Van Nuys Veterans not assisted to live according to the VA

VA cuts off Van Nuys assisted living home that reported visit to veteran who had died

Los Angeles Times
By GALE HOLLAND STAFF WRITER
AUG. 9, 2019

“I am shocked that such lax oversight of facilities providing critical care for vulnerable veterans ever occurred,” Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner said in a letter Thursday to the White House. The investigation findings were also relayed to congressional oversight committees. Federal officials pulled veterans from a Van Nuys assisted living

The Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles in 2011.(Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Federal officials pulled veterans from a Van Nuys assisted living home after finding that the facility had reported a social worker visiting a veteran who had been dead for four days, according to a report released Thursday.

The investigation by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also found serious medication errors at the California Villa home. A 100-year-old veteran with sepsis was denied prescribed antibiotics because they were “not covered by Medicare” and ended up hospitalized a second time, the report said.

Another veteran received a double dose of medication and a third was denied prescription drugs and charged $5 a meal because he preferred eating in his room rather than the cafeteria.

Authorities from Washington, D.C., blamed the VA’s Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System for failing to investigate and address “serious residential care concerns” at the facility, but added that program administrators had not reported the problems to upper management.

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LA Gunman who shot officer in the back of head caught on video!

update California deputy shot while getting food at Jack in the Box has died, officials say

take a look at the picture and the car...the officer was off duty and just getting something to eat at the Jack-in-the-box!

Sheriff's Deputy Shot in the Head at Jack in the Box in Alhambra

NBC Los Angles
By Eric Leonard, Andrew Blankstein, Jamie Bankson and Shahan Ahmed
Published Jun 10, 2019

The wounded deputy was taken to an area hospital and was in critical condition

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was in critical condition after being shot in the head at a fast food restaurant in Alhambra Monday, authorities said.

The 13-year veteran of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department was out of uniform and off-duty at the time of the shooting, which occurred at around 5:45 p.m. in the 2500 block of West Valley Boulevard at a Jack in the Box restaurant, officials from the LASD said at a news conference Monday night.

The shooting was caught on video, and the victim was inside the restaurant waiting for food, said Capt. Kurt Wegener of the LA County Sheriff's Department. The shooter entered the restaurant and shot the deputy in the head and walked out, with no one inside the restaurant intervening before the man exited the Jack in the Box, Wegener said.

The shooter was described as a man in his 20s, 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-11, wearing a light colored fedora hat, black sunglasses, a short sleeved burgundy color shirt, slim fit jeans and grey shoes with white bottoms, Wegener said.
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Four widowed Police Officers' wives speak to #BreakTheSilence

Widows Of Police Suicide Speak Out

NPR
May 18, 2019
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

More police officers now die by suicide than in the line of duty. NPR's Scott Simon talks with the widows of four officers who took their own lives about losing their husbands to suicide.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
There is a suicide crisis in the United States. We're going to talk about it frankly, and our story may disturb some listeners. If you feel you're in a crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255.

The national suicide rate has increased by nearly 30 percent since 1999 in this blessed America. There are now more than twice as many suicides in the United States as homicides. Many involve drugs, drinking or depression, losing a job, a loved one, or stress. But experts say there is no one, two or 10 causes.

We have a story today to begin a series of reports about some of the people touched by suicide.

SIMON: Seven Chicago police officers have taken their own lives in the past 12 months. Father Brandt goes out to crime scenes and station houses if officers feel the need to talk to a priest, if not a therapist. Across the country, at least 159 officers died by suicide in 2018.

*******

Kristen Clifford's husband was Officer Steven Clifford of the Nassau County, N.Y., police. They had just gotten a puppy. They looked forward to having children. One day in May 2017, he wasn't responding to her text messages, so she drove home.

*******

Melissa Swailes was married to Officer David Swailes of the Los Angeles Police Department. They had four sons. David Swailes had symptoms of post-traumatic stress from his time in the U.S. Navy. On their youngest son's second birthday, Melissa Swailes came home and found her husband behind their bathroom door.

*******

Erin Gibson was married to Sergeant Clinton Gibson of the Liberty Lake, Wash., police. They were high school sweethearts. They had four children.

*******

Nicole Rikard had recently married Officer John Rikard of the Asheville, N.C., police. He was a recovering alcoholic, but he drank the night he took his life. She got a phone call from one of his lieutenants.
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Police officer found dead at headquarters

Montebello police officer dies after being shot with his own gun at police headquarters

Los Angeles Times
By RICHARD WINTON
APR 22, 2019

A Montebello police officer who had been on the force less than a year died of a gunshot wound Sunday after discharging his weapon inside police headquarters, authorities said.

Officer Kenneth Utsinger, 41, was pronounced dead at the police station at 1600 W. Beverly Blvd. at 5:24 a.m. Sunday, according to Sarah Ardalani, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

While the call for assistance came in as a suicide, an autopsy is still pending for Utsinger, who lived in Downey, according to the coroner’s office.

A source familiar with the investigation but not authorized to discuss it said Utsinger’s body was found inside the police station’s locker room.
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U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is closing the Billets for homeless veterans? Seriously?

In gentrifying Echo Park, the VA is forcing these homeless veterans to leave

Los Angeles Times
By GALE HOLLAND
MAR 31, 2019

“I know it’s weird for a 51-year old Naval Academy graduate to say, but it’s a scary day. I understand there are veterans here, but I haven’t met any yet. I knew I had it good. Now I really know I had it good.” Jeff Petrie

Jeff Petrie, 51, is one of the last residents to move out of the Billets, a housing program in Echo Park for homeless veterans. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs is closing the Billets for good. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

For six years, dozens of homeless veterans have recovered from trauma in nine cottages along a winding residential road in Echo Park. The Billets — military jargon for civilian quarters — has been a model.

The 72-bed program places as much as 70% of its chronically homeless veterans — male and female — in permanent housing, according to Volunteers of America, which operates the program. It’s based in a tranquil, leafy and gentrifying neighborhood of families and young professionals a short walk from a doughnut shop, a grocery store and multiple bus lines.

But on Monday, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is closing the Billets for good.

Volunteers of America officials said the VA gave no real reason for the decision, and Nikki T. Baker, department spokeswoman at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, declined a request to interview Director Ann Brown or another administrator.
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New approach to dealing with veterans in crisis

Veterans talking veterans back from the brink: A new approach to policing and lives in crisis

The Washington Post
By Rob Kuznia
March 20, 2019

At its core is the belief that veterans are often best equipped to talk brethren back from the brink — and to guide them to services. Since the program’s launch in September, local law enforcement agencies answering such 911 calls have dispatched not only deputies or officers but also two-person teams from the Veterans Affairs hospital in Long Beach.

After a parking-lot consultation with Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, Veterans Affairs social worker Shannon Teague gets ready to respond to a veteran showing signs of paranoia and other mental distress. (Allison Zaucha for The Washington Post)

The duos have responded to more than 125 emergencies. A Vietnam vet whose thoughts had become so bleak he’d hung a noose in his backyard.

LOS ANGELES — The former Army soldier was slumped in the back seat of a sheriff’s department squad car when Shannon Teague and Tyrone “T-bone” Anderson arrived on the scene. A couple of hours earlier, high on meth, he’d been yelling “you will die” from the front porch of a transition house for homeless veterans.

Teague made the introductions. Neither she nor Anderson wore a uniform, except for the patch on their jackets and the ID tags clipped to their shirts.

“I’m a social worker, and this is my partner, T-bone,” she told the man. “We are from the VA. You’re not in trouble.”

Encounters such as this one represent a new approach to dealing with veterans in crisis. Against the backdrop and heartache of their persistently high suicide rates, authorities are touting the Los Angeles County program as a breakthrough in policing that could save lives.
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Vietnam veteran Neil Schaffer, lived on skid row, honored at City Hall

Vietnam Veteran Who Died in Skid Row Honored Outside City Hall

NBC 4 News
By City News Service
Published Mar 14, 2019

Neil Schaffer died of cancer last year in room at the Madison Hotel.

Friends of a homeless Vietnam veteran who died last year after living for decades in the Skid Row neighborhood organized a brief military memorial for him Thursday on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall.

Vietnam Veteran Neil Schaffer was remembered at Los Angeles City Hall.

Neil Schaffer, whose friends said he fell through the cracks of society but lived a quiet, peaceful life, died of cancer last Aug. 19 in a room at the Madison Hotel.

Some Skid Row residents raised the funds for Schaffer's cremation, and the ceremony included the release of a dove.

Retired U.S. Air Force Chaplain Doc Cohen, who oversaw the ceremony, said Schaffer served in the military as a carpenter from 1971 to 1973 before being honorably discharged.

"And then it all went downhill. And he struggled. He tried, he got a job, he lost a job, whatever he could do, it wasn't enough, and he died on the streets right here in L.A.," Cohen said.

Another ceremony will be held at Los Angeles National Cemetery on March 31, Cohen said.

The Los Angeles National Cemetery has been closed to new interments of servicemen for decades, but Schaffer's ashes will among the first interred in a columbarium that is opening up there this summer, Cohen said.

Eriq Moreno was one of the friends of Schaffer who helped organize the City Hall service. Although he has a home and career now, Moreno said he met Schaffer about 17 years ago in Skid Row when he was homeless.

"He offered me shelter, and he became a really close friend and a father figure mostly, because I never had one," Moreno said. "When his situation with his health got worse, I knew I had to be there all the way, and I was, and he kind of left me in charge of his arrangements. He made a good change in the world and I just wanted someone to acknowledge that."
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West L.A. PTSD therapy groups gutted by VA...seriously?

Veterans protest the gutting of West L.A. PTSD therapy groups

LA Times
Gale Holland
December 29, 2018

“I’m 69 years old and I lost a whole lot of life. When they announced we were disbanding I thought, why in the world is the government who vowed to take care of us cutting us off at the knees?” Arnold Hudson

Dov Simens said he was “playing Rambo” in a homeless camp on Wilshire Boulevard 34 years ago when he stumbled on a therapy group for combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Veterans Steven Goldstein, from left, Peter Erdos and Dov Simens sit outside building 256 at the West Los Angeles Healthcare Center. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Through weekly sessions on the West Los Angeles veterans campus, Simens, 75, a member of the military’s secretive Phoenix interrogation and assassination program in Vietnam, was able to marry, have children and buy a house in Sherman Oaks, he said.

Buoyed by his success, he took a break. But anger and depression drove him back to the “group of my peers.”

“I have PTSD and I know that there is no cure,” Simens said. “There is no pill or opioid that will make what I did disappear.”

Now he and other veterans say the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has soured on long-term therapy and started dismantling the West L.A. PTSD program, which has helped thousands of former service members heal the invisible wounds of war.

Before August, about 20 groups, each with five to 30 members, had been meeting on the medical campus for a total of 40 hours a week of therapy, said Leslie Martin, the former PTSD therapy program director. The combat veterans group shut down this fall after refusing the VA’s order to move to cramped quarters with no privacy, she added.
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Marine Vet Would Have Tried to Help Shooter Heal PTSD

Slain Marine Vet Would Have Tried to Help Shooter if He Could, Friend Says

Military.com
By Hope Hodge Seck
November 10, 2018

"I know that if the shooter -- it's hard to even say he's a Marine, it hurts -- If Dan and I knew this guy needed help, we would be like, 'hey, dude, what can we do for you,'" Andrade said. "We clicked with veterans fast, quick. Dan would have helped this guy."

An hour and change before Dan Manrique's life was brutally cut short in a mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California Wednesday night, he had been in a meeting with fellow members of veterans organization Team Red White and Blue, brainstorming about how to improve community within the group and connect better with veterans in need.

Rudy Andrade, far left, stands next to fellow Marine Corps veteran Dan Manrique, who was killed in a mass shooting Nov. 7 at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California. 

(Photo courtesy of Genevieve Urquidi)

So when Rudolph Andrade, a Team RWB chapter captain for Los Angeles, got a text message the following day asking if Manrique had been in the vicinity of the shooting, Andrade's first response was reassurance.

"Dan was with me last night when all this happened," Andrade said he replied.

Days later, the shock of processing the loss of Manrique, a close friend as well as a teammate, is still setting in for him.

In fact, there were at least three members of Team RWB at the scene horrific shooting that claimed 12 lives, according to Andrade and postings on the Team RWB Ventura County Facebook page: Manrique, on full-time staff for the group as the Pacific Regional Manager; Justin Meek, a promoter at the bar killed in the shooting, who'd reportedly planned on joining the Coast Guard after college; and Fernan Diamse, another chapter member who made it out alive, but sustained a cut on his arm from broken window glass in his effort to escape.
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PTSD and other challenges recover and take back their lives

NDVets Host Annual Gala To Honor And Benefit Veterans

Patch California
By Emily Holland, Patch Staff
Oct 13, 2018

The event will feature a demo of "Mind at War," a VR experience that provides a look into an Iraq War veteran's struggle with PTSD.

SANTA MONICA, CA – New Directions for Veterans (NDVets), a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive housing and development services to homeless and at-risk veterans, will host its annual Veterans Canteen gala to benefit homeless veterans Saturday at the Skirball Cultural Center.

NDVets is based on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus and provides housing and social services to about 1,800 veterans each year. The organization has served veterans facing homelessness, PTSD and other challenges recover and take back their lives for more than 25 years, the press release said. The event will honor community leaders and media for their support and advocacy for veterans.

"The Veterans Canteen gala is our opportunity to honor both our veterans and those advocating for them," said USMC Capt. (Ret) Leo Cuadrado, Chief Operating Officer of NDVets. "As more and more veterans return home from overseas conflicts, they will need our support now more than ever, and we are grateful to know we have the support of our partners and the community behind us to help raise the much-need funds to continue providing life-saving services to veterans seeking help."
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OK! Looks like changing the conversation is catching on!

Have them beat on the number of years too but that's OK too! From what I hear, New Directions for Veterans are doing great work.

250,000 radiology orders at VA canceled?

‘I knew something was not right’: Mass cancellations of diagnostic test orders at VA hospitals draw scrutiny
USA TODAY
Donovan Slack
Oct. 1, 2018

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Radiology technologist Jeff Dettbarn said he knew something was wrong at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, when a patient arrived in February 2017 for a CT scan, but the doctor’s order for it had been cancelled.

“To have a patient show up for a scan and not have an order – you’re like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” he told USA TODAY in an interview.

Dettbarn started collecting cancellation notices for diagnostic procedures such as CT scans, MRIs and ultrasounds.

“I knew something was not right,” he said. “Because none of them were cancelled by a physician.”

Cancellations of more than 250,000 radiology orders at VA hospitals across the country since 2016 have raised questions about whether – in a rush to clear out outdated and duplicative diagnostic orders – some facilities failed to follow correct procedures. At issue is a concern over whether some medically necessary orders for CT scans and other imaging tests were cancelled improperly.

The VA inspector general is now auditing mass cancellations at eight VA medical centers “to determine whether VA processed radiology requests in a timely manner and appropriately managed canceled requests,” VA Inspector General Michael Missal said.

Those hospitals are in Tampa and Bay Pines, Florida; Salisbury, North Carolina; Cleveland; Dallas; Denver; Las Vegas; and Los Angeles.
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Reports on PTSD and fireworks focus on veterans

Reports on PTSD and fireworks focus on veterans because when they saw things "bursting in the night" in combat, people died.

CBS Los Angeles

“Sounds bother me […] because I don’t like loud noises,” former Marine master sergeant and Vietnam vet Tom Roulier told CBS2 News. “I’m still paranoid if I here like a loud bang or something like that. Sometimes I’ll duck, or I’ll just quickly look around to see where it came from.”

Siouxland Proud 

Sioux City, IOWA - As our country celebrates its independence, some of our most patriotic Americans dread this time of year. Michael Powell proudly spent 22 years serving our country."I was in Iraq constantly under mortar attacks, small arm fire, road side bombs," says Powell. And Like many veterans, he suffers from PTSD.

Vietnam Veteran Artist Roberto Gutierrez Brushes Fight PTSD

Art of Marine veteran who paints as therapy on exhibit in Lincoln Heights
ABC 7 News
By George Pennacchio
Friday, February 09, 2018

"I continue to seek help. I've tried the kitchen sink. I've tried hypnosis. I've tried traditional therapy. I've tried Qigong. I've tried Tai Chi. Whatever works!" 
Roberto Gutierrez

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Artist Roberto Gutierrez says color is in his DNA.

He expresses that in his paintings, after having lived through the darkness of war.

"It's my soother for PTSD. Still going through that," said Gutierrez. "Never will get rid of it but it's better."

For more than 40 years, Gutierrez has been painting away the pain of the Vietnam War.

The U.S. Marine veteran is among just a few members of his platoon who made it home alive.

Today, Gutierrez is a distinguished artist known for painting Los Angeles landscapes.

His current exhibit at Plaza de la Raza also celebrates landscapes from New York and Paris.
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Homeless Veterans Get Tiny Houses Built by Tiny Hands in LA

California School Children Help Build Tiny Homes for LA's Homeless

REUTERS

Jane Ross

August 28, 2017

Tiny house builder Elvis Summers (middle) stands inside the shell of a tiny house he is building for a homeless veteran with some of the children helping him build it, (L-R) Jordan Diem, Sam Diem, Elvis Summers, Skyler Hewitt (top) and McKenna Hewitt in Santa Clarita, California, U.S. on August 2, 2017. Picture taken August 2, 2017. REUTERS/Jane Ross Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles man who has spent more than two years building tiny, portable homes to help house the city's homeless population recruited a group of fourth and fifth grade children to aid his mission.

Elvis Summers, 40, has built dozens of compact one-room homes on wheels. For his latest construction, a 28-foot-by-8- foot home, he has teamed up with a group of more than 100 children, aged 9 to 11, from a local charter school.

Mariposa Robles, 10, sawed planks of wood, installed floor insulation and helped raise the plywood walls of a tiny house. Around 135 children have been involved with the project, working in shifts over a year.

"It's so amazing seeing it all come together," an excited Robles told Reuters.

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Veterans Charity Ride Welcomed at Sturgis Indian Motorcycle Dealership

Veterans Charity Ride lets vets decompress from post-war life

KEVN Black Hills FOX

by Katrina Lim

August 5, 2017

Bikers from the Veterans Charity Ride reached their final destination in Sturgis on Saturday.

Black Hills FOX Reporter Katrina Lim takes us to the welcome party at the local Indian Motorcycle dealership.

The 3rd annual Veterans Charity Ride, or VCR, provided veterans a chance to use motorcycle therapy as a way to relax from the challenges of post-war life.

VCR riders started in Los Angeles and stopped at eight additional cities on their journey.

Army Veteran Joshua Stein lost both his legs in 2006 while serving in Iraq.

And he says riding a motorcycle as an able-bodied person is not much different than riding as an amputee.

Joshua Stein says, "It's really all in the mind. Yeah physically, there are different things you have to change up here and there, but I mean riding's riding. Once you're on the back of the bike and you're going, you forget about the no legs, you forget about your injuries, you forget about your stress and problems. It's you and the motorcycle and the world, the country."
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Veterans go "deep in the fields" looking for homeless veterans

Why so many more homeless vets in LA?
KPCC 89.3
Dorian Merina
June 09, 2017

"We call it the search and rescue," said Gonzalez, 41. "It's very similar to the military where we go out into these types of areas, under bridges, in parks, deep in the fields of homelessness."

Sandy Conner, 50, a Navy veteran, hopes to apply for a HUD-VASH voucher to help get him into housing. He currently lives by a ravine where the busy 605 Freeway meets the 10 Freeway in El Monte. DORIAN MERINA/KPCC

Despite recent gains in the fight to end veteran homelessness, a sharp rise in the numbers living on the streets of Southern California has prompted veterans and advocates to call for more action and to question whether the problems at the root of the crisis are being adequately confronted.

The number of homeless veterans hit 4,828, a 57 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Jan. 2017 homeless count released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority last month.

That's a strong indication that efforts are not getting to veterans early enough, said Nathan Graeser, a researcher at the Center for Innovation and Research for Military and Veteran Families at USC's School of Social Work.

"We don't have a lot of help for people when they reach out before they are in crisis and before they are homeless," said Graeser.

And though progress has been made in helping some veterans find jobs and getting them mental health care, he said, it should start even before service members leave the military.
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Veteran Acquitted For Flying Flag on Memorial Day--Yes You Read That Right

U.S. Army Veteran acquitted of illegally displaying flags at LA Veterans Affairs facility
My News LA
POSTED BY DEBBIE L. SKLAR
APRIL 18, 2017

A 75-year-old military veteran was acquitted Tuesday of illegally hanging an American flag on the fence of a Veterans Affairs facility in West Los Angeles without permission.

The federal misdemeanor count against Robert Rosebrock stems from a VA statute that prohibits the posting of materials or “placards” on a VA property except when authorized by the head of the facility.

Rosebrock was cited on Memorial Day 2016 for allegedly displaying two napkin-sized American flags on a fence adjacent to the “Great Lawn Gate” entrance to the Veterans Park. He and fellow veterans have been assembling at the site nearly every Sunday and Memorial Day for the past nine years to protest what they believe is the VA’s failure to make full use of the expansive property for the benefit and care of veterans, particularly homeless veterans.

At the conclusion of a bench trial, U.S. Magistrate Judge Steve Kim found Rosebrock not guilty of the violation, which carries a maximum six-month prison sentence. The judge concluded that no evidence was presented showing Rosebrock lacked permission to post the flags or that Rosebrock had displayed them in the first place.
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Marine Killed Trying to Save Strangers

Marine killed while trying to help driver in a crash
AJC.Com
Kelcie Willis
Cox Media Group National Content Desk
Dec. 20, 2016

LOS ANGELES
Police said a Marine was killed after getting out of his car in an attempt to help a drunk driver involved in a crash in Los Angeles.

KCAL reported that the victim, Enrico Rojo, was driving to LAX with his fiance, Michelle Medina, and Medina's sister and father when he stopped at a crash on the interstate at 1:30 a.m. Monday.

“He said, 'Pull over to the right,’ so we pulled over to the right shoulder," Medina's sister, Mary Jane Medina, told KTLA. "And then he said, 'There’s people in that vehicle, I gotta help them out.'"

KTLA reported that, according to California Highway Patrol, Crystal Adrianna Martinez, 22, was driving a Toyota Matrix down the interstate and made a lane change, crashing into a big rig.
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Marine on Leave Shot in Back of His Head in Los Angeles

UPDATE 2 convicted of murdering Marine on home visit to Los Angeles

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office says 28-year-old Oscar Aguilar and 31-year-old Esau Rios were convicted Thursday of murder and shooting at an occupied vehicle. Aguilar was also convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon.

FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2016, file photo, Marine pallbearers prepare the flag-draped coffin with the remains of Lance Cpl. Carlos A. Segovia-Lopez, during his funeral service at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. A jury has convicted two gang members in the killing of the 19-year-old Marine on a home visit to Los Angeles in 2016. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office says Oscar Aguilar and Esau Rios were convicted Thursday, May 30, 2019, of murder and shooting at an occupied vehicle. Aguilar was also convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool, File)

UPDATE
Camp Pendleton Marine dies three days after he was mysteriously shot and left for dead in South L.A.

U.S. MARINE SHOT IN HEAD IN SOUTH LA WHILE ON MILITARY LEAVE
ABC News
September 18, 2016

Undated photos of 19-year-old Carlos Segovia, who was shot in the head in South Los Angeles on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. (Facebook: Laurie Mitchell/Claudia Perez )

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A young U.S. Marine has been declared brain dead Sunday after getting shot in the back of the head in South Los Angeles, L.A. police officials said.

According to LAPD Media Relations officials, Carlos Segovia was shot once in the head near 31st Street and Western Avenue at about 11:30 p.m. Friday. Police said a vehicle pulled up beside his, and a suspect or suspects opened fire.

Segovia was not in uniform when he was shot, according to authorities. The family of Segovia contacted ABC7 using the hashtag #abc7eyewitness and said the 19-year-old was home on military leave.

For several years, Segovia volunteered for a group that feeds the homeless, and six months ago, he became a U.S. Marine to serve his country, his family said.
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Three Veterans Graduated High School A Little Late

World War II Veterans to Finally Graduate From High School at 90 Years Old
NBC Los Angeles
By John Cádiz Klemack
June 13, 2016

"So we can go to college," one 90-year-old veteran laughed. "I'm looking for a job!"

They have waited 71 years for this moment.

"I'm more nervous than when they drafted me!" retired U.S. Navy veteran Julian Lopez said as he anticipated something he had been wishing to receive for decades.

Julian Lopez, Tony Romero and Lupe Malacate were each drafted in 1944 to serve in World War II, forcing them to drop out of Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles in their senior year.

On Monday, more than seven decades after enlisting and a year and a half of fighting to be recognized as graduates by the Los Angeles Unified School District, they were to walk the stage as high school graduates.
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