INGLEWOOD — A security guard accused of shooting two people at an aeronautics and aviation training school in Inglewood was charged Tuesday with murder and attempted murder.

Jesse Figueroa, 40, of Monterey Park, was also charged with possession of a firearm with a prior violent conviction and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to court records.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in an Inglewood courtroom on May 29, when a bail hearing will also be held. In court Tuesday, Figueroa’s bail was increased from $1 million to $5.03 million, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

The shooting occurred about 3:45 p.m. Friday inside an office on the campus of the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in the 8900 block of Aviation Boulevard, between Arbor Vitae Street and Hillcrest Boulevard, authorities said.

Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts told reporters Saturday that Figueroa was recently hired as a security guard at the campus. He said the victims were both women — one a dean at the college and the other her receptionist or assistant. According to Butts, the 35-year-old dean was taken to a hospital in critical condition, possibly brain dead, while the other 37-year-old victim was injured but stable.

The dean has since died, according to prosecutors. The names of the victims have not been released by authorities.

A college dean from Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology was gunned down while on the job last Friday in Inglewood, California. https://t.co/UAZQxjSAue

— FOX 5 Atlanta (@FOX5Atlanta) May 6, 2025

But the dean’s family identified her as Cameisha Clark, saying she died Monday.

“We are beyond devastated,” Clark’s family told NBC4. “Cameisha’s life was taken from us far too soon, in an act of senseless violence that no woman should ever have to endure. She was an amazing person who didn’t deserve this. She was living her best life, doing the work she loved.

“Cameisha was the most compassionate, loving…

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With a set that started with deep cuts before closing with some of the greatest hits in his long career, rocker Lenny Kravitz closed out day one of the South Bay’s biggest music festival, which brought thousands of people to Redondo Beach on Friday, May 2, the opening of the three-day event.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been in SoCal. I would like to thank you for having me here to celebrate life,” he told the crowd during his headlining set at the BeachLife Festival.

Festival organizer Allen Sanford said in a previous interview that he had been trying to book Kravitz since the inception of the festival in 2019 and he finally got him on stage as the Friday headliner.

Kravitz is among more than 40 artists on the weekend lineup with music that ranges from rock to reggae to alternative to punk and other genres. Other weekend headliners include Long Beach legends Sublime on Saturday and Alanis Morrisette closing things out Sunday night.

Traditionally each BeachLife Festival day has its own tone set by the daily lineup and Friday is a day when rock bands rule the sand. But one of the highlights of the day came from old school  hip-hop trio Digable Planets, who early on Friday afternoon stepped onto the main Lowtide Stage, which is surrounded by sand, which created a laid-back atmosphere that blended perfectly with the hip-hop group’s jazzy vibes.

Group members Butterfly, Ladybug and Doodlebug set the easy, chill tone of the day with songs like “It’s Good to be Here.”

“Who’s feeling good? Who’s glad to be here?” Butterfly asked the crowd, who responded with loud cheers.

The trio ended their set with their biggest hits “Nickel Bags,” and “Rebirth of Slick,” which had the crowd swaying to the beats.

But the performance of the day may have come from the festival’s smallest stage; the Speakeasy stage. This is where punk rockers unplug and play acoustic sets under a shack that holds maybe 100 people.

Jim Lindberg of the punk…

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OAKLAND — On the night of the WNBA draft, Kaitlyn Chen sat inside The Shed arts center in New York City expecting nothing more than to cheer on her UConn teammates as they were called to the podium. 

Little did Chen know that by the end of the night, she would hear her own name called. 

To Chen’s surprise, the Golden State Valkyries selected her 30th overall in the third round. 

As her name flashed on screens all over the auditorium, Chen was mobbed by her college teammates. UConn star and the draft’s top overall draft pick Paige Bueckers made a beeline to Chen, stopping an autograph session to congratulate her college teammate. 

The moment was the perfect encapsulation of the type of player Chen is. 

“It was pretty incredible, especially to be able to experience that with my teammates there with me made it that much better,” Chen told the Bay Area News Group.

While getting drafted is a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment, Chen’s spot on the Valkyries’ roster is not guaranteed.

The 5-foot-9 point guard – the first player of Taiwanese descent to be drafted into the WNBA – is facing an uphill battle to make it out of training camp with a roster spot. In the last five drafts, there have been 60 third-round selections, and of that group, only 16 have played in a WNBA game. The Valkyries current roster has a number of veteran guards who Chen would need to beat out to make the team.

If she does, it probably won’t be hard to see why.  

“She makes the right play at the right time, without any selfish motives,” said Doc Scheppler, Chen’s shooting coach and the longtime girls basketball coach at Pinewood High School in Los Altos Hills. “She’s just a winning basketball player. I think basketball purists would understand exactly what I mean by that. She makes winning plays.”

A daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Chen gravitated toward basketball as a young girl growing up in Southern California. Lakers games were always on TV in the…

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For BeachLife Festival co-founder Allen Sanford, this weekend’s three-day concert will be really special because he’s been trying to book Friday’s headliner since the festival’s inception in 2019. Six years later, things went his way when he booked rock royalty Lenny Kravitz to headline day one of the festival.

“We’ve been trying to get Lenny since the beginning, and Lenny doesn’t play a lot and we just think it’s going to be the perfect show,” said Sanford, during a phone interview about two weeks before the festival returns to Redondo Beach on Friday, May 2 through Sunday, May 4.

Kravitz is joined by other headliners that include Long Beach legends Sublime on Saturday and Alanis Morrisette closing things out Sunday night. They’re joined by a lineup of more than 40 other acts performing on four stages that include multi-Grammy-winning alt-rockers Train, punk and new wave pioneers The Pretenders, indie folk rockers Mt. Joy, jazzy hip-hop trio Digable Planets and, since this is about the beach life, the Beach Boys are set to perform with John Stamos behind the drums.

It’s a stacked lineup that for Sanford indicates the growing appeal of this festival.

“It feels like we’re no longer a teenager, we’ve gone through a little but of a growth and we’ve crossed a bit of a threshold here and made it into more of a regional or national attraction,” he said.

With Lenny Kravitz, whose years of hit songs include “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” “Fly Away,” “It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” and “American Woman,” anchoring the opening day, Friday will be the festival’s most rock-heavy night.

Sublime headlining night two will bring a more hometown feel to the festival, since the day also includes performances by the Long Beach Dub All Stars, Hermosa Beach’s Tomorrow’s Bad Seeds and Newport Beach’s Sugar Ray, who have performed at every single BeachLife Festival.

“This day is like my youth at Rat Beach from 11 a.m. to…

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