News

MADERA - Madera Police are investigating the mysterious death of Luis Echevarria from Madera.  The thirty-three year was found behind the wheel of his 2004 BMW by Cal-Fire who were responding to a car on fire in front of Lincoln Elementary School on Liberty and Barton Streets.

The fire was reported a little after midnight Tuesday morning on Madera’s west-side. Police and fire arrived on the scene within minutes to a fully engulfed vehicle. Once firefighters put out the fire the victim’s body was discovered in the drivers-side front seat and a fire scene then turned into a crime scene.

FRESNO -  Terrence Goldberg, 35, of Brook Park, Minnesota, was sentenced today to 16 years in prison, to be followed by 15 years of supervised release for two counts of receipt and distribution of child pornography, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced. According to court documents, investigators in Rochester, New York detected Goldberg sharing child pornography files in 2016 from a location at which a children’s camp operated in Madera County, California.

When agents located Goldberg in North Fork, California, on July 11, 2016, he was actively downloading child pornography files outside of a church. Goldberg admitted that he had been downloading child pornography and consented to a search of electronic devices that he had been using. He then relocated to Minnesota, and investigators with FBI offices in Minnesota and Wisconsin opened their own investigations after they detected Goldberg sharing child pornography files from October 2016 through May 2017.

FRESNO - Early Sunday morning officers from the Fresno Police Department’s Southeast Special Response Team (SE SRT) (Officer Steve Baiza and Officer Sergio Gonzalez) were assigned to a city wide gang operation. They were proactively patrolling the area of Dakota and Effie Avenues in an effort to reduce gang violence and shootings.

They initiated a traffic stop for a vehicle code violation. They contacted the driver, 27 year-old Jacar Jones, a Six Deuce Diamond Crip Criminal Street Gang Member. Jones admitted to the officers he possessed a Glock handgun in his vehicle. Jones told the officers he legally possessed his firearm because he has a permit to carry.

MADERA - Over the course of the past week, the same unknown male had burglarized three local Madera businesses in the area of Howard Road, Pine Street, and Fairview Avenue. Officers worked diligently on these cases, and through their investigations were able to positively identify the suspect as 33-year-old Joshua Sanchez of Madera.

Last evening, as one of our officers were driving home after work, Joshua was spotted around businesses in the area of Howard Road and Pine Street, wearing the same jersey he decided to wear during one of the burglaries.

ATWATER – Last weekend Atwater Police Officers were dispatched to the 100 block of Kelso Street to conduct a welfare check on a 15-year-old juvenile. This juvenile had Skyped a third party indicating he had been stabbed at a park in Atwater.

While searching for the reporting party, Mercy Hospital in Merced called and said they had a victim and his father in the ER suffering from a stab wound. This person was confirmed to the be the person that the original reporting party was calling dispatch about.

CLOVIS - The dedicated volunteers who make sure the Clovis Rodeo tradition remains a part of the community’s future are hard-at-work putting the finishing touches on this year’s 105^th Clovis Rodeo to be held April 25-28, 2019.  The same group of volunteers are also busy planning for next year’s rodeo.  Always making sure the rodeo grows and gives back to others, while still maintaining the community’s western traditions and the “Clovis Way of Life.”

Kicking things off right for 2020 will be a new entrance for the Clovis Rodeo grounds that will still be off of Clovis Avenue but more in line with 7^th Street and where the Centennial Bronze statue stands.  On Friday, March 29 Clovis residents will see the old gas station building in front of the grounds raised to make-way for the new entrance that will include four traffic lanes into the rodeo parking lot, creating a more accessible, safer entry and exit for rodeo guests.  A new digital message board along Clovis Avenue will be a part of the improvements.