| AB 1530 (Negrete McLeod) would require the State Department of Corrections
to admit to a community tratment program any applicant who meets admission
criteria, whose child was born prior to her incarceration, or who is pregnant.
Status: Senate Appropriations (Budget Committee), July 19 Position: Support
AB 1796 (Leno) would permit persons with felony convictions involving
possession or use of drugs to qualify for aid under the Food Stamp Program
by providing that California opt out of the lifetime federal disqualification
from food stamps for such persons. Status: Senate Appropriations
Suspense file Position: Support
AB 1803 (Bermúdez) would provide a procedure for placement of
infants born to women incarcerated in state prison or California Youth
Authority facilities. Would also require that pregnant women be given information
about options for placement and the potential for termination of parental
rights under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act, and that she be
assisted in authorizing a placement plan for her newborn. Status: Dead
Position: Support
AB 1914 (Montañez) would establish within the Department of Corrections
the Robert E. Burton Correctional Education Committee. The Committee would,
among other things, be required to develop and implement a plan for providing
transitional educational services for inmates, including counseling and
placement services. Status: Senate Appropriations, August 2 Position: Support
AB 1941 (Chan) would state the intent of the Legislature to encourage
law enforcement and county child welfare agencies, in collaboration with
specified organizations and agencies, to develop protocols regarding how
to best cooperate in their response to the arrest of a caretaker parent
in a home where a minor child resides in order to ensure the child’s safety
and well-being. Status: Senate Appropriations Suspense File Position: Support
AB 1946 (Steinberg) would modify the California Department of Corrections’
(CDC) compassionate release process to increase the awareness of CDC medical
staff and families of terminally ill prisoners regarding compassionate
release. Among other things, it would make prisoners who are diagnosed
with a disease that would produce death within 6 months, and whose release
is not considered a threat to public safety, eligible to have their sentence
re-called and to be re-sentenced. Status: Senate Inactive File Position:
Support
SB 1287 (Kuehl) would require, prior to acceptance of a plea, as specified, that the court advise the defendant that if the defendant is a custodial parent, a conviction may have consequences for his or her parental rights. Would require the CDC to maintain existing policies and procedures that foster family contact and parent-child bonding; to provide a child-friendly environment for visits between incarcerated parents and their children; and to provide information and resources for families of the incarcerated, including, specifically children of incarcerated parents, on the Department website. Status: Assembly Appropriations, August 4 Position: Support
Now is the season that all families of prisoners should be opposing or supporting proposals that could turn into laws without our input and attendance at legislative hearings. Below is some early discussion and position on bills from some of our UNION folks, we always welcome feedback. The bills will pass through several committees. Voting groups who oppress us will show up to these hearings and try and beat down everything good for prisoners and their families. When we don't show up at all, we often lose by default. The war is in Sacramento. Stay current with all the bills we've found in the Senate, we don't have enough people to read all 900 bills and haven't even begun to see what threatens or supports us coming out of the Assembly yet. We need more bill readers and more people attending hearings. Every good legislator has begged us to organize a large, funded
voting group to make reform possible for the last 20
years. We are stuck with what other voting groups hand us until we get
this organizing done. This is how a majority-of-voters rules
democracy works. We outnumber everyone so why don't we organize and
start winning more battles?
S.B. No. 1710 Pete Knight Republican. Plea bargaining:
police vehicle pursuits.
The purpose of this bill is to prohibit plea-bargaining incases
where the chargeis evading a peace officer.More lack of discretion in the
court. NO!
SB 1127, as introduced, Scott. Motor Vehicles: Impoundment:forfeiture.(1)
Under existing law, whenever a person is convicted ofcertainlisted serious
vehicle, related offenses committed while driving amotor vehicle of which
the person is the owner, a court, at the timeof sentencing, is authorized
to order the motor vehicle impounded fora period of not more than 6 months
for a first conviction, and notmore than 12 months for a 2nd or subsequent
conviction.This bill would require, rather than authorize, the court,underthe
above circumstances, to order the motor vehicle impounded.
Great, so if the guy goes to jail or is on parole, his family has no car. But the state sell the car and takes the money. NO!
S.B. No. 1203 Margett. Crime Existing law provides that every person who is convicted of pettytheft
who was previously convicted of petty theft, grand theft, autotheft, burglary,
carjacking, robbery, or receiving stolen propertyand served a term in a
penal institution or was imprisoned as acondition of probation for the
offense, is punishable by imprisonmentin a county jail for a period not
exceeding one year, or in thestate prison.This bill would provide that
a person who is convicted of pettytheft or financial abuse of an elder
or dependent adult who was previously convicted of petty theft, grand theft,
auto theft,burglary, carjacking, robbery, receiving stolen property, or
financial abuse of an elder or dependent adult and served a term in apenal
institution or was imprisoned as a condition of probation forthe offense,
is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for aperiod not exceeding
one year, or in the state prison
What kind of a term is Financial abuse?? What does it mean????? Why don't these legislators get a real job?? We actually pay them??? Would that be financial abuse? I am elderly and they're wasting my tax money.
S.B. No. *1289 Machado. Sex offenders This bill would provide that the registration requirement formultiple places applies regardless of whether he or she resides or islocated for more than 5 consecutive days in each residence orlocation. By increasing the registration requirements of localofficials, and by
changing the definition of a crime, the bill wouldimpose a state-mandated
local program.
So the sex offender registration program which is a complete failurewith
tens of thousands missing will now be improved by having multipleregistrations.
Ain't government great! How can we have 100,000 sex offenders in
our State? Something is wrong here.
S.B. No. 1342 Speier. Inspector General. The bill would require the Department of Corrections and theCalifornia
Youth Authority to report all matters that could result inpotential criminal
prosecution to the Inspector General.The bill would provide that the budget
of the office of theInspector General shall be fixed annually at 1/4 of
1% of the amountapproved for the budget of the Department of Corrections
and theCalifornia Youth Authority. The bill would also provide for
referral of matters concerning employees for potential administrative action
or potential criminalprosecution, as specified.
The budget goes to at least $12 million. Sounds like a good one. Yes.
CSEA has filed a huge lawsuit over the cuts to prison education and the teachers are doing our work for us on this bill. Yes, but you need not worry about letters to the editors since CSEA folks are really writing on this one, better to focus on our other bills in your letters to editors. Don't waste time writing to politicians, they never read their mail. The media always reads the mail. Legislators shouldn't be deterred and quickly send AB1914 to Gov.
People need to show up to the bill hearings to support the good ones and beat down the bad ones. When the legislators see enough people doing this, they will have the courage to bring forward smart on crime bills for us. We must prove we have a large, active voting group before reform will happen. And we must elect our own reps to office. We can do this...there's 3 million people connected to state inmates alone B. Cayenne Bird
April 15, 2004 STATE PRISONS' REVOLVING DOOR
California's top prison officials, Youth and Adult Correctional Agency head Roderick Q. Hickman and California Department of Corrections chief Jeanne Woodford, have admitted that the system they recently took charge of is riddled with flaws, and pledged a total overhaul. But it would be a mistake to think that Schwarzenegger administration officials can, on their own, wrest control of the system from the prison guards union. The union, among the largest political contributors in the state, has defeated all major reform efforts for well over a decade. Good intentions need muscle to back them. At least three bills scheduled for a vote in the Senate next Tuesday would provide it. • SB 1342, by Sens. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) and Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) would fix the prison inspector general's budget at a quarter of 1% of the total prison spending budget. That would create a stable foundation for the historically embattled office, whose budget was reduced from $9 million to $2.7 million last year after the guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., denounced investigations of its members. • SB 1437 by Speier would require the prison system to report cost overruns periodically through the year to the state auditor. The federal watchdog, the General Accounting Office, has for years required federal agencies to admit their budget excesses. In Sacramento, auditors can pry the prison system's books open only after an inquiry has been ordered. Fiscal disasters risk discovery only after the fact. Last week, for instance, the auditor discovered that three-quarters of the prison department's healthcare contracts over the last four years had been signed without ensuring the state was paying a reasonable price. • SB 1468 by Speier would create a 15-member California Recidivism Reduction Commission to develop benchmarks for judging the success of state prisons, county jails and other correctional facilities at preventing freed inmates from returning. The commission would be responsible for identifying cost-effective treatments. For instance, some job training programs save about $5 in prison costs for every $1 spent. The commission would also hunt for practices that boost recidivism, such as flagging inmates as potential gang members and putting them in gang cellblocks just because they have Spanish surnames. The result: new gang members, much more likely to return to prison. Legislators have introduced a dozen prison reform bills in recent weeks. The onslaught of legislation may have helped inspire Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comment last week that the Legislature ought to consider taking half the year off. There is no question, however, that the bills above are needed. Until
the Legislature and the governor support a return to effective rehabilitation,
California prisons will keep turning out better criminals.
-------------------------
Good Job Ruth Martin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.ledger-dispatch.com/opinion/opinionview.asp?c=104065 No ‘admire-ation’ here
The California Department of Corrections’ (CDC) focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation is based on California Correctional Peace Officers Association’s (CCPOA) gluttony for money and power with the idea the more inmates, the bigger the budget. It’s already a proven fact that substantially less is spent on rehabilitation than on punishment. I’m not advocating that we baby or coddle inmates. Violent offenders such as murders, rapists, pedophiles, predators, major drug dealers and child molesters deserve severe punishment. The majority of inmates are drug offenders and are, for the most part, users of drugs, not drug dealers. Most of these offenders sold drugs to supply their own habit rather than selling for profit. To cut costs these are the inmates that we should use our rehabilitation resources on. Prisoners’ lives are not a bed of roses nor should they be. The loss of freedom is in itself a punishment I can’t even begin to imagine. Mr. Admire’s idea of taking away all privileges is at best misguided. Even CDC recognizes that privileges are a way of keeping inmates in line. These privileges give correctional officers leverage over inmates’ behavior and are swiftly taken away for any infractions of “so-called” liberal visiting rules and conjugal visits. He obviously doesn’t know how stringent and rigid these rules are. Until the first of this year visiting for inmates was four days a week. These visits are overcrowded, noisy, hot in the summer and cold in the winter and not conducive to meaningful conversation between inmate and visitor. Visits have now been cut down to two days a week in effect meaning that relatives working on Saturdays and Sundays can no longer visit their loved ones. This has led to severe overcrowding, visitors standing during their whole visit, long lines of cars around the prison, longer processing times for inmates and visitors. Tempers often times flare while waiting in long lines for hours to see the inmate. As for conjugal visits, these visits are scheduled every four months and are only given to married inmates whose conduct merits these visits. These visits are quickly taken away for any misconduct on the part of prisoner or visitor. The cost of food during visits is borne by the spouse and not the prison and the menu from which the meals are chosen is very limited and costly. Conjugal visits are primarily to give continuity of the bond between inmates, their children and spouses. In fact, these visits consist mainly of spouses with children of inmates. The benefits from these visits are immense. Inmates and their families have the opportunity to once again be a family unit if only for a brief two days. It is my opinion that married inmates, incarcerated for the first time, who have children are the most likely to not commit future crimes. The expensive education and training Mr. Admire speaks of is laughable. Most inmates are required to have a job within the prison walls or participate in education in order to get half-time credits if they are qualified. The trouble is that vocational training for inmates has all but disappeared in prison because of the cost. Meals inside prison walls leave a lot to be desired, mostly consisting of chicken, rice, beans, bread and fatty foods. It’s no wonder many inmates are overweight. Excessive freedom of movement and unrestricted contact with other inmates is also something Mr. Admire knows little of. Inmates are categorized according to their propensity toward violent behavior and gang affiliation. Segregation of the classes of inmates is not always possible until incidents occur. Medical care in prison is a sham. There are incidents of inmates having heart attacks, lying on the floor for an extended period of time while guards walk over their prone bodies to seek help that was too late in coming. Incompetent medical staff is not unheard of. An incident earlier this year at Corcoran State Prison involved an inmate on dialysis who bled to death in his cell while guards ignored his screams for hours as they were too busy watching the Super Bowl. Anyone who reads the newspapers daily or watches the news on TV has heard of many other incidents and the problems within the adult and youth prison system. In closing, Mr. Admire’s association with the criminal justice system is all too clearly one-sided. He needs to understand the financial and emotional hardships inmates’ families endure while their loved one is incarcerated. I do, however, agree with Mr. Admire in that there is no benefit to the state or inmate for excessively long sentences of inmates convicted of crimes of a lesser degree, mainly that of drug violations. He is correct in stating if punishment is achieved at an early stage, lengthy incarceration becomes meaningless and in my opinion serves no other purpose than to keep the correctional budget ballooning higher and higher each new budget year. It is time to release inmates early who have good work records, who do not have write-ups or other incidents on their records. Inmates who obey the rules and whose good behavior and attitude have proven them to be good candidates for early release should be released sooner than later. California, whose incarceration rate is the highest in the nation, would benefit from such procedures in the form of reduced prison costs. Prisons, for too long, have become a big business costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year. It’s time to use prison as a punishment for violent criminals and to rehabilitate the lower echelon of drug offenders who can and want to be rehabilitated. I want to let the readers know that I am fairly savvy about the prison system because I am the wife of a current inmate in one of California’s state prisons. ----------
GUARDING THE GUARDS by Christian Goss
So the report of his death on February 16, at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran State Prison, might have been written off as a consequence of doing time. Except that Singh, a 72-year-old handicapped inmate who spoke no English, may have died as a result of negligence by the correctional staff entrusted to care for him. Singh began his term in late 2001 and immediately refused the prison’s diet because it didn’t conform to the vegetarian practices of his religious faith. His weight dropped markedly, and fellow inmates made reports to medical staff and correctional officers, but records indicate that there was no follow-up. Singh had confined himself to his cell about 60 days before his death, where he succumbed to malnutrition on February 16. Incidents of neglect – like the recent case of jailed gangbangers in the Bay Area put on lockdown for two years – have become the legacy of tough-on-crime policies implemented under California’s last three governors. The state’s prison-industrial complex created and empowered by George
Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, and Gray Davis is now home to more convicts than
any single nation in the world except for China. With the recall of Davis,
legislators are seizing on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign promise
to overhaul the system. Schwarzenegger has made a public showing of moving
on prison reform, abolishing and then reestablishing the Office of the
Inspector General (OIG) with former Deputy Attorney General Matthew Cate
at the helm, giving it greater powers to conduct investigations.
The move was lauded by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The governor
also established an independent review panel whose express purpose is to
troubleshoot the system as it stands and make recommendations directly
to the governor. Ironically, the panel is headed by former Governor Deukmejian
and its staff includes Joe Gunn, a lead investigator on the LAPD Rampart
scandal. Terri Carbaugh, spokesperson for the governor, wouldn’t comment
on any specific investigations, but said, “I expect some recommendations
from both the OIG and Deukmejian’s independent review panel within four-to-six
weeks.”
The rush to enact new government bureaucracy, at a time when the political hot button has been the fiscal crisis, came as a direct result of legislative pressure. Beginning on January 20, the Senate Select Committee on the California Correctional System held two days of hearings to document a systematic pattern of abuse by prison guards, investigating reports of gang-like behavior, a code of silence, and abuse of juvenile inmates. Co-chaired by state senators Gloria Romero (D-L.A.) and Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), the joint legislative hearings revealed a system in which prison administration officials and correctional officers seem to operate with impunity. “We don’t just need a review and overhaul of the policy,” Romero said in her opening address to the committee. “We need a review and overhaul of the people who are charged with running one of the nation’s largest prison systems.” The documented events that led to the senate hearings were so outrageous that they might have been lifted from a prison exploitation movie. “Gladiator fights” were staged between Mexican Mafia and the Nuestra Familia at Folsom State Prison, where officers allowed the rival gang members to integrate in order to initiate a riot. Guards at Corcoran State Prison allowed an armed prisoner into the cell of another inmate who was subsequently stabbed 17 times, as staff ignored the attack. A warden facing confirmation at Avenal State Prison aborted an investigation into a riot that threatened to jeopardize his position. These incidents have led prison rights groups to call the California Department of Corrections the most chaotic in a nation of troubled prison systems. “It’s pretty clear that treatment in California prisons is barbaric,” said Geri Silva, executive director of Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes. “I want to believe that [Schwarzenegger] will follow through on real reform, but I won’t believe it until I see it.” Boom Years During two terms as a “law-and-order” governor, Deukmejian supported a prison construction boom that saw the California prison population rise from 23,000 inmates in the early ’80s to 101,000 inmates in 1991. His Republican successor, Pete Wilson, continued the policy and also
promoted passage of the Three Strikes measure. Democrat Gray Davis seemed
to break ranks with his own party when, during his 1998 campaign for governor,
he embraced Singapore’s policy of executing drug offenders as “a good starting
place for law and order.” As both major parties fought over who was toughest
on crime, once-important policy differences all but disappeared. “Deukmejian
was the inventor of toughness as a single dimension in criminal justice
policy,” according to UC Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring, co-author
of Punishment and Democracy: Three Strikes and You’re Out in California.
“
Any story about the growth in the scale of California imprisonment that
omits the Deukmejian administration would be bizarrely wrong.” Deukmejian
built the prisons, says Zimring, but it took Wilson and Davis to forge
new relationships with the prison guard union, the California Correctional
Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), that kept the prisons full while ensuring
that millions of CCPOA dollars flowed into reelection campaigns.
As the labor representative of the massive state prison system, the
CCPOA’s primary purpose is to support policy and legislators that keep
the prison population growing, ensuring their members overtime that can
push a guard’s paycheck above $100,000 a year. And the CDC has proven surprisingly
resilient during budget cuts, escaping with only token layoffs. With the
passage of Three Strikes, Wilson was the golden child of the CCPOA. Davis
also tightened parole conditions and backed Proposition 21, the Youth Crime
Initiative, and routinely vetoed legislation that would have limited Three
Strikes sentencing. Instead, he granted prison guards a pay increase of
37.7 percent in 2002, adding to the fiscal crisis that would get him recalled
from office.
State prison guards became so untouchable that it enabled a group of
officers to operate within Salinas Valley State Prison like a street gang,
down to using hand signs and conducting initiations.
They called themselves “The Green Wall,” and formed after a Thanksgiving Day riot in 1999. A recent OIG report confirmed that guards not aligned with the Green Wall were ostracized, transferred, and threatened. Schwarzenegger can change this. He has no meaningful ties to the CCPOA, and the overwhelming state budget crisis now overshadows the two decades of tough-on-crime rhetoric. Which means his inspector general might lead to some important policy shifts. Zimring remains cautious. “All I can tell you,” the Berkeley law professor says, “if you’re waiting for change in the California prison system: Stay tuned.” -----------------
B. Cayenne Bird
Vote on 'three strikes' likely A ballot measure aiming to reform the sentencing law has ample signatures. By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau
--------------
http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2004/local/20040415021248.shtml
It was a miracle’
By Darrell Smith, Jennifer Larson and Lois Gormley
"All I know is that it was a miracle for my little niece to survive down there by herself," Ruby Bustamante’s uncle Johnny Marin said Wednesday. "It felt pretty good knowing that God was looking over her, that he was over her, protecting her." Little 5-year-old Ruby Bustamante lingered for 10 days in the wreckage of a crash that killed her mother. Caltrans road crews who saw something moving in the bottom of the ravine where the wreckage lay, found her tired, hungry, dehydrated, but alive. She continued to recover Wednesday at a Moreno Valley hospital. "Ruby is doing extraordinarily well," said Webster Wong, chief of pediatrics at Riverside County Regional Medical Center. "It’s a devastating loss, but a joyous recovery." Outraged family members, wrestling with joy and tragedy, said more should have been done to save the life of Ruby’s mother. They laid the death of Norma Bustamante, 26, of Indio at the feet of the Indio Police Department in an emotional news conference outside the medical center. Relatives accused Indio police of foot-dragging and dismissing the family’s pleas to search roadways for the missing pair. Those delays cost Bustamante her life, they said. "This is an outrage," said Rose Lopez, Bustamante’s aunt and family spokesman. "There’s no excuse for a mother to be left out to die and a daughter to have to go through such a horrific ordeal." Minutes later, the news conference was abruptly and angrily halted by Bustamante’s grandfather Bill Cooley, who later scuffled with and shouted at news camera crews who attempted to follow the family back into the hospital. Later, Indio police officials said they understood the family’s grief, but said the department took the reports of the missing pair seriously. "I understand the family is outraged and lashing out," said Indio Police Cmdr. Mark Miller. "They’re grieving and that’s understandable. The department holds no animosity toward them. "We did consider it a serious matter and we were looking for them," he continued. "Unfortunately, we had no specific location to search." Miller said the department followed up on every lead and followed all standard procedures in investigating the Bustamantes’ disappearance. "It’s a terrible tragedy," Miller said. "It’s not the way we wanted this to end." Miller said the first reports from family members came April 5, information that was put into a national missing persons database. Indio, Coachella Valley and Riverside County authorities were also advised. Indio officials said they later learned the Banning CHP office had received a call April 4 at 8:32 a.m. of a possible wreck involving a similar green vehicle that was seen going over the side of an embankment. Couldn’t find it CHP officers and Riverside County fire crews responded but were unable to locate the green Ford Taurus. Bustamante was reported missing the following afternoon. "Had we been aware of that at the time, we certainly would have searched in that area," Miller said. No firm leads steered authorities to the car and the missing pair. "There is nothing we could have done differently," said Indio Police Chief Brad Ramos. According to Johnny Marin, Bustamante had been driving to visit her boyfriend in prison in Norwalk on the day she disappeared. ‘What happened to her?’ "But she never made it there. Her boyfriend was calling my mom, crying, ‘What happened to her?’ " he said. "And everybody already knew something had to have happened to her." Richard Ortiz, a longtime friend and neighbor first met Bustamante when she was a shy little girl in his third-grade class in Desert Hot Springs. Ortiz remembered calling Bustamante on her cell phone the day she was reported missing. She told him to call her back in three hours. "I called her back and it was the machine, the machine, the machine," he said. He never received another phone call from her. Results of an autopsy released Wednesday just hours after the chaotic scene outside the hospital, however, showed little could have been done to save Norma Bustamante. She suffered multiple blunt force trauma, Riverside County medical examiners said. Her battered body sustained multiple lacerations of the liver and rib fractures in the wreck. "The autopsy… revealed that Ms. Bustamante’s death likely occurred within minutes of the accident," read a Riverside County Sheriff’s statement. Initial reports Tuesday said Bustamante had died two days before Ruby’s discovery. The fact her mother died so quickly after the crash makes it even more remarkable that little Ruby survived. For every bit of 10 days, she stayed and waited. "It’s really quite amazing," said Dr. Harry Weil, director of the Palm Springs-based Institute of Critical Care Medicine. "There was some indication that there was some food and drink available, but it’s quite extraordinary she could survive at the age of five without substantial nourishment." Obscured by trees Caltrans road crews found Ruby by her mother’s 1996 Ford Taurus on Tuesday. The car was obscured by trees at the bottom of a ravine in the canyon-marked mountainous terrain of the Badlands -- the desolate stretch along winding Highway 60 from Beaumont to Moreno Valley. Investigators on Wednesday met with Bustamante family members at the spot where the car plunged off the roadway sometime April 4. Later, California Highway Patrol officials said investigating the wreck would take two to three weeks. Hit center divider They were able to surmise this much on Wednesday: Norma Bustamante’s car crashed into the center divider on westbound 60 just east of Gilman Springs Road on the road out of Beaumont. The car careened across the roadway, then plunged more than 150 feet down the ravine and overturned before coming to rest under a tree. The hilly, winding roadway is a dangerous one. In the past five years, the California Highway Patrol has logged 472 traffic accidents. Six of those were fatal and happened on the stretch of Highway 60 bounded by Interstate 10 and Gilman Springs Road, said officer Chris Blondon. He is a CHP spokesman from the patrol’s Beaumont office. As a crowd of reporters gathered in front of the medical center Wednesday afternoon -- its entrance blocked by long strings of yellow tape -- Wong spoke of a young girl in "miraculous shape." Ruby has very minor injuries, cuts, scrapes, bruises, he said. She was sitting up in bed. And she wanted her ice cream. "That’s good news in pediatrics," Wong said. Ruby was smiling, watching TV and was happy to be surrounded by family, he said. But, Wong added, "It’s difficult to know the long-term ramifications." Ruby is OK, at least, physically. But so far, most of Norma Bustamante’s other five children and their cousins don’t really know about or understand that Bustamante is gone. Only Ruby really knows what happened, Marin said. On Wednesday, 4-year-old Ashley, Ruby’s younger sister, was happily hugging her uncle, Martin Recio, before hopping down to scramble up the dusty trunk of a shady tree in the front yard at her house in Indio. As she clung to her uncle, Recio said that he and the rest of the family were doing OK, but everyone is very sad about Norma’s death. Ashley piped up, in the high bright voice of a child who doesn’t quite realize what she’s saying, "She’s dead." Recio hugged her to him, rubbing her small back with his palm, and kissed her. "She was a good person," he said. B. Cayenne Bird, Journalist
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