“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I cannot breathe!” is how the YouTube amateur video ends, with 21-year-old Shalonica Michelle Patton of Compton yelling in handcuffs, facedown on the ground with a Long Beach Police officer kneeling on her back.
But according to the Press-Telegram’s Tracy Manzer, the Long Beach Police Department’s investigation of Patton’s July [...]

FIRST ACRES, NOW MAIN LIBRARY READY FOR CLOSURE
Is Long Beach’s Main Library slated to be closed? Lots of people around City Hall are saying so, although mostly under their breath. Nobody’s anxious to officially break the latest—and perhaps most outrageous–bad news about Long Beach’s ever-ghostlier downtown.

At least, that’s what people who know him might call the man who wants to unseat Laura Richardson

They really do call him Mr. Dibs–at least, his students do, and somewhere more than 1,000 of his potential constituents. You, on the other hand, might say “Who are you?” and “Stop trying to touch my ballot!”

Giving us one more reason to consider remembering the November election for the rest of our natural lives, Long Beach City Council voted 8-1 last night to put Mayor Bob Foster’s $571 million infrastructure improvement plan on the ballot in about three and a half months.
In other words, it’s now known as the Long Beach [...]

Maybe there’s something I’m not understanding, but $89,000 buys you an automatic toilet. In Seattle.
According to the New York Times, which monitors such activity, the city of Seattle spent $5 million fours year ago to install five automated public toilets around town. Now it’s, well, shitcanning the whole project and selling the commodes on eBay.
Explains [...]

Mayor Bob Foster gets the profile treatment from Paul Eakins in this morning’s Press-Telegram, and his $571 million plan to rebuild the city’s infrastructure gets a separate examination.
Foster’s own take on his plan–which according to the P-T will require Long Beach City Council to “unanimously approve a declaration of fiscal emergency”? He doesn’t think it [...]

Coverage continues of the death Saturday night of alleged burglary suspect Deshoun Kenyon Torrence, 18, of Lake Elsinore.
The Press-Telegram, LBReport.com, and the Los Angeles Times are all in, and ask the question we’re all wondering: why he died.
There’s no real answer yet (The Los Angeles County Coroner is scheduled to perform an autopsy today) but [...]

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM
Mark your calendars in black ink: Acres of Books–Long Beach’s oldest, most thoroughly-, intriguingly-stocked store of used literature–will begin a discount sale of its stock this Thursday.
And how long will the sale go? “‘Til we run out of stuff to sell,” says Jackie Smith, who owns the store with her husband [...]

As reported by the Press-Telegram, LBReport.com and the Los Angeles Times, here’s what’s been said thus far about the burglary suspect who died in police custody Saturday night.
He was Deshoun Kenyon Torrence, 18, of Victorville–and according to the Times‘ Victoria Kim, he “reportedly screamed for help as he was being detained by neighbors,” who allegedly [...]

Antony and Cleopatra needs a chemistry set
Shakespeare by the Sea’s Antony and Cleopatra may look like a middle-aged Romeo and Juliet (give or take one asp), but beneath its stormy surface is an equally tempest-tossed tale of politics and the mêlée between duty and desire.