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Published on 12/29/1999 All articles from this issue

News Briefs

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Mountain View police arrest man for 8 attacks

Mountain View Police arrested a man last Thursday for eight assaults on women in Mountain View and Palo Alto over the past 10 months, including two that morning near San Antonio Shopping Center.

The attacks began March 15 in Mountain View and ended last Thursday.

In each attack, the suspect allegedly assaulted women with a knife.

Police located Samuel Antonio Ortega, 27, while searching last Thursday for a man who allegedly slashed a woman's face with a knife on Fayette Drive in Mountain View earlier that morning, police said.

A resident tipped off police to Ortega after seeing a media broadcast that day with a description of the man suspected of attacking two Mountain View women in the morning in separate incidents.

Police linked Ortega to seven incidents in Mountain View and one incident last November in Palo Alto.

Ortega was in custody in the San Jose Main Jail last week.

Driver identified in high-speed chase

The driver who led police on a high-speed chase on Highway 101 from Mountain View to San Francisco has been identified as Ruben Morales, San Francisco Medical Examiner Charles Newman said.

Mountain View police pursued Morales into San Francisco on Dec. 20, when Morales stopped his car at a parking lot on Third and King streets, got out, pulled a gun, and was subsequently shot and killed by the California Highway Patrol officers.

Morales' family is believed to live in Northern California.

Traffic safety during power outage

Los Altos city officials say they don't anticipate a power outage from the Y2K bug, but they are reminding drivers what to do if the town's traffic signals should stop working.

Under the California Vehicle Code, "The driver of any vehicle approaching an intersection which has official traffic control signals that are inoperative shall stop at the intersection, and may proceed with caution when it is safe to do so."

-Town Crier Staff Report