The Saturday Debrief

HooBoy – get us the name of the guy who said the ‘burbs were boring.

No Earth Shakers to report this morning, at least, so that’s a good thing. If you ride with us you know it has been busy in our leafy little parcel of suburban bliss – and our merry crew is puffing hard after a long night working their beat.

Especially hard hit by the News Gobsmack that swings around and gets us all in its sights eventually was Martinez, Concord and little Lamorinda, of all places.

The evening was first punctuated by pursuits through Martinez and Concord, with officers taking a couple of Walnut Creek robbery suspects into custody at Grant Street and Highway 242 around 9:42 p.m. after their colleagues in Martinez pinned down the occupants of a car on the run in at Arnold and Morello around 7:10pm.

Folks in Martinez were shocked again soon after when a fire broke out in a home in the 4300 block of Arthur Road, Con Fire commanders calling for a second alarm and extra firefighters when it was determined at least one person was in the house. Two people, a man and wife who had lived in the residence for years, were extricated along with a dog.

The man was transported to a local hospital but died later of his injuries. His wife, though suffering smoke inhalation and other injuries, is expected to survive. Their dog did not.

Shortly after that blaze touched off, a fire of a different sort erupted at an Orinda household with the family dynamic spiraling into a physical confrontation and some bloodletting which caught the attention of neighbors and, by extension, police – who sent a bunch of officers, a drone and a helicopter up to search for the family member who fled the residence. They were eventually found and contacted on Coral Drive and detained, the helicopter drifted off to another assignment and peace was restored to The Valley.

Not really. Our Flash Alerts of this and other incidents through the night triggered an avalanche of interest from people wondering why Coppola was in town filming Apocalypse Now Redux II and we worked to onboard 100 or so new users. Welcome to all you newbie Flashers – you’ll find The Flash a good way to stay in touch.

About this time the Pyrotechnic Crew which has been laying down the boom in Lamorinda in recent months touched off a couple of what sounded like (to us, at least) M1000 quarter sticks and one of them really rocked our world as we happened to be fairly close by. As if choppers and pyro wasn’t enough The Flash lit up again with locals reporting gunshots, none of which could be substantiated on our end but at least didn’t wind up in walls, cars, or worse. We counted that as a win.

A firecracker of a human sort sparked off at Havana in Walnut Creek, a couple of customers upsetting tables and wait staff and sparking some really bad Tony Montana impressions from bystanders. That one spilled out onto local streets until the gendarmes arrived to restore order.

Capping a busy evening, most sadly, was a devastating crash at the entrance to The Lakes gated community in Discovery Bay just after midnight – with a teenage driver ramming the guard shack to the community, killing one guard and severely injuring another. The driver of the car was also badly injured.

Investigators said the teen driver was seen speeding in the area prior to the crash.