The post Santa Barbara Police Department’s Co-Response Team Honored with Thomas Guerry Award  appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) - For months, eagles in a Big Bear Lake nest have been watched with a secret camera, now some Great Horned owls have provided a nature show in Santa Barbara in plain sight.

The three owlets are the most active in the evening and morning hours.

They are in a large eucalyptus tree by an entrance way and steps to the beach.

Some people are staring at the tree for minutes because the young birds and their two adult parents are concealed by their colors and can blend in.

They sometimes jump from branch to branch and that's when they are easily located.

The Santa Barbara City Parks Department has cordoned off a small area where the public could create a disturbance but apparently the birds, so far, don't mind.

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GOLETA, Calif.—Students and coaches from Santa Barbara City College stepped onto the golf course this week for a lesson that went far beyond learning the game itself.

At Glen Annie Golf Club, students participated in a hands-on adaptive golf training focused on learning how to guide athletes who are blind or visually impaired.

The event introduced students to the role of sighted guides in adaptive golf — helping golfers line up shots, navigate the course, understand distances, and build confidence during play.

“I like just seeing the world in a different way with different experiences,” said SBCC student Brenda Martinez. “And I think it’s so beautiful.”

According to SBCC Adaptive P.E. Instructor Kelly Clark, the training was designed to help students better understand accessibility and communication.

“We put it out to any of the students that want to come out and have an experience what it’s like to guide somebody,” Clark said. “It just opens up their awareness of how we all experience the world different, and we’re all capable of doing the same thing. Sometimes it’s just a little different approach.”

Organizers said sighted guides play a critical role in adaptive golf, often acting as the golfer’s eyes throughout the round.

Robert Kotowski, a PGA golf professional instructor involved in the training, said communication and repetition are key.

“Your feedback and your verbal cues are going to be enormous,” Kotowski told students during the lesson.

Throughout the training, students practiced giving detailed instructions and learning how to communicate movement clearly.

“One of the biggest things is being descriptive,” one student explained. “Instead of saying ‘turn around,’ it’s more like ‘take three steps diagonally.’”

Blind golfer Adelaide Ortega said the training also helps educate people on how to properly assist visually impaired athletes.

“A lot of people don’t know,” Ortega said. “What they do is they’ll grab us and pull us, and we don’t like to be pulled. So she will take my arm and I will walk a step behind her.”

Students rotated through different guide techniques throughout the day, learning how to build trust and create strong communication with golfers on the course.

“She’s willing to learn about my world, what my world is like not being able to see,” Ortega said. “So I think that’s a really good thing.”

Martinez said the experience also changed the way she communicates and listens.

“I have learned to listen more carefully,” she said.

Organizers hope programs like this will continue to grow adaptive golf opportunities while encouraging more students and volunteers to get involved in making sports accessible to everyone.

The program plans to continue training future volunteers and students to support visually impaired golfers across the region.

The post “Fore Sight”: Santa Barbara City College Students Learn Blind Golf Guiding appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (KEYT) – The Sheriff's Office shared Tuesday that soil samples collected during a search of Susan Flores' home earlier this month appeared to show the presence of human remains, but a dig did not result in confirmation and some items were removed from the home as potential evidence connected to the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart.

In October of 2022, Paul Flores, a fellow student at Cal Poly at the time of Smart's disappearance and the last person seen with her, was convicted of her murder despite her body never being recovered.

Prosecutors accused Paul Flores of killing Smart during an attempted rape in his Cal Poly dorm room and his father Ruben Flores was alleged to have helped conceal Smart's body.

The father and son were both arrested in April of 2021 as part of the decades-long investigation.

Flores' father's home in Arroyo Grande was part of the search for Kristin Smart, even years after her disappearance and a contributing factor as to why Paul's father Ruben was charged as an accessory in Smart's murder.

Ruben Flores was found not guilty during the same trial that found his son guilty of Smart's death and Susan Flores invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination instead of testifying.

On May 6 of this year, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office served a search warrant at Susan Flores' Arroyo Grande home in connection with the search for Kristin Smart.

Chris Lambert of the Your Own Backyard podcast, which covered the disappearance and subsequent trial connected to Smart's disappearance, shared with Your News Channel that Susan Flores was the one who received the search warrant the morning of May 6, 2026.

The search continued into the next day and matched prior searches of Ruben Fl

By Andy Rose, Alisha Ebrahimji, Kyung Lah, Norma Galeana, Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN

(CNN) — Less than two weeks before his death, Amin Abdullah said his view of success was based not on what people thought of him in life, but whether he had a “pure soul” at the end.

“May Allahu ta’ala (God almighty) grant us Husnal Khatimah (a righteous ending to life),” Abdullah posted to Facebook on May 5.

“Brother Amin Abdullah got exactly what he desired,” said a man commenting on that Facebook post Monday, hours after the security guard was killed while protecting adults and children inside the Islamic Center of San Diego from a pair of teenage shooters.

Abdullah was one of three beloved community members who died protecting the mosque from what police have said they’re investigating as a hate crime. The two other men, Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad, were fixtures of the center who were killed while trying to draw the attackers away from the building.

“We call them our brothers in the community, we call them our martyrs and our heroes,” Taha Hassane, imam and director of the Islamic Center, said Tuesday.

The heroic and selfless actions of the victims ultimately saved lives by preventing the two attackers from penetrating deeper into the building, investigators have said.

“All three of our victims did not die in vain,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said Tuesday. “Without distracting the attention, without delaying the actions of these two individuals, without question there would have been many more fatalities yesterday.”

Three men distracted shooters from children inside

Like many religious institutions in America, the Islamic Center had bolstered its security after receiving vitriolic messages and worrying threats. It erected a fence, installed bulletproof windows and held regular active shooter drills at its school.

And it employed armed guards, like Abdullah, who greeted mosque members with smiles but was prepared to defend against the worst.

“He was the first face of that community to anyone who came through the door,” organizers of a fundraiser for Abdullah’s family wrote, “and the last line of defense when it mattered most.”

Abdullah immediately recognized the threat as the two armed teens ran past him on Monday, Wahl said.

The security guard exchanged gunfire with the teens as he quickly radioed the school to go into lockdown. His immediate action prevented them from gaining access to classrooms just dozens of feet away, where about 140 students and their teachers were beginning to realize something was wrong, the police chief said.

“His actions, without a doubt, delayed, distracted and ultimately deterred these two individuals from gaining access to the greater areas of the mosque,” Wahl said.

Abdullah was killed in the exchange of gunfire.

The attackers were drawn away from the building by Kaziha, who was the first to call 911, and Awad, who had heard the gunfire from his home nearby.

“When he heard the shooting, he rushed to do something to protect, and he joined Mansour Kaziha. They died together,” Hassane said.

Unable to flee, the two men were cornered and killed by the shooters, who then fled as police descended on the street, Wahl said.

“They tried to do something to protect, but unfortunately they sacrificed their lives to protect the entire community inside the Islamic Center of San Diego,” Hassane said.

Guard showed both steely resolve and friendly smile

Photos of Abdullah show the image Americans have come to expect of a security guard at places of worship and learning, which have so frequently felt threatened by deadly violence. Broad-shouldered an