Author: Amanda Covarrubias

Garden Grove police searched Thursday for armed robbers who broke into a home and pistol-whipped one of the residents, authorities said.

At least two masked robbers broke into the home in the 12800 block of Magnolia Street about 8:50 p.m. Wednesday and tied up and blindfolded three people, said Lt. Scott Watson. The robbers demanded money and hit one of their captives with a gun.

One of the victims managed to break free and escape through neighbors’ backyards. The home invaders, who may have been interrupted by the escape, made off with at least one wallet, a laptop and other items, Watson said.

The victim who was pistol-whipped sustained minor injuries and declined to be taken to a hospital, Watson said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Garden Grove Police Department at (714) 741-5704.

— Amina Khan

Map: The location of the robbery. Credit: Google Maps

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Six UCLA students studying early Thursday morning at an apartment less than half a mile from campus were robbed by several armed men who entered through an unlocked door, police said.

The armed men entered the apartment on the 500 block of Midvale Avenue about 1 a.m., said Officer Gregory Baek of the Los Angeles Police Department. He did not know what type of weapons they were carrying.

They made the students lie down on the floor and took their belonging, including an undisclosed amount of cash, Baek said.

KTLA reported that the four masked men were carrying a shotgun and tied up the students with shoelaces, stealing cash, laptops, phones and other items. [Updated at 10:42 a.m.: This post previously stated the men were carrying more than one shotgun.]

None of the students were injured, Baek said.

Many UCLA students live on Midvale Avenue, which includes upscale apartments. In January, a suspect robbed nine students at an apartment on the 400 block while brandishing a handgun and took wallets, laptops and cellphones.
In September, a student was stabbed at a Lambda Phi Epsilon party on the 600 block of Midvale Avenue after a fight broke out.

— My-Thuan Tran

Map: The location of the robbery. To learn more about this area, visit the Westwood Mapping L.A. Neighborhoods page.

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More than a dozen plastic bags of cocaine were found in the Gucci purse belonging to a member of the pop group Girlicious after the entertainer and another man were pulled over for speeding, authorities said Wednesday.

Natalie Mejia, 21, of Diamond Bar was being held Wednesday in Glendale City Jail on suspicion of possession of cocaine for sale or distribution, said Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz. Also arrested on the same charge is 28-year-old Peter Asencio of Burbank.

They were pulled over at Victory Boulevard and Winchester Avenue near an onramp to the Ventura Freeway around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday after an officer noticed a 1998 Ford Mustang speeding through traffic, Lorenz said.

Mejia, who was a passenger in the car and had just dined at a restaurant in Burbank, was heading to the airport and late for a flight, police said.

Police determined that Asencio was driving with suspended driver’s license.

A search of the car turned up the bags containing what appeared to be cocaine in Mejia’s Gucci purse, Lorenz said. Mejia told officers the drugs did not belong to her and that she did not know how they got into her purse.

Lorenz said a preliminary investigation found the drugs may have been placed in her purse by Asencio, although investigators are trying to determine Mejia’s role through further interviews and forensics testing.

Mejia posted $30,000 bail Wednesday afternoon and is due in court April 15.

"You see this day in and day out," Lorenz said. "I certainly hope that drugs are not a part of her life, because drugs, quicker than anything else, will destroy a person’s career, their family and their life. I hope there’s an awakening if she’s not culpable for those drugs.

— Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Natalie Mejia. Credit: Glendale Police Department

Authorities searched Wednesday for three armed attackers who a 7-year-old boy said broke into
his family’s Norwalk home and threatened his parents as he hid in a bathroom with his 6-year-old sister and called 911.

"There’s some guy who’s going to kill my mom and dad," the boy told dispatchers during the Tuesday morning break-in. "Can you
come, please? Bring cops … a lot of them! … And soldiers too."

The boy told dispatchers he thought his parents had been shot.

The incident began about 8:30 a.m. when three suspects armed with handguns stormed through an unlocked door and said they were going to take what they wanted, L.A. County sheriff’s officials said.

The boy hid in the bathroom with his sister, locked the door and called 911, officials said, until the attackers broke into the bathroom and found them.

At that point, screaming is heard on the 911 tape.

Authorities said one of the suspects grabbed the boy and asked whom he called.

"911," the boy responded, according to the department.

The suspects fled without injuring anyone or taking any property, authorities said.

"If not for the brave and educated actions of the 7-year-old boy, this might have ended tragically," said Capt. Pat Maxwell of the Sheriff’s Department.

Authorities said the suspects fled in a gray two-door Acura RSX.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at (562) 863-8711.

— Andrew Blankstein and Robert J. Lopez

A preliminary investigation into the death of former child actor Corey Haim found he died early Wednesday morning of an apparent drug overdose, sources said.

There was no sign of foul play, investigators said, but it was not immediately clear what type of substance led to the death of the 38-year-old actor, who was taken to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after being found unresponsive at his home.

He was officially pronounced dead at 3 a.m. at the hospital. The investigation is now in the hands of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Police learned of Haim’s death when staff at the hospital called
authorities between 4 and 4:30 a.m., said Sgt. Frank Albarren of the Los
Angeles Police Department’s North Hollywood Station.

"It was an apparent overdose,” Albarren told reporters. "Unknown what type of
medication."

Haim’s death comes after the recent deaths in Los Angeles of two other young celebrities,
actress Brittany Murphy and heiress Casey Johnson. Murphy, 32, died in December of multiple-drug intoxication complicated by health issues, and Johnson, 30, in January of diabetic-related complications, according to the county coroner.

Corey Ian Haim was born in Toronto in 1971. His first film was
"Firstborn” in 1984. Roles followed in "Murphy’s Romance” and "Silver
Bullet” in 1985, "Lucas” in 1986 and "The Lost Boys” in 1987.

Haim struggled with drug problems but in recent years had attempted a comeback, starring in an A&E Network reality show "The Two Coreys" with longtime friend and costar Corey Feldman.

Times TV critic Robert Lloyd described the show this way:

"The premise seems to be this: Corey [Feldman] and his wife, Susie, have welcomed Corey [Haim] into their home in order to make a television show about, um, welcoming Corey Haim into their home…. This arrangement supposedly has something to do with helping Corey H. get his career/life back on track — clearly we’re to regard him, and with some cause, as the more troubled of the two."

— Andrew Blankstein in the San Fernando Valley

Earlier post: Actor Corey Haim dead at 38

Related: Corey Haim: Life in Pictures

Photos:Corey Haim as Sam Emerson and Jason Patric as Michael Emerson in the 1987 film "The Lost Boys." (Photo by Jane O’neal/Warner Bros./Getty Images);  Actor Corey Haim arrives at the 3rd Annual Avant Garde Fashion Show at Boulevard3 on March 19, 2009 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

A 25-year-old Los Angeles man pleaded no contest Tuesday to felony stalking of "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest.

As part of his plea agreement, Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr., was sent to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

Uzomah faces up to two years in state prison and is scheduled to return to L.A. County Superior Court June 14 for sentencing.
Uzomah was ordered in September to stay away from Seacrest after pleading guilty to attacking Seacrest’s security guard.

He was arrested in October at the E! building in Mid-Wilshire, where Seacrest tapes a daily TV show.

— Carla Hall

Photo: Orange Police Department via KTLA

The car belonging to an Orange County woman who disappeared after leaving work in Orange has been discovered about 40 miles away in Pasadena, authorities said Tuesday.

Kavishka Tokevich Lebrook, 33, told her boyfriend she would return to their Rancho Santa Margarita home about noon Friday but never showed up, said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Her boyfriend, Mark Brooks, contacted the Sheriff’s Department about midday Saturday, and her black Nissan was found Sunday at an undisclosed location in Pasadena, Amormino said. The windows were down and the battery was dead; it appeared someone had turned on the lights, Amormino said.

“Bottom line is, she’s still missing," he said. "Obviously, we’re concerned for her safety.”

Brooks told authorities the disappearance was “completely out of character” for Lebrook, Amormino said.

Lebrook is 5-feet-5, weighs about 120 pounds and has blue eyes and brown hair. She also goes by the name Katherine Marie Fletcher and was last seen wearing a beige sweater, blue jeans and black shoes.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department at (714) 647-7048 or (714) 628-7170.

— Amina Khan

Photo: Kavishka Tokevich Lebrook, also known as Katherine Marie Fletcher; supplied by Orange County Sheriff’s Department

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A Compton gang member already sentenced to life in prison for murder and awaiting trial in a second slaying is being investigated for allegedly strangling his Twin Towers jail cellmate.

Jamar Lavon Tucker, 28, was found Thursday morning inside a two-man cell next to the body of William Levell Hansbrough during a security check at the county jail in downtown Los Angeles, officials said.

Tucker allegedly told deputies that he had just killed his cellmate, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. A coroner’s autopsy determined Hansbrough’s death was homicide by strangulation.

Deputies found Hansbrough, 36, covered with a sheet inside the cell that is part of a gang module. Whitmore said sheriff’s homicide investigators expect to present a case to prosecutors in the near future.
According to sheriff officials, Tucker and Hansbrough are part of the “same gang” and were listed as the “same security level” and had shared a cell for more than month before the slaying.

Hansbrough was slated to go to trial next month for felony gun
possession and forgery, according to prosecutors.

Tucker was being held at the jail because he is slated to go on trial May 10 for the 2005 murder of Kevin Watts. Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty against Tucker if he is convicted in that case, officials said.

Tucker was convicted two years ago of a murder and attempted murder along with three other men, court records show. During the trial for the April 2005 home invasion robbery and carjacking in Redlands, Tucker pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder. Tucker received a life sentence.

When Redlands police arrested Tucker, they described him as a member of the L.A. gang the 107th Street Hoover Crips who goes by the name “Baby Hoover Ray.”
Tucker, along with three other men, carjacked a car restoration expert and then forced him to drive them to his Redlands home.

Once there, the men fatally shot the carjacking victim’s 28-year-old cousin and wounded his 51-year-old mother. They then stole thousands of dollars in cash, according to police.
As they drove back to L.A., Tucker shot the carjacking victim, according to authorities. The man faked he was dead and was dumped in Fullerton.

— Richard Winton

President Obama on Monday declared Los Angeles, Riverside and four other California counties disaster areas, freeing up federal funds to help in the recovery from flood damage sustained during winter storms.

The declaration means the federal government will pay for at least 75% of recovery costs associated with storms and flooding in January and February. That includes repairing roads and bridges and paying for emergency rescue efforts, said officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The winter storms stripped hillsides, destroyed homes and filled streets with mud and debris.

The aid also will pay for up to 75% of costs for certain state and local projects that would reduce the risk of damage or death in the future, officials said.

“It actually has the biggest impact on the local level, because it provides reimbursements for cities who spent a lot of money on cleanup,” said Kelly Huston, assistant secretary of the California Emergency Management Agency.

In a Feb. 1 letter to FEMA, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the brunt of costs between Jan 17. and Jan. 22 came from debris removal, emergency protective measures and repairs, as well as restoration costs for roads and bridges.

Schwarzenegger also mentioned Southern California reservoirs overburdened and undermined by accumulated sediment and organic material.

“Many debris basins are at maximum capacity, causing an additional threat to life and property,” Schwarzenegger wrote in the letter.

California asked for about $59 million for eight counties, but the federal government approved only six counties, including Calaveras, Imperial, San Bernardino and Siskiyou, Huston said. He could not say how much the state would receive for the six counties.

— Amina Khan

A 13-year-old Los Angeles girl was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a man she met through MySpace, police said Monday.

Samuel Francisco, 35, was arrested Friday night on suspicion of kidnapping the girl from her middle school the day before, said Lt. Andrea Grossman of the Los Angeles Police Department. Investigators said they also plan to file charges of sexual assault.

The girl vanished around 1:45 p.m. Thursday, according to her mother, who had gone to pick her up from school. The girl had texted her mother that she would be out of school shortly but never appeared. The woman searched for her daughter for hours before turning to police in San Pedro for help, authorities said.

Investigators said they believe Francisco, who had been corresponding with the girl on the MySpace social networking site, showed up at the school and persuaded her to leave with him. With the aid of Secret Service, immigration and customs enforcement agents, police found Francisco and the girl at his apartment in the 500 block of E. 36th Street.

The girl seemed distraught, police said. Francisco had attempted to hide himself under a bundle of clothes in the apartment, said Det. Monica Quijano.

Investigators are looking into whether Francisco may have kidnapped other children in the past.

“Our biggest concern is that there’s other potential victims out there because he was very comfortable doing it," Quijano said. "He actively sought her out, and had no qualms engaging her and enticing her to meet him.”

Francisco was being held on $500,000 bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Long Beach, Quijano said. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit at (562) 624-4028.

— Amina Khan

In the first of a series of projected cuts, the Los Angeles County Superior Court will lay off 329 staff members on April 1, court officials have announced.

“Given the size of the budget cuts we have already experienced, we anticipate hundreds more layoffs to follow,” Superior Court Executive Officer John A. Clarke wrote Friday in a memo to staff.

Officials are planning to lay off an additional 500 employees in September and 530 in fall 2011, Clarke wrote. Court leaders have long warned of looming staff cuts and courtroom closures due to budget shortfalls.

Presiding Judge Charles “Tim” McCoy has said he is looking at plans to eliminate as many as 1,800 jobs and close up to 180 courtrooms to make ends meet. Court spokeswoman Vania Stuelp said the cuts will be “all across the board,” but it had not been determined whether courtrooms will be closed at the time of the layoffs.

Notices will be sent out March 16, she said.

“The most junior employees are going to be the first to go,” she said.

— Victoria Kim

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An 18-month-old girl was in serious but stable condition Monday after she and a man were shot outside a Compton apartment complex, authorities said.

The toddler was sitting outside the building at 820 W. 137th Street with a gathering of friends and family when someone in a brown or gray sedan pulled up around 9:41 p.m. Sunday and fired numerous shots in the crowd’s direction, said Sgt. Jess Carrasco of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Compton station.

The girl was hit in the right cheek and hand, and the man in his 40s was shot in the ankle, he said. Both were taken to a hospital. The man’s condition was unknown.

Investigators did not know whether the shooting was gang-related, Carrasco said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department’s Compton station at (310) 605-6500.

— Amina Khan

An elderly couple died Monday in a Long Beach house fire fueled by pack rat conditions that hampered  firefighters’ efforts to douse the flames and rescue the victims, officials said.

Firefighters responding about 2:40 a.m. to reports of smoke at the house at East Fifth Street and North Grand Avenue found the floors and furniture buried in the couple’s possessions, with narrow pathways carved between the piles of miscellany, said Long Beach firefighter Joshua Johnson.

Firefighters had to cross an unkempt yard to get into the burning two-bedroom bungalow, Johnson said.

“There’s papers, books, old furniture, a mattress or two, bunches of clothes everywhere – stuff they had just packed up everywhere,” Johnson said.

The elderly couple, in their 70s or older, were discovered dead near the back of the house. Investigators were trying to determine the fire’s cause.

— Amina Khan

Photo: A Long Beach firefighter sifts through debris after two people were found dead in the wake of a fire that swept through a home at the corner of Fifth and Grand in Long Beach. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

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The remains of Chinese immigrants whose century-old grave sites were discovered five years ago during Metro Gold Line construction will get a new resting place Monday when a memorial will be held to honor their legacy.

All 174 burial remains and artifacts unearthed in 2005 will be re-interred Monday at the Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, where the Chinese frontiersmen were not permitted to be buried because of racist policies of the late 19th century.

“There clearly was a historic wrong,” said Yvette Rapose, community relations manager for the MTA. “We are taking the lead to right that wrong, to re-inter them at the Evergreen Cemetery, where they were once denied access.”

Yet the resolution was bittersweet for members of the local Chinese community conflicted about what to do with the ancestral bones and artifacts.

“It’s been too long for these remains to be out there in some
laboratory,” said Daisy Ma, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. “We do not want to wait any longer. We want closure.”

— Ching-Ching Ni

A judge sentenced a Swedish hip-hop artist to 15 years to life in prison Thursday for the road rage murder of a pedestrian in a Hollywood crosswalk.

Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson rejected a motion by defense attorneys to reduce David Jassy’s second-degree murder conviction to manslaughter, citing the brutality of the 2008 killing and the defendant’s “phony” trial testimony in which he claimed he acted in self-defense.

“I’ve independently reviewed the evidence, and I agree completely with the jury verdict,” Johnson said.

Under the terms of the mandatory sentence, Jassy, 35, who has been jailed since the incident, will be eligible for parole in 2024, when he is 49. He was convicted last month of the fatal assault on John Osnes, a 55-year-old jazz pianist, during a late-night confrontation at the intersection of Selma Boulevard and Schrader Avenue.

Witnesses said Osnes, who was on foot, struck the hood of Jassy’s rented sport utility vehicle with his hands after the vehicle edged into the crosswalk. Jassy responded, the witnesses said, by leaping from his vehicle, punching Osnes in the face and then kicking him in the head as he bent over.

Johnson told Jassy he did not believe his claim that Osnes, a tall, thin man, posed a danger to the rapper, his girlfriend and his automobile, which the judge described as “a three-quarter ton gross weight sport utility vehicle.”

Before sentencing, a former partner and friend of Osnes, James Crowley, told the judge he felt the victim’s gentle nature was “maligned” by the defense. Osnes would never have pounded his fists violently on the SUV hood, Crowley said, because as a pianist “he valued his hands.”

Crowley told the judge he saw “no winners” in the jury verdict. The two dozen friends who packed the courtroom had lost Osnes, he said. Then, turning to Jassy, he said, “You lost most of your life. You lost your son for all practical purposes. You lost the girl you loved.” The rapper’s 11-year-old son lives in Sweden.

Jassy did not speak during the sentencing. His lawyers filed papers Thursday saying they intended to appeal the case.

— Harriet Ryan at L.A. Superior Court downtown

Photo: KTLA

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A man was being held in a Pasadena jail Thursday on suspicion of stalking reality show star Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Charles William Pearson, 33, was detained Wednesday by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies, who spotted him at a computer terminal in the school library at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, said Deputy Ronald Nohles.

Pearson was arrested by Pasadena police at about 5:30 p.m. on suspicion of stalking the television and radio personality, according to public records.

[Updated at 12:05 p.m.: Pearson posted violent threats to Pinsky and his family over the Internet for the last several weeks before Pinsky contacted police March 1, said Janet Pope Givens, a spokeswoman for the Pasadena Police Department. At some point during that time, Pearson showed up at the radio station where Pinsky works and made accusations about the doctor, she said.]

Pinsky stars on “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” and hosts the nationally syndicated radio show “Loveline.” On Thursday, he sent this message on Twitter: "’Be generous with kindly words’- Goethe / Something I am trying to cultivate in light of recent events.”

Pearson’s bail was set at $150,000, according to L.A. County Sheriff’s Department records.

— Amina Khan

Photo: L.A. Times file

Animal welfare advocates won a long sought victory Wednesday when the California Fish and Game Commission approved a ban on imports of non-native turtles and frogs for food markets.

“It’s only taken us 16 years,” said Susan Tellem, co-founder of the nonprofit American Tortoise Rescue.

The Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to order the Department of Fish and Game to stop issuing permits allowing the importation of non-native turtles and frogs for food.

Animal welfare advocates have long argued that food markets, often in Asian communities, kept the live animals in horrible conditions. “The turtles are upside down in the sun, no food, no water,” Tellem said. “They are slaughtered inhumanely.”

Sometimes people cook them live. “They’ll put the turtles in a frying pan, and they die very slowly,” Tellem said.

Tellem said animal-welfare arguments in the past had not convinced the commissioners to ban the importation of what she says are an estimated 2 million bullfrogs and 300,000 red-eared sliders coming into the state each year. This time, the advocates contended there were safety and environmental reasons to stop sales.

“We ended up changing our argument and saying they are non-native animals being released into the wild and they’re killing our native pond turtles,” she said.

People often buy the live animals to save them from death, she said, then release them into ponds and oceans where they are not indigenous and they either die or eat other species. Ravenous bullfrogs, she said, scarf up turtle eggs and baby turtles.

“Our prime motivation was a concern for the impact of such exotic animals on our native wildlife species,” Commissioner Michael Sutton said Wednesday.

The new ban on permits does not apply to imports for the pet trade.

— Carla Hall

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Hoping to put rest the controversy over a homicide exhibit, L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck and L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Thursday the display was not intended to upset victims’ families.

Beck apologized Tuesday to the family of the late Robert F. Kennedy and removed items from a homicide exhibit in Las Vegas that included the dress shirt, tie and jacket that were worn by the senator in 1968 when he was assassinated.

The clothing was among items in an exhibit at the 2010 California Homicide Investigators Assn. Conference, which is being hosted by the LAPD in Las Vegas. The multimedia presentation at the Palms Casino Resort features photographs, videos and evidence from the vaults of the LAPD and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

"We never intended to compound the grief of murder victims’ families, but unfortunately, a few items on display have been interpreted by some people as such, and that was never our intention," Beck and Cooley said in a statement Thursday. "Our organizations strive to bring justice to homicide victims, not to cause sorrow to their families."

The exhibit also included items from the 1997 Bank of America shootout in North Hollywood, the Black Dahlia slaying, the investigation of actress Marilyn Monroe’s death, the O.J. Simpson case, the Symbionese Liberation Army shootout, the "Onion Field" killing and the Manson family murders.

Also on display was evidence connected to the assassination of Kennedy, who was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan in the early morning of June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel. Kennedy was mortally wounded in a kitchen pantry moments after declaring victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.

The exhibit has already drawn thousands of visitors, many of whom waited hours in a line stretching around the casino to get in. Organizers have extended the hours to accommodate the extra viewers.

The statement by Cooley and Beck comes a day after one of Kennedy’s sons criticized the Los Angeles Police Department for displaying his father’s clothing.

"Such items are personal property, entrusted to the state’s care, not to be exploited," Maxwell Taylor Kennedy wrote in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times. "He [Beck] relies on crime victims to prosecute virtually every criminal. He cannot long succeed if he continues to put victims’ pain on display for publicity."

But Beck and Cooley said the exhibits were designed to give visitors a better appreciation for the tragedy of murder and the difficulty detectives have in solving complicated cases.

"Murder is the absolute worst thing one human being can do to another, and the displays were designed to provide a unique insight into the sacrifice of victims and their families, as well as the emotional toll murder takes on homicide detectives and the district attorneys who prosecute the cases," they wrote.

"Homicide is by nature horrific, but the entertainment media often portrays it as sterile and benign," the statement continued. "When people see the reality of murder, it becomes an unthinkable act."

— Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Associated Press

The city of Orange may drop its lawsuit against a husband and wife cited for not having enough plants in their frontyard, officials said.

The case against Quan and Angelina Ha could be dropped without fine or penalty, officials said Tuesday hours after the pair was arraigned on charges of violating city ordinances when they removed their lawn to try to save water.

Officials determined the yard met city standards after re-examining the property about noon Tuesday, said Paul Sitkoff, a spokesman for Orange. A city ordinance requires that 40% of a front lawn be landscaped with live plants.

"We had two officials go out there and look at the property, and they did make strides in complying with the ordinance," Sitkoff said.

City officials will meet with the couple later this week to make another assessment, he said.

The dispute began two years ago when the Has tore out the grass in their frontyard because it had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water and costing them hundreds of dollars a year.

The Has said Tuesday that dropping the lawsuit would not resolve the underlying issue: The city must encourage more water-saving measures among residents. Angelina Ha said her husband planned to petition the City Council to change the law.

"I’m glad we’re not going to be in legal trouble, but right now we’re really not in compliance — only 10% of our lawn has plants," Angelina Ha said. "What about the next person? And if people just want to comply to the law, everyone is going to keep planting 40% and sucking up water."

— Amina Khan