Veteran members of two San Diego street gangs are working toward peace in their communities. Also, San Diego is rewriting its street design rules, but will it make them safer? Then, TSA workers at the airport protest the end of collective bargaining. Scripps Health makes a big North County investment and in a Public Matters segment Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis explains why city residents could soon pay more than $50 per month for trash pickup.
Veteran San Diego gang members’ peace efforts paying off
March 20, 2025 at 7:24 AM PDT
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Thursday, March 20.
Veteran members of San Diego street gangs say their peace efforts are paying off.
More on that next. But first... the headlines….
A S-D-S-U police officer was arrested last week on suspicion of downloading child sexual abuse material to his personal computer.
Campus officials announced the arrest Tuesday.
The university says it did not release the officer’s name due to employee privacy laws.
The officer was arrested off-campus as a result of a federal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
The university’s police chief says the department is in the process of firing the officer.
The E-P-A says it won’t reconsider its January decision against designating the Tijuana River Estuary a Superfund site.
In a letter to Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre last week, the agency said ongoing wastewater infrastructure repairs should solve the problem. This is the same reason the agency gave in its initial denial.
South County and state elected officials have sought more help from the federal government amid ongoing pollution in the South Bay.
El Cajon cat food manufacturer Savage Pet is recalling raw chicken cat food over concerns of bird flu contamination.
The company says it was first notified last month of a cat in Colorado who became ill after eating Savage Pet food. This month, a kitten in New York also contracted the disease.
Research suggests the disease is rare in indoor cats, but infections have been linked to raw milk and poultry.
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.
Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
SAN DIEGO IS UPDATING THE MANUAL IT USES TO DESIGN STREETS. METRO REPORTER ANDREW BOWEN SAYS THE GOAL IS TO IMPROVE SAFETY — BUT SEVERAL KEY SAFETY FEATURES AREN'T INCLUDED.
How many times have you zoned out while driving only to look down at your speedometer and realize you need to slow down? Chances are the street's design — specifically the width of the lane you're driving in — played a role in your speeding. But we tend to just go as wide as possible. Shima Hamidi is a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Traditionally traffic engineers have viewed wider lanes as safer because they give drivers more of a buffer zone to react and avoid collisions. But Hamidi led a study of more than 1,100 streets in seven American cities finding the widest lanes see more crashes. They tend to be more relaxing for drivers. Drivers drive faster and that's the speed that actually leads to crashes and more severe number of crashes. When lanes are narrower, drivers tend to be more precautious. San Diego's draft update to its Street Design Manual does set a preference for narrowing lanes in some cases. But it also allows for wider lanes. And the narrowest width allowed — 9 feet — requires extra scrutiny and bureaucratic review. Hamidi says that's backwards, and that a safer approach would be to streamline the narrowest lanes while requiring special approval for wider lanes. Andrew Bowen, KPBS news.
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO HEAR MORE ELEMENTS OF SAFE STREET DESIGN, AND WHETHER THEY'RE BEING EMBRACED IN SAN DIEGO.
OFF DUTY T-S-A WORKERS PARTICIPATED IN A RALLY YESTERDAY (WEDNESDAY) AT THE SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. REPORTER MELISSA MAE SAYS THEY ARE RESPONDING TO A DECISION BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY TO REVOKE THEIR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS.
The American Federation of Government Employees filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration this month alleging DHS unlawfully terminated a negotiated contract that protects about 47-thousand Transportation Security officers nationwide. Nyreen Washington is a TSO and member of the union. She says their collective bargaining agreement has several important provisions and gives workers a voice. “A provision in there for childcare because of the TSOs schedules being so crazy. Sometimes people wake up at 1:00 am just to be here at three in the morning. There was a provision for that. Many things where it stripped away, them able to trade their shifts and be able to do things with their families.” In a statement DHS said rescinding the collective bargaining agreement will ensure Americans will have a more effective and modernized workforces across the nation’s transportation networks. The AFGE hopes that a judge will reinstate their contract. Melissa Mae KPBS News.
PEACE IS BREWING IN PARTS OF SAN DIEGO BETWEEN A GROUP WHOSE COLORS ARE BLUE AND ANOTHER WHO WEARS RED. DECADES-LONG SWORN ENEMIES THE CRIPS AND THE BLOODS ARE TALKING. REPORTER AMITA SHARMA SAYS VETERANS FROM BOTH GANGS HOPE THAT DIALOGUE WILL TRUMP THREATS AND BADLY NEEDED RESOURCES WILL REPLACE GUNFIRE. HERE’S MY CONVERSATION WITH AMITA.
So it’s been common knowledge for a long time that there is a feud between the Crips and the Bloods. Why did they start talking? The deaths. The sheer body count from gang murder after gang murder after gang murder left the neighborhoods of Skyline, Paradise Hills, Mt. Hope, Lincoln Park, Stockton Memorial and Chollas View traumatized. The victims extended beyond those who were killed…their loved ones and neighbors were victims too. And then a few years ago, a local nonprofit called Pillars of the Community decided to get the Crips and Bloods.to stop the killing. They reached out to long-time gang members first. People like Ricky Weaver, a 62-year-old Crip who has spent more than half of his life in prison. He was ready for dialogue. “Because I realized that death is over. Before, I didn't. I didn't care if I lived, I didn't care if I died, I didn't care. I had no fear. So you just learned that death is final. It's over. Whether you're young, or older, in the middle, whatever. And you see mothers crying. So we just said, `Hey, we don't want no mothers to cry this summer.’” So Weaver is in his 60s, active gang members are a lot younger. How does he convince the younger Crips to talk to Bloods? By changing his language. He says he no longer beats his chest and vows to kill the Bloods. That alone carries weight, he says, because he is one of them. He says he keeps his ear to the streets. And if violence is looming between the Crips and Bloods, he requests a one-on-one with the involved Crip and asks if there is another way. It can be a hard sell because so many of the Crips’ friends have been put in the graveyard by Bloods. And vice versa. Lanelle Brown, 54, is a Blood. His brother was killed by a Crip. His cousin also died in a gang attack. But he says he’s transcended the hatred and revenge bred by those killings. My lesson is try to prosper, get your education. get your money right. Just fighting people for no reason. That's for the birds. That’s for savages. We’re human and we should be able to live in a society just because of our skin color and the color of the clothes that we are wearing. There’s got to be something better.” That message may be resonating. In the eight years before the Crips and Bloods started talking, there were 15 gang related murders on their turf, making up 25 percent of gang killings across the city: Then in 2023 and 2024, there were zero in those same neighborhoods, but 10 across the city. SDPD Lt. Lou Maggi says he’d like to think part of the reason for the drop is due to several large-scale police operations targeting some of the most brutal gangs and criminals in the city…that have quote “put a lot of very violent people in jail.” Still, 42-year-old Cheri Hampton, who was in a Blood-affiliated gang, says outside of the violence coming down, the biggest effect of talks between the Crips and Bloods is understanding. ‘“We're now realizing that we're more powerful as one versus segregated. Why are we segregating ourselves? We're building, we're creating jobs, we're giving back to the community, and we're showing by example. So being the people that we are, we're highly respected out here. So they trust us. The community trusts us in what we're doing.” The people I spoke with are also working to open two drop-in centers. One in Stockton Memorial and another in Ocean View where people including current and former gang members can access career counseling, job training, child care and mental health courses. Melissa Hernandez was a member of a gang tied to the Crips. She says the services are vital to ending the Blood-Crip violence…forever. “Because there's not no broken cycle yet. It just keeps going on and on and on. And I'm seeing this even with young kids. I was a young one. So me being the young one, nobody was there for me and the ones that were, they gave up too soon. “
WE KEEP HEARING ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE GETTING MORE EXPENSIVE. IN OUR NEXT WHY IT MATTERS SEGMENT, VOICE OF SAN DIEGO CEO SCOTT LEWIS ADDS ANOTHER ITEM TO THAT LIST: TRASH PICKUP.
If you are a homeowner in San Diego, you could be about to pay $53 a month for trash pickup. Anyone who lives in an apartment—About half of San Diegans—already pays private haulers for trash collection and that won’t change. How did this happen? It goes back to 2022. The city of San Diego asked voters for permission to study and implement a fee for collecting trash. At the time, they estimated it could cost $23 to $29 per month. Now the City Council is considering doubling that estimate. The city is promising several new services: Free container replacement Weekly recycling Curbside bulky items pick up Cities can only charge fees to cover the specific cost of a service. However, for 100 years, the city had a law that guaranteed that it would pick up trash WITHOUT a special fee. The 2022 vote repealed that law. The main argument was that the law isn’t fair because half of residents already have to pay for trash pickup. But now the city is also going to rely on the fee to cover some of its massive budget deficit. The City Council will consider the fees next week. I’m Scott Lewis for Voice of San Diego and that’s why it matters.
SCRIPPS HEALTH THIS WEEK ANNOUNCED PLANS FOR A NEW MEDICAL CENTER IN SAN MARCOS.
NORTH COUNTY REPORTER ALEXANDER NGUYEN SAYS IT'S NEEDED AS THE REGION’S POPULATION GROWS.
The 13-acre dirt lot on Discovery Street south of the 78 and near the Bent Avenue bridge … will soon become a medical Center campus for Scripps Health. It will include an ambulatory care facility and an acute care hospital with 200 to 250 beds.“The region for the size it was was underserved with the amount of hospital care that was up here.” Erik Bruvold is the CEO of the North County Economic Development Council. He says health care providers are starting to see the need. “our region has grown. 1.3 million people live north of Sr. 56. it only makes sense for the major health care systems to serve up here. And we're waiting for Sharp and Ucsd to figure out how to get to North county.” The ambulatory care facility will be built first while the hospital is still in the early planning stages. The Medical Center is expected to open by 20-31. Alexander Nguyen KPBS NEWS.
That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. For your next listen, check out the KPBS Midday Edition podcast this afternoon. In their weekly arts and culture show, you can hear from jazz pianist Omar Sosa and about a new Dr Who exhibit at the Comic Con Museum. That, plus the Weekend arts preview. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.