Features

Bay Area casino in the works 

SAN PABLO – President Clinton signed legislation Wednesday that brings a California Indian tribe another step closer to opening a Nevada-style casino in the Bay area. 

The Lytton Band of Pomo Indians want to gain control of a San Pablo card club and install more than 1,000 slot machines. The legislation means the land that Casino San Pablo sits on will be held in a trust for the tribe. 

The next decision lies in the hands of Gov. Gray Davis, who would need to grant the Lyttons a state gambling agreement. 

California voters in March ratified an agreement between the tribes and Davis to operate Las Vegas-style casinos on reservations. 

But the compact limits the number of slot machines that tribes could own and requires the 40 or so tribes that have gambling establishments to contribute to a fund benefiting other tribes. 

Ex-cop mourns shooting victim 

RICHMOND – Augustus Jones is a retired policeman, used to quelling crime, but nothing prepared him for the sight of his 16-year-old son Gus stumbling, bloody, into his front yard. 

He soon learned that his younger son, Johnny, had also been shot and died from the wounds. 

“Being the victim is a whole different experience,” Augustus Jones told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You can’t do anything.” 

Jones’ two sons were ambushed on the street Tuesday by at least one gunman who parked his car near the boys as they walked to a Bay Area Rapid Transit station for a San Francisco shopping trip. 

At least one man got out of the car, circled the Jones brothers and shot them down, Richmond police said. Authorities are not discussing a possible motive and no arrests have been made. 

Johnny Jones is the fourth teen-ager to be killed in Richmond in the last month. The homicides all happened in different neighborhoods but investigators are looking for links between the killings. 

Arrest made in 1996 robbery 

OAKLAND – Oakland police think they finally have their man from an ice show robbery nearly five years ago, but they had to go across the country to find him. 

Roland McSorley was taken into custody over the weekend at his father’s home in Ashland, N.H., investigators said. 

McSorley had been a bookkeeper for the Disney on Ice show for about four years when he and a cohort allegedly made off with as much as $125,000 in receipts from shows in Oakland. 

McSorley and Robert Gillen, a concession worker, both were named in warrants in connection with the March 1996 incident. 

Gillen was arrested in Ohio later that month with about half the money. Officers say McSorley managed to evade detectives, allegedly with the help of his family, by changing his name and moving.