San Jose News

Five San Jose residents were arrested Tuesday in connection with a loaded handgun and other violations following a traffic stop south of Marylinn Drive, Milpitas Police Department reported. More >

San Jose officials say graffiti abatement will cost more than they had anticipated this year, prompting new questions at City Hall about work recently outsourced to a private contractor in a bid to improve efficiency.

The City Council on Tuesday will review the effectiveness of the graffiti control contract, which has drawn heightened scrutiny at a time when politically influential public employee unions are battling City Hall over pay and benefit cuts and threats to outsource more work.

A San Jose police captain shot a pit bull to death Wednesday after it charged at a county mental health worker who was part of an official group assessing a homeless encampment, a police spokesman said.

The confrontation happened as the captain, whom police declined to name, and worker were walking around a blind corner at the entrance to the camp near Capitol Expressway and Monterey Highway, said San Jose police Sgt. Jason Dwyer. Around 12:20 p.m. the dog, which was not on a leash, rushed at but didn’t bite the worker.

A San Jose jury Wednesday found defendant Jason Cai guilty of first-degree murder for the fatal shooting of attorney Xia Zhao on July 1, 2008.

Following the jury’s two days of deliberation, many of those who showed up to hear today’s verdict could be heard saying “yes” or sighing with relief, including the victim’s friend, Eric Zhang, of China, who said that after four years, he feels like “justice has finally been served.”

If San Jose police are bluffing, the owners of a mega-casino near the airport have called. With a lawsuit. Casino M8trix, a giant $50 million card room, is awaiting licensing from the San Jose police department so it may open April 3. But the cops haven’t come calling, which led the casino to ask a judge to get involved.

The police have “cleverly stalled” in making a decision on whether the casino can open, owner Eric Swallow said in court last week, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Police are looking for a man who reportedly tried to kidnap a 16-year-old girl off a San Jose street by using a stun gun.

The victim’s mother told the San Jose Mercury News ( http://bit.ly/HbR9mR) on Monday that her daughter was attacked as she was walking home from school in the Willow Glen neighborhood Friday evening. The woman asked the newspaper not to publish her name.

There’s a battle going on at San Jose’s City Hall and it has nothing to do with budget cuts or Occupy protests.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, two male Peregrine falcons were spotted fighting over territory and more importantly a female falcon. Scientists say this is great news for a species which was on the brink of extinction just a few decades ago.

San Jose is casting a vote of confidence in municipal Wi-Fi from the heart of Silicon Valley, planning a new, free network just a few years after such networks were declared all but dead.

The California city of about 1 million intends to offer high-speed Wi-Fi throughout its downtown, covering an area of 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) in the middle of this year. But unlike earlier municipal Wi-Fi initiatives, such as a Google-sponsored network that would have covered San Francisco, the San Jose system will be able to pay for itself entirely by helping the government do its job.

San Jose police arrested a man in connection with the beating of an Indian industrial designer just days before Thanksgiving, a case that was originally treated as a possible hate-crime but authorities now say began with a near pedestrian-vehicle collision.

Police and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office say the attack on Atul Lall, who previously said he was beaten, spit on and called a “terrorist” while being assaulted on Nov. 21, happened after Lall almost struck a man at slow speed in a parking lot outside a Lucky store.

Once again, Mardi Gras celebrations were relatively tame in San Jose this year, with police reporting no violent incidents and only moderate crowds.

By late Tuesday, police said they had not received any reports of vandalism or assault, and that the crowds were lighter than during the other annual tradition celebrated in San Jose: Cinco de Mayo. Police had an extra 70 officers on the streets and there were so few people that they kept all lanes of traffic and sidewalks open to motorists and pedestrians.