Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, September 26, 2020

6

ARCADIA/MONROVIA-DUARTEARCADIA/MONROVIA-DUARTE

Mountain View News Saturday, September 26, 2020 

ARCADIA POLICE BLOTTER

Bobcat Fire Update: Sept. 24

For the period of Sunday, September 13th, through 
Saturday, September 19th, the Police Department 
responded to 741 calls for service, of which 81 
required formal investigations. The following is a 
summary report of some of the major incidents 
handled by the Department during this period.

Monday, September 14:

1. At 6:49 a.m., an officer responded to Arcadia 
Community Church, located at 121 Alice Street, 
regarding two transients sleeping at the location. 
Due to an existing, “No Trespassing Authorization” 
a 41-year-old male from Pasadena was arrested and 
transported to the Arcadia City Jail for booking.

2. At 7:23 a.m., an officer responded to the 
200 block of East Haven Avenue regarding a stolen 
vehicle report. The victim stated her 2019 Honda 
Civic was stolen from her driveway sometime during 
the previous night. The investigation is ongoing.

3. At 11:59 a.m., an officer responded to Albertsons, 
located at 298 East Live Oak Avenue, regarding 
a theft report. The store manager witnessed 
the suspect use self-checkout to scan $107.88 
worth of groceries before fleeing and stealing the 
items. The suspect fled in a green Honda Accord 
and drove south on Tyler Avenue. Due to a technical 
issue, there was no surveillance footage of the 
incident.

4. At 5:10 p.m., an officer responded to a 
residence in the 1000 block of Alta Vista Avenue 
regarding a fraud report. The victim stated he did 
not order a GoBank/Green Dot VISA credit card 
he received in the mail. Assuming this was an incident 
of fraud, the victim refused to give the representative 
his social security number when he 
called for clarification. The victim does not know 
the suspect(s) or how they obtained his personal 
information. 

Tuesday, September 15:

5. At 1:26 p.m., an officer responded to a residence 
in the 600 block of Fairview Avenue regarding 
a theft from vehicle report. Sometime between 
8:00 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. on September 15th, an 
unknown suspect entered the victim’s unlocked 
vehicle and fled with the victim’s wallet, cash, and 
gardening tools. There are no investigative leads at 
this time.

6. At 2:51 p.m., an officer responded to a residence 
in the 1800 block of South Baldwin Avenue 
regarding an aggravated assault report. A resident 
confronted a suspect who was looking through her 
mailbox. After being confronted, the suspect then 
entered a vehicle and drove onto the victim’s lawn 
in an attempt to hit the victim with the vehicle. The 
suspect is described as a black female with light 
complexion, her hair in a ponytail, wearing a light-
colored tank top, and driving a black Lincoln Navigator. 
The investigation is ongoing.

7. At 5:11 p.m., an officer responded to Savers, 
located at 16 East Live Oak Avenue, regarding 
a trespassing incident. The reporting party stated 
a transient was acting aggressively toward customers. 
The officer located the 41-year-old male from 
South El Monte, cited him, and released him in the 
field. 

Wednesday, September 16:

8. At 9:07 a.m., an officer responded to a 
residence in the 200 block of Las Tunas Drive regarding 
a burglary report. The victim stated his 
house was burglarized while being renovated. The 
suspects stole various appliances, televisions, and 
tools. The investigation is ongoing. 

9. At 11:11 a.m., an officer responded to a 
residence in the 300 block of Genoa Street regarding 
a burglary report. An investigation revealed 
unknown suspect(s) removed a lock to the victim’s 
garage and fled with two bicycles and various bike 
parts. There is no suspect information at this time.

Thursday, September 17:

10. At 1:22 a.m., an officer responded to a residence 
in the 400 block of East Live Oak Avenue 
regarding a disturbance. The victim stated an argument 
with her boyfriend escalated when the suspect 
put the victim in a choke hold and threatened 
her. The suspect, a 39-year-old male from Arcadia, 
had fled by the time officers arrived. The suspect is 
outstanding as of September 22nd. 

11. At 11:24 p.m., officers responded to a residence 
in the 200 block of East Duarte Road regarding 
a battery in progress. An altercation between a 
husband and wife turned physical resulting in the 
wife falling. A stolen firearm was located at the residence. 
The suspect, a 32-year-old male from Arcadia, 
was arrested and transported to the Arcadia 
City Jail for booking. The victim declined medical 
attention.

Friday, September 18:

12. At 12:32 p.m., an officer responded to the 
Arcadia City Hall parking lot, located at 240 West 
Huntington Drive, regarding a theft report. The 
victim stated he ordered an Apple iPhone through 
eBay but after completing his purchase, the eBay 
seller changed the recipient’s name and address. 
The victim did not receive his purchase and was 
possibly a victim of an internet scam. There are no 
investigative leads at this time.

13. At 4:21 p.m., officers responded to the intersection 
of Duarte Road and Golden West Avenue 
regarding an area check for a stolen vehicle. 
The officers located the vehicle and after the vehicle 
pulled over, the driver exited the vehicle, threw a 
firearm, and complied with the officers’ orders. The 
suspect, a 29-year-old male from Pasadena, was arrested 
for various weapons charges, drug offenses, 
and an outstanding felony warrant. 

Saturday, September 19:

14. At 12:27 p.m., an officer responded to the 
intersection of Orange Grove Avenue and Baldwin 
Avenue regarding Arcadia mail that had been 
found in a Sierra Madre dumpster by Sierra Madre 
Police Department. The found mail belonged to 
three Arcadia residential addresses and after contacting 
the victims, the officer determined the mail 
had likely been stolen on September 17th. The investigation 
is ongoing.

 As of Thursday, the Bobcat Fire is currently 113,986 acres and is 50% contained. 
Yesterday crews successfully held all of the previous day’s strategic firing operations. 
Fire activity moderated overnight, except in the Mount Waterman vicinity.

 One of the priorities today will be the northeastern corner of the fire from Highway 2 
to Big Rock Creek Road, where crews will be working to construct direct handline. If 
this is not feasible, they will prepare for strategic firing. The areas where strategic firing 
took place north of Mount Wilson will continue to burn out today and, if needed and 
conditions warrant, aerial ignition will be used to increase the depth along Highway 2. 
For more details, visit InciWeb.

 UPDATE [9/24/20, 2 P.M.] The evacuation warning has been LIFTED for residents in 
our foothill neighborhoods north of Sierra Madre Boulevard. Because the evacuation 
warning has been lifted and there is no immediate threat to our city, we will be 
discontinuing our daily updates. We will resume providing daily updates if the need 
arises. We encourage everyone to stay prepared and have a plan for the next event.

 Air quality is in the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups to Unhealthy range today. If you 
can smell smoke:

Avoid outdoor activity

Close all windows

Run an air purifier/ run AC on “recirculate” setting

Wear a mask outdoors

Bring pets indoors

View current air quality information.

 If you haven’t already, please register for the Pasadena Local Emergency Alert System 
(PLEAS) to receive voice, email and/or text emergency notifications. PLEAS messages 
are only sent in the event of imminent danger where action, such as evacuation, is 
required.

 Once you’ve registered with PLEAS, we also recommend you register with the county’s 
Alert LA County mass notification system.

 Nixle is the primary notification system for the Pasadena Police Department. Register 
at Nixle.com to receive alerts by text message and/or email. You can also text your ZIP 
code to 888777 to opt in.

 All cities will continue to provide updates as the situation evolves and more information 
becomes available. You can also follow @Angeles_NF, @LACOFD, and @PasadenaGov 
on Twitter for incident updates.

REMINDER: The Bobcat Fire is a NO DRONE ZONE. Drones can collide with 
firefighting aircraft and cause a serious or fatal accident. Anyone interfering with 
wildfire suppression efforts may be subject to civil penalties and criminal prosecution. 
Please stay away to protect yourself and our firefighting crews.

GET BREAKING NEWS ONLINE AT: 

www.mountainviewsnews.com

ALTADENA-SO. PASADENA-SAN MARINOALTADENA-SO. PASADENA-SAN MARINO


NASA’s Mars Rover Will 

SGV Woman Linked to Drug 
Overdoses in Pasadena

 NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover has a challenging road 
ahead: After having to make it through the harrowing entry, 
descent, and landing phase of the mission on Feb. 18, 2021, it 
will begin searching for traces of microscopic life from billions of 
years back. That’s why it’s packing PIXL, a precision X-ray device 
powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

 Short for Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, PIXL 
is a lunchbox-size instrument located on the end of Perseverance’s 
7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm. The rover’s most 
important samples will be collected by a coring drill on the end 
of the arm, then stashed in metal tubes that Perseverance will 
deposit on the surface for return to Earth by a future mission.

 Nearly every mission that has successfully landed on Mars, 
from the Viking 
landers to the Curiosity 
rover, has included 
an X-ray fluorescence 
spectrometer of some 
kind. One major way 
PIXL differs from its 
predecessors is in its 
ability to scan rock 
using a powerful, finely-
focused X-ray beam 
to discover where -- and in what quantity -- chemicals are 
distributed across the surface.

 “PIXL’s X-ray beam is so narrow that it can pinpoint features 
as small as a grain of salt. That allows us to very accurately tie 
chemicals we detect to specific textures in a rock,” said Abigail 
Allwood, PIXL’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Southern California.

 Rock textures will be an essential clue when deciding which 
samples are worth returning to Earth. On our planet, distinctively 
warped rocks called stromatolites were made from ancient layers 
of bacteria, and they are just one example of fossilized ancient life 
that scientists will be looking for.

An AI-Powered Night Owl

 To help find the best targets, PIXL relies on more than a 
precision X-ray beam alone. It also needs a hexapod -- a device 
featuring six mechanical legs connecting PIXL to the robotic 
arm and guided by artificial intelligence to get the most accurate 
aim. After the rover’s arm is placed close to an interesting rock, 
PIXL uses a camera and laser to calculate its distance. Then those 
legs make tiny movements -- on the order of just 100 microns, 
or about twice the width of a human hair -- so the device can 
scan the target, mapping the chemicals found within a postage 
stamp-size area.

 “The hexapod figures out on its own how to point and extend 
its legs even closer to a rock target,” Allwood said. “It’s kind of 
like a little robot who has made itself at home on the end of the 
rover’s arm.”

 Then PIXL measures X-rays in 10-second bursts from a single 
point on a rock before the instrument tilts 100 microns and takes 
another measurement. To produce one of those postage stamp-
size chemical maps, it may need to do this thousands of times 
over the course of as many as eight or nine hours.

 That timeframe is partly what makes PIXL’s microscopic 
adjustments so critical: The temperature on Mars changes by 
more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) over 
the course of a day, causing the metal on Perseverance’s robotic 
arm to expand and contract by as much as a half-inch (13 
millimeters). To minimize the thermal contractions PIXL has 
to contend with, the instrument will conduct its science after 
the Sun sets.

 “PIXL is a night owl,” Allwood said. “The temperature is more 
stable at night, and that also lets us work at a time when there’s 
less activity on the rover.”

X-rays for Art and Science

 Long before X-ray fluorescence got to Mars, it was used by 
geologists and metallurgists to identify materials. It eventually 
became a standard museum technique for discovering the 
origins of paintings or detecting counterfeits.

 “If you know that an artist typically used a certain titanium white 
with a unique chemical signature of heavy metals, this evidence 
might help authenticate a painting,” said Chris Heirwegh, an 
X-ray fluorescence expert on the PIXL team at JPL. “Or you can 
determine if a particular kind of paint originated in Italy rather 
than France, linking it to a specific artistic group from the time 
period.”

 For astrobiologists, X-ray fluorescence is a way to read stories 
left by the ancient past. Allwood used it to determine that 
stromatolite rocks found in her native country of Australia are 
some of the oldest microbial fossils on Earth, dating back 3.5 
billion years. Mapping out the chemistry in rock textures with 
PIXL will offer scientists clues to interpret whether a sample 
could be a fossilized microbe.

 A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is 
astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial 
life. The rover will also characterize the planet’s climate and 
geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, 
and be the first planetary mission to collect and cache Martian 
rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, 
currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with the 
European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect 
these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth 
for in-depth analysis. 

 For more information visit: nasa.gov/perseverance.

 Prosecutors filed a criminal 
complaint last week against 
a San Gabriel woman who 
allegedly sold narcotics 
to several individuals in 
Pasadena who suffered 
overdoses last week.

 According to the 
Department of Justice, 
Marisol Bolanos Hernandez, 
35, was charged with one 
count of drug distribution 
resulting in serious bodily 
injury.

 Bolanos allegedly sold 
narcotics to a man who, along 
with a friend, was found 
unresponsive at a Pasadena 
location on the evening 
of September 11. The two 
victims were transported to 
local hospitals, where one 
recovered, but another died 
two days later. Pasadena 
Police officers seized white 
powder residue from the 
location of the overdoses, 
but that material has yet to 
be tested, according to the 
affidavit in support of the 
complaint.

 At the hospital, the 
surviving victim, identified 
as A.C., responded to 
Narcan, indicating there 
were opioids present, and 
his urine samples were 
positive for cocaine. A.C. 
was released from the 
hospital the following 
day and told Pasadena 
Police that he purchased 
cocaine from “Mari,” 
shared some of the drugs 
with the deceased victim, 
and lost consciousness 
after taking the purported 
cocaine, according to the 
affidavit. Investigators 
have determined that 
Mari is Bolanos through 
evidence that includes A.C. 
identifying her out of a six-
photo lineup, the affidavit 
states.

 The narcotics distribution 
charge in the complaint 
relates to the drugs allegedly 
sold to A.C.

 The affidavit also 
alleges that Bolanos sold 
purported cocaine to two 
other overdose victims 
on September 11. Both 
of these victims required 
hospitalization and survived. 
Phone records link Bolaros 
to another fatal overdose on 
September 11, according to 
the affidavit.

 Pasadena Police detained 
Bolanos on September 
16. During an interview 
she admitting selling what 
she believed to be cocaine 
to three of the overdose 
victims, including A.C., on 
September 11, according to 
the affidavit.

 Bolanos was taken into 
federal custody on Thursday 
by special agents with 
the Drug Enforcement 
Administration. 

 Every defendant is 
presumed innocent until 
and unless proven guilty 
beyond a reasonable doubt.

 The charge of drug 
distribution resulting in 
serious bodily injury carries 
a mandatory minimum 
sentence of 20 years in 
federal prison and a 
maximum sentence of life 
imprisonment.

 Charged with Federal 
Narcotics Trafficking 
Offense

IMAGE CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

 PIXL, an instrument 
on the end of the 
Perseverance rover’s 
arm, will search for 
chemical fingerprints left 
by ancient microbes. 


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