TBS Today, Jan. 29 (Part 2)

Authorities are investigating a report Wednesday that an adult at the park across from Berkeley High had "inappropriately touched" a student on her way to school.

Berkeley police told us the student, who is 18, reported the incident around 10:30 a.m. BPD is actively working on the case and said there is "no threat" to the public.

Adult at park touched Berkeley High student ‘inappropriately’

Limited details have been released but TBS has asked officials to comment.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

One of our goals this year is to attend more BHS safety meetings and get to know more of the people involved in keeping students safe so we can provide you with the best information available.

We also had some questions today about a helicopter over UC Berkeley this afternoon. It sounds like it was a news chopper filming a protest at Cal.

We've also had some inquiries about Citizen reports this week describing gun and ammunition thefts "from" BPD.

The reports are confusing and are linked to Oakland police radio traffic — which strikes us as a red flag in terms of accuracy and reliability.

You know how we feel about Citizen reports by now, we hope. It can be a good tool under the right circumstances. But it also amplifies tons of unvetted information about things that never happened.

We're hoping to find out more about the alleged BPD gun and ammo theft reports but it's not at the top of our list.

Finally: Apologies for hitting your inbox twice today, but we wanted to be sure to respond to the community inquiries we just received about the BHS crime report. We are hoping to learn more about it.

In addition, just a heads up, we will be out of the office and largely offline for about 10 days in the coming weeks. We don't plan to email or post much in that period, which will give your inbox a break.

Departure is still a week away but we wanted readers to be aware.

Also: If there are typos in this report, please forgive us. It's been a very long week already.

(Although, on the health front, we are largely back to 100% and still believe we have the best job and the best readers out there!)

In other news

What's that they say about journalism being the first rough draft of history? As it turns out, it's true.

Facts often change over time as we learn more.

We always share the latest, most accurate information we have when we have it. And we aim to be diligent and transparent about posting updates as well as corrections.

Several updates already on this morning's stories.

First, we confirmed that the young man who fell off his skateboard last night was a 19-year-old Cal student, according to BPD.

We're hoping to find out how he's doing in the coming hours. It may not be possible due to the type of incident and medical privacy laws but we are wishing the best for him and his family.

UC Berkeley student, 19, in critical after skateboard crash

The teenager, who was not wearing a helmet, was riding an electric skateboard when he fell, police said. This story has been updated.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

We also learned (thanks to a careful reader) that the man found dead on a downtown sidewalk yesterday was from Grass Valley, California, not Grass Valley, Nevada. We've updated our story.

Man, 44, found dead on busy Berkeley sidewalk

A downtown worker got worried at about 5:40 p.m. after realizing the man, ID’d as Andrew Nathan Patrick, had not moved for hours, authorities said.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

The rest of this hasn't changed since our morning report. But these stories are both likely to develop and we will continue to follow them.

Driver charged with murder after stabbing man who took his van

The alleged van thief survived but a woman who had been helping him steal packages did not make it, according to court papers.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

However, as we noted this morning, we did substantially update our original DA decision story last night after publication. If you read it today already, it has not changed.

Alameda County’s next DA will be Judge Ursula Jones Dickson

The vote to fill the vacant DA position following the decisive recall of Pamela Price in November came after hours of public comment.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

New Alameda County DA says she’ll ‘do things a little different’

Ursula Jones Dickson said she’ll take a close look at staffing and timely charging, while also ensuring collaborative courts remain an option.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

Finally, we included a slightly confusing link in the newsletter the other day. It led to the comments section rather than the story. Here's the main link.

Berkeley North Face is being targeted again by retail thieves

Berkeley police are investigating several recent high-value thefts from the North Face Outlet on Fifth Street.

The Berkeley ScannerEmilie Raguso

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