- More details have emerged about the distraught Antioch man who stopped his SUV on the Bay Bridge Thursday morning and threatened to blow it up, and the sequence of events as family members communicated with him by text and phone. The incident stopped traffic completely before the man, Craig Carlos-Valentino, surrendered. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
A “mentally unstable” man whose wife revealed on Facebook that she was leaving him brought the westbound commute on the Bay Bridge to a halt Thursday morning when he threatened to jump from the upper deck or blow up his SUV, police and relatives said….
Carlos-Valentino first called KCBS radio and said something to the effect of, “My wife’s been cheating on me and she’s going to leave me and I can’t handle it anymore,” said station producer Ted Goldberg.
His son, 30-year-old Craig Carlos-Valentino Jr., said, “There has been drama this whole past week” between his father and step-mother, who have been married for more than 15 years.
“It blew up on Facebook,” he said. “She wanted my dad to move out.” Read the full article.
From the Contra Costa Times:
Craig Carlos-Valentino had long carried the burden of being the sole breadwinner for his family, holding jobs that kept him away for days at a time.
It was too expensive for him to commute from his Antioch home to his two jobs as a nightclub security guard in San Francisco, so from Thursdays to Saturdays he slept in his car between shifts. Yet, he persevered.
Then came recent marital struggles with his wife of 20 years. Relatives said those struggles launched a meltdown Thursday in which he threatened to blow himself up on the Bay Bridge, stalemated police and crippled the span for hours before he surrendered peacefully…
His sister, Viviana Carlos, of Sacramento, said that just minutes before the standoff he sent a text message written in the past tense to friends and family, saying he had committed suicide because he believed his wife had an affair.
“I called him up, and he answered. I didn’t know yet he was on the bridge. He said, ‘I’ve had enough. I just want to be with Mother,’ ” Carlos said, explaining that their mother had died in recent years.
“Then I get a breaking-news text. I said, ‘Oh, it can’t be,’ and turned the TV on. Then he walked out (of the SUV), and I knew it was him.”…
Carlos-Valentino could be seen from television news helicopters talking on a cell phone, mostly to the police negotiators trying to persuade him to surrender, but also at least once to his sister.
At some point after Carlos-Valentino hung up on his sister and got a call from one of his adult daughters pleading with him to surrender, he climbed over the bridge railing and threatened to jump, authorities said. By then, the teenage daughter who had been riding with him had safely gotten out of the vehicle and was with police. Read the full article.
- Call him a lame duck or just “outgoing,” but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is still making big news. On Thursday he called for a special session of the incoming legislature to address the $25.4 billion budget deficit, projected by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, over the next 20 months. From the Chronicle:
Here’s John Myers’ take on Capital Notes.Schwarzenegger said he will call a special session on Dec. 6, the day members of the new Legislature are sworn into office, to deal with that $6 billion.
The effort may be rejected, however, by Democrats in the Legislature who would prefer to work with Democratic Gov.-elect Jerry Brown, who takes office in January. Read the full article.
- The Oakland mayoral race is now really really over, as Don Perata conceded Thursday to Jean Quan.
KGO TV report:
For more on the election, click here.
- In the San Francisco Supe races, Jane Kim in District 6 and Scott Wiener in District 8 are the winners. At least according to their opponents. Even though SF Dept of Elections head John Arntz hasn’t called the races yet, runner-ups Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman have issued statements to their supporters conceding. Also: Still no word yet about that incredible mess in District 9.
- TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will launch a web-based email service on Monday.
Back in February we wrote about Facebook’s secret Project Titan — a web-based email client that we hear is unofficially referred to internally as its “Gmail killer”. Now we’ve heard from sources that this is indeed what’s coming on Monday during Facebook’s special event, alongside personal @facebook.com email addresses for users. Read the full post.