 1st Lt. Michael Lawlor, Cpl. Joshua Harris and Staff Sgt. Lori Privette were killed in the Huey copter crash. “I just thought it was an accident, and accidents happen and that’s all there is to it. When I found out that if there had been lights on the tower we would not be here talking today …,” said Privette’s father, Bobby. The families of the victims have come together to file a wrongful death lawsuit against SDG&E, saying the utility company is negligent for not marking the area. In a letter that was dated 11 months after the crash, the Marines asked that the lines in that area be marked. “To this day SDG&E has not marked that area,” said Frantz. An SDG&E representative said the lines have been there for years and pilots have been flying around them for years.

I can’t believe that SDG&E still hasn’t marked the lines, as if the lives of our armed forces aren’t at risk enough already.

A report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board says pilot error was probably the cause of a small plane crash in Concord that killed four family members, including a San Diego attorney and her son.

John Mauricio, 78, a former Point Loma resident, was the pilot of the single-engine, six-seat Piper Malibu that crashed Dec. 21, 2006, while approaching Concord’s Buchanan Field Airport. The flight began at Montgomery Field in San Diego. Trying to make a second landing attempt about 11 a.m. the plane came in too low, clipped a highway median, crashed and caught on fire. No one on the ground was injured.

In an report dated July 30, the NTSB said the crash’s probable cause was the pilot’s failure to follow prescribed instrument-approach procedures and to maintain adequate airspeed, leading to a stall. Mauricio was flying about 600 feet too low when he made his initial approach, the report said.

Also killed were Mauricio’s wife, Alice Andrade Mauricio, 72; their daughter, Alyce Mauricio Dreher, 45; and their grandson, Robbie Dreher, 12. Robbie, a student at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, survived the crash but died during surgery.

Mauricio and his wife lived in Las Vegas. Dreher lived in Carmel Valley with her husband, Scott Dreher, also an attorney, and their son and daughter, Cassandra, who also attended Bishop’s.

The family was en route to a soccer tournament where Cassandra was playing with a Bishop’s team.

Mauricio, a veteran pilot and one of 15 children, came to San Diego to serve in the Navy and later worked in the commercial tuna fishing industry, eventually owning two boats. He later became a real estate investor. He and his wife had been married 50 years, and their daughter was their only child.

Alyce Dreher ran an investment company with her father in San Diego. She was a 1978 graduate of Point Loma High School, a 1983 graduate of San Diego State University and a 1986 graduate of Pepperdine Law School.

I am sorry for the losses suffered in this truly tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family.

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the cross on Mt. Soledad can stay. The ruling on Tuesday was the latest over the cross, the subject of a nearly 20-year-long legal dispute. The fight is among the longest-running involving a monument and questions of the separation of church and state. The advocates of the cross believe this ruling will stand and be the definitive win. It was the first ruling since the cross and the property immediately around it were turned over to the federal government in 2006 to be maintained as a veterans memorial, and it was the first time a judge had based a ruling on the United States Constitution, rather than the State Constitution. The judge, Larry Alan Burns of Federal District Court in San Diego, said in his ruling that the group that had sued to have the cross taken down, which consisted of an atheist and Jewish war veterans, had failed to prove that the cross’s primary purpose was religious. Defenders of the cross argued that although religious services had been held at the site, the cross had evolved to serve a more secular function as a memorial to the nation’s war veterans, with some 2,400 plaques in tribute to them, arranged in six concentric rings at the base. “The memorial is not designed for worship services, and there is no evidence the cross, which is surrounded by a tall fence and not approachable by visitors, is — or is intended to be — the object of religious devotion,” Judge Burns wrote, adding, “The primary effect of the Mount Soledad memorial is patriotic and nationalistic.” James E. McElroy, a lawyer for Steve Trunk, the atheist who had filed suit, said an appeal would be filed within a couple of weeks with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. McElroy said that court would probably not rule for more than a year. Mr. McElroy said Judge Burns had “clearly got it wrong” and had strived to avoid what Mr. McElroy saw as the central point: that a pre-eminent religious symbol, which he argued was placed with religious intent, should not be permitted to stand on federal property. The case has already been to the United States Supreme Court on technical issues, and supporters of the cross say they believe that if the case returns there they will prevail, owing to the leanings of at least four and perhaps five or six of the justices in such cases. “I feel real good about that,” said Charles LiMandri, a lawyer for a citizens’ group backing the cross. “We have a 75 percent chance of winning in the Ninth Circuit, and I think an 85 percent chance, maybe 90 percent, with the Supreme Court.”

I for one enjoy going to Mt. Soledad, and I know it wouldn’t be the same without the cross there overlooking the city.