Pinole News

" While Pinole police say they've solved the 1988 disappearance of 7-year-old Amber Swartz, the girl's mother tells KRON 4 that she's not certain about the announcement.

Now, the former taxi driver can be labeled a serial killer, authorities said Monday.

Twenty-one years and 32 days after the brazen kidnapping of a 7-year-old Bay Area girl named Amber Swartz riveted America and became a metaphor for the loss of suburban innocence, police closed the book on the case and said there was no doubt who killed her: A dead monster named Curtis Dean Anderson.

Two killings in two days stretched the Richmond Police Department's homicide squad this week, with detectives chasing leads in a freeway shooting and an attack that left a man dead Monday night in an apartment parking lot.

For 21 years, Pinole City Council meetings have begun with a simple and solemn message: "Remembrance. Amber Swartz is still missing.

Homicide investigators searched Monday for the grey Ford Explorer of a gunman who riddled a Richmond woman's car with a barrage of bullets on a local freeway, fatally wounding her.

The infamous pedophile who molested and murdered Vallejo's Xiana Fairchild did the same to another 7-year-old in Pinole, authorities said this morning as they formally ended their 21-year search for Amber Swartz-Garcia. Amber vanished the afternoon of June 3, 1988, last seen skipping rope in front of her home on the 3400 block of Savage Avenue.

A 25-year-old Richmond woman was fatally shot in a carA Sunday morning in Pinole, according to the Richmond Police Department.

One Alvarado Square. 510-215-3005. The council will discuss a Youth Protection Ordinance and hold a public hearing on a proposed rezoning of 2140 Vale Road from Institutional to Light Commercial.

As we introduce the new Friday edition of this column, here are some quick-read items for your holiday weekend reading pleasure.

The Pinole Senior Center will be open as a Cooling Center through Wednesday. Opening hours will be from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. People suffering from the heat - regardless of age or city of residence - are welcome to come into the air-conditioned center, where they can watch TV and drink ice water, said Senior Center Coordinator Janet Bilbas.

Gary Boyles is out as fire chief of the Rodeo-Hercules Fire Protection District.

STEPHANIE WONG is spending part of the summer before her senior year at El Cerrito High School in the waters off the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Pinole police arrested two men suspected of robbing a convenience store last week and seek one more.

Better communication and consistent enforcement of campus rules are keys to curbing the recent spike in West Contra Costa school fights and other safety problems, police and district officials say.

Cuts to administrator jobs in the Pinole Fire Department threaten the existence of Battalion 7, a team of six fire stations in three agencies that functions as one department for a large chunk of West Contra Costa, some fire officials warn.

A recent rash of safety problems at West Contra Costa school campuses has some mulling the need for an additional police presence at middle schools, but budget shortfalls could threaten the idea before it gains ground.

Pinole police searched in vain for three men who held up a 7-Eleven on Wednesday night, but did find the getaway car in an unincorporated section of nearby San Pablo.

Team classic cars, live entertainment and free admission with a picturesque locale and you have the Cruisin' In The Sun Classic Car Show, which returns for its 18th year in Old Town Pinole from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 28.

The Pinole Community Players present the entertaining musical "Pump Boys & Dinettes," a tribute to life along the open road of North Carolina's Highway 57, weekends through July 11 at the Community Playhouse, 601 Tennent Ave.