Man who set his two children ablaze pleads guilty

When asked how he pleaded to the murder of his 11-year-old daughter, Ashley, the father — his once full cheeks sunken and his skin now a pasty white against the dark green of the suicide prevention frock — was silent for a few seconds, his eyes wandering blankly as if in a daze.

He then croaked something barely audible. An interpreter repeated it loud and clear: "Guilty."

As he admitted also murdering his 10-year-old son, Alexander, Dae Kwon Yun dropped his head to his chest. Even as his attorney discussed his multiple suicide attempts in jail and as the judge spoke of the horrific crime he had committed when he doused an SUV in gasoline and set it on fire with his two children inside, the 61-year-old father refused to look up.

"It's beyond my imagination how someone can blow up their children," Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus said, sentencing Yun on Tuesday to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. "From my vantage point there is no justification."

Yun's attorneys said that although it may not be justification, there was a complex backdrop to the murder-suicide attempt six years ago — culture, mental illness, a life in shambles after his business crumbled and his marriage fell apart. He was the oldest son in a family of nine children, saddled with expectations and responsibilities, unable to admit failure, show weakness or ask for help.

"His mental state has been fragile before Day One. That's why we had a Day One," said his attorney, Casey Lilienfeld, calling the life sentence a "just" outcome.

In exchange for Yun's guilty plea, prosecutors said Tuesday that they would no longer seek the death penalty.

"This was a horrific crime with horrific results," Deputy Dist. Atty. Habib Balian said outside court. "The sentence will assure justice will be served."

A probation officer who evaluated the case wrote that for Yun, capital punishment would have been a reprieve.

"It is the belief of this officer that the death penalty would allow the defendant to avoid the punishment which is appropriate for his crimes," the officer wrote in a 2008 report made public Tuesday. "It is therefore believed the best interest of the community will be served by a sentence to state prison for as long a period of time as his natural life provides."

The Toyota Sequoia parked in a deserted alley in downtown Los Angeles erupted in flames on a Sunday afternoon in April 2006, a few weeks after the businessman shut down his T-shirt manufacturing business and his wife of 13 years filed for divorce. Shortly before the blaze, witnesses saw Yun shouting at his daughter before shoving her into the back seat of his car.

After the vehicle went up in flames — with all three inside — Yun rolled out of the SUV onto the ground with his legs aflame, a witness recalled at a preliminary hearing. Yun yelled for help, but never once gestured toward his children inside the burning vehicle, the witness said.

The children's deaths horrified Los Angeles' Korean community, a shock that was multiplied when within days of the attack, two other Korean men committed murder-suicides, one in Echo Park and another in Fontana.

According to the probation report, Yun, while he was being treated for his burns, told detectives that he had contemplated killing himself and his children for months because he was angry with his wife.

His wife and the children's mother, Sun Ok Ma, testified that he had repeatedly beaten her and threatened to kill her and burn down their home, leading to their separation and divorce. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to beating Ma, and was sentenced to two years' probation.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bobby Grace, another prosecutor on the case, said Tuesday that the attack was "definitely premeditated," noting that Yun purchased the gasoline, picked an isolated location and parked the car up against a loading dock, making it difficult for the doors to open.

Prosecutors told the judge that Ma had been informed of the plea and sentencing, but said she did not want to make a statement.

Yun's attorneys asked that their client receive mental health treatment in prison and be kept in protective custody, saying he was suicidal and would be a target for violence from other inmates.

The man has shown "tremendous remorse" for his crime, attorney Christopher Apostal said. Yun has attempted suicide at least three times since his arrest, his attorneys said, and has been placed on the highest level of suicide watch with around-the-clock monitoring.

The judge said he would make the recommendations but declined the attorneys' request that Yun be housed in Southern California to accommodate visits from his family. Marcus said the decision was up to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and that the man should not receive "special treatment."

victoria.kim@latimes.com

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Egypt’s President Said to Limit Scope of Judicial Decree

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians at a burned-out school in Cairo on Monday before the funeral of an activist who was injured in a clash and died Sunday.

CAIRO — With public pressure mounting, President Mohamed Morsi appeared to pull back Monday from his attempt to assert an authority beyond the reach of any court. His allies in the Muslim Brotherhood canceled plans for a large demonstration in his support, signaling a chance to calm an escalating battle that has paralyzed a divided nation.

After Mr. Morsi met for hours with the judges of Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council, his spokesman read an “explanation” on television that appeared to backtrack from a presidential decree placing Mr. Morsi’s official edicts above judicial scrutiny — even while saying the president had not actually changed a word of the statement.

Though details of the talks remained hazy, and it was not clear whether the opposition or the court would accept his position, Mr. Morsi’s gesture was another demonstration that Egyptians would no longer allow their rulers to operate above the law. But there appeared little chance that the gesture alone would be enough to quell the crisis set off by his perceived power grab.

Protesters remained camped in Tahrir Square, and the opposition was moving ahead with plans for a major demonstration on Tuesday.

The presidential spokesman, Yasser Ali, said for the first time that Mr. Morsi had sought only to assert pre-existing powers already approved by the courts under previous precedents, not to free himself from judicial oversight.

He said that the president meant all along to follow an established Egyptian legal doctrine suspending judicial scrutiny of presidential “acts of sovereignty” that work “to protect the main institutions of the state.” The judicial council had said Sunday that it could bless aspects of the decree deemed to qualify under the doctrine.

Mr. Morsi had maintained from the start that his purpose was to empower himself to prevent judges appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak from dissolving the constituent assembly, which is led by his fellow Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. The courts have already dissolved the Islamist-led Parliament and an earlier constituent assembly, and the Supreme Constitutional Court was widely expected to rule against this one next week.

But the text of the original decree had exempted all presidential edicts from judicial review until the ratification of a constitution, not just those edicts related to the assembly or justified as “acts of sovereignty.”

Legal experts said that the spokesman’s explanations of the president’s intentions, if put into effect, would amount to a revision of the decree Mr. Morsi issued last Thursday. But lawyers said that the verbal statements alone carried little legal weight.

How the courts would apply the doctrine remained hard to predict. And Mr. Morsi’s opposition indicated it was holding out for far greater concessions, including the breakup of the whole constituent assembly.

Speaking at a news conference while Mr. Morsi was meeting with the judges, the opposition activist and intellectual Abdel Haleem Qandeil called for “a long-term battle,” declaring that withdrawal of Mr. Morsi’s new powers was only the first step toward the opposition’s goal of “the withdrawal of the legitimacy of Morsi’s presence in the presidential palace.” Completely withdrawing the edict would be “a minimum,” he said.

Khaled Ali, a human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate, pointed to the growing crowd of protesters camped out in Tahrir Square for a fourth night. “The one who did the action has to take it back,” Mr. Ali said.

Moataz Abdel Fattah, a political scientist at Cairo University, said Mr. Morsi was saving face during a strategic retreat. “He is trying to simply say, ‘I am not a new pharaoh; I am just trying to stabilize the institutions that we already have,’ ” he said. “But for the liberals, this is now their moment, and for sure they are not going to waste it, because he has given them an excellent opportunity to score.”

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132 online counterfeit sites seized in Cyber Monday blitz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. and European authorities seized 132 domain names in a counterfeit goods crackdown linked to Cyber Monday, the online bargain day, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

ICE agents seized 101 domain names in the United States and 31 were taken over by officers in Britain, Romania, Belgium, France and Denmark and by Europol, the European Police Office, ICE Director John Morton said.

The sites, many linked to organized crime, were selling fake goods that ranged from National Football League jerseys and Nike Inc shoes to Adobe Systems Inc software, he said.

“There is much money to be made out there duping consumers and that is what is going on,” Morton said on a conference call.

Investigations are ongoing and more sites will be seized in coming days.

In the United States, 41 rights owners’ merchandise was being sold on the seized sites, Morton said.

ICE said in a statement that one U.S. arrest had been made.

The crackdown marks the third year that ICE has targeted websites selling counterfeit goods on Cyber Monday, the online shopping spree. It is the first time the agency has carried out the operation with European police.

The Cyber Monday seizures raise the total number of U.S. sites taken over to 1,630 since ICE began its anti-counterfeit campaign in June 2010.

PayPal accounts identified with the sites and holding a total of more than $ 175,000 are being targeted for seizure, the ICE statement said.

Morton put the scale of online piracy in the billions of dollars. Much of the online counterfeiting is in China and other parts of Asia, and U.S. authorities are working with China on the problem, he said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Women Sizzle in Dancing with the Stars All-Star Finale

TV Watch

By Aaron Parsley

11/26/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

From left: Shawn Johnson, Kelly Monaco and Melissa Rycroft

Craig Sjodin/ABC (3)

It's raining 10s, hallelujah!

On the final Monday night of competition for the all-star season of Dancing with the Stars, the all-female top three – Melissa Rycroft, Shawn Johnson and Kelly Monaco – took big risks during two final routines with their partners.

Each couple performed their favorite dance of the season and "super-sized freestyle," which allowed the pros – Tony Dovolani, Derek Hough and Val Chmerkovskiy – to incorporate the music and choreography of their choice with sets, additional performers and costumes to create routines to wow the judges and the voters at home.

Here's how it all played our inside the ballroom on Monday night:

Melissa and Tony dominated with two perfect 30s for a total of 60. Kelly and Val were close behind with 59 points. And Shawn and Derek remained very much in it with 57.

ROUND 1
Kelly and Val, who have not scored a 10 this season, chose the paso doble as their favorite dance. "I want to make it so technically perfect, so passionate that the judges have no choice but to give us a 10," she said before doing a routine that judge Len Goodman called their "best dance to date." But it wasn't perfect: Carrie Ann Inaba spotted a "little slip-up," an unintentional release, and knocked off half a point, leaving them just shy of 30 with 29.5.

Melissa and Tony performed their favorite dance, a samba. Bruno Tonioli called her a "deliciously irresistible Brazilian bombshell," and said, "You've grown so much as a performer. You really have blossomed." Added Len: "You captured the party flavor of the samba, great technique, great rhythm, fabulous." They earned a perfect 30.

Shawn and Derek decided to revisit their quickstep and performed their original choreography even though some of the moves were against the rules. "The standing ovation means everything to us," Shawn said, explaining their determination to entertain rather than just earn points. Though the judges said the routine was "fantastic," they also called them out for their controversial decision. "You're not allowed to break hold, which you did, you're not allowed to do lifts, which you did," Len said. "You leave me nowhere to go." Added Carrie Ann: "Points do matter ... I'm a little disappointed but I hope your risk pays off." They scored 27 our of 30.

ROUND 2
Kelly started her super-size freestyle by performing aerial work hanging from the ballroom rafters as Val played the violin. According to Bruno the routine, which they danced to "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," combined Cirque du Soleil with Dirty Dancing. "This was the perfect dance," Carrie Ann said of their 29.5-point performance. "You executed everything great, you added artistry and you told us a happy ending to a beautiful love story."

Melissa and Tony did something never done before in the finale – a contemporary routine. "We're taking a huge risk," she said of their lift-heavy dance. Carrie Ann agreed: "With great risk comes great rewards," she said, "Freestyle jackpot!" The routine left Len speechless but when he held up his 10-point paddle, he said, "I wish I had an 11." They earned another perfect 30.

Shawn and Derek performed the final dance of the night with the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team – a.k.a. The Fierce Five. "It was a medley of Derek and Shawn's greatest hits," was Len's assessment. Carrie Ann called it "sensational." Bruno said it was "the crowning glory on a fantastic night," and they got a perfect 30.

But will it be enough to make up for their unconventional quickstep? On Tuesday the couples will perform one more time for points when they pick their music and dance live on the air. And then an all-star winner will be crowned.

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Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar

CHICAGO (AP) — They may be a big hit at kids' birthday parties, but inflatable bounce houses can be dangerous, with the number of injuries soaring in recent years, a nationwide study found.

Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.

The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.

The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses — from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.

"I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries," said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.

Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.

More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.

"There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk," he said.

Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.

The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.

Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.

A group that issues voluntary industry standards says bounce houses should be supervised by trained operators and recommends that bouncers be prohibited from doing flips and purposefully colliding with others, the study authors noted.

Bounce house injuries are similar to those linked with trampolines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against using trampolines at home. Policymakers should consider whether bounce houses warrant similar precautions, the authors said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

Trade group: http://www.naarso.com

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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San Bernardino council votes to slash budget more than $26 million

The City Council of San Bernardino, which is in bankruptcy and facing a $45.8-million budget shortfall, voted Monday to slash more than $26 million in spending and freeze debt payments as the municipality struggles to stay afloat.

The austerity plan, a required step in the federal bankruptcy process, freezes vacancies in the Police Department even as the city deals with an increase in violent crime. The Fire Department's overtime budget was slashed by 35%.

The city had already stopped making payments to CalPERS, the state's public employee pension fund, since filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection Aug. 1, a move city officials estimate will save more than $12 million.

The council voted 5 to 2 in favor of the plan, which both Mayor Patrick Morris and City Atty. James Penman said was a mandatory step in the effort to restructure the city's debts and repair its finances under federal bankruptcy protection.

At a recent hearing, federal Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury told San Bernardino officials that she expected the budget-cutting plan to be filed soon. Some of the city's creditors have argued that San Bernardino does not qualify to file for municipal bankruptcy protection.

"We have a mountain to climb here," Morris said during Monday's meeting at City Hall.

Councilman Chas Kelley blasted the budget-cutting plan for being shortsighted and not addressing San Bernardino's long-term financial health, which he said depends on attracting business and expanding the middle class.

"This budget is a financial equivalent of using leeches to bleed a sick patient," Kelley said. "There is no vision in this budget for our city's economic renewal."

Joining Kelley in voting against the plan was Councilman John Valdivia, who objected to freezing the police force "in a city with all-time-high crime rate levels." The city has 299 sworn officers in the current budget, although 18 positions have been vacant.

Councilwoman Wendy McCammack acknowledged that many of the cuts were objectionable but said the council had little choice but to make the tough decisions demanded by the bankruptcy process. Failing to do so, she said, would lead to the city dissolving and being governed by the county.

phil.willon@latimes.com

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Mohamed Morsi of Egypt Faces Backlash Against Decree

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Protesters clashed with police in the streets of Cairo for the third straight day.

CAIRO — Cracks appeared on Sunday in the government of President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, as he faces mounting pressure over his sweeping decree seeking to elevate his edicts above the reach of any court until a new constitution is approved.

Mr. Morsi’s justice minister began arguing publicly for a retreat. At least three other senior advisers resigned over the measure. And it has prompted widening street protests and cries from opponents that Mr. Morsi, who already governs without a legislature, was moving toward a new autocracy in Egypt, less than two years after the ouster of the strongman Hosni Mubarak.

With a threatened strike by the nation’s judges, a plunge in the country’s stock market and more street protests looming, Mr. Morsi’s administration sent mixed messages on Sunday over whether it was willing to consider a compromise. A spokesman for the president’s party insisted that there would be no change in his edict, but a statement from the party indicated for the first time a willingness to give political opponents “guarantees against monopolizing the fateful decisions of the homeland in the absence of the Parliament.”

And the justice minister, Ahmed Mekki, the influential leader of a judicial independent movement under Mr. Mubarak and one of Mr. Morsi’s closest aides, was actively trying to broker a deal with top jurists to resolve the crisis.

It is the most acute test to date of the ability and willingness of Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to engage in the kind of give and take that democratic government requires. But he also must contend with real doubts about the willingness of his anti-Islamist opponents to join him in compromise. Each side is mired in deep suspicion of the other, a legacy of the decades when the Brotherhood survived here only as an insular secret society, demonized as dangerous radicals by most of the Egyptian elite.

“There is a deep mistrust,” said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo who studies the Brotherhood. “It is an ugly round of partisan politics,” he said, “a bone-crushing phase.”

The scale of the backlash against the decree appeared to catch Mr. Morsi’s government by surprise. “In his head, the president thought that this would push us forward, but then it was met with all this inflammation,” Mr. Mekki said. He faulted the president for failing to consult with his opponents before issuing it, but he also faulted the opponents for their own unwillingness to come to the table: “I blame all of Egypt, because they do not know how to talk to each other.”

Government and party officials maintained that Mr. Morsi was forced to claim the expansive new powers to protect the process of writing the country’s new constitution, and that the decree would be in effect only until the charter was in place. A court of judges appointed under the Mubarak government was widely rumored to be about to dissolve the elected constitutional assembly, dominated by Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies — just as the same court had previously cast out the newly elected Islamist-led Parliament — and the decree issued by Mr. Morsi on Thursday gave him the power to stop it.

“I see with all of you, clearly, that the court verdict is announced two or three weeks before the court session,” Mr. Morsi told his supporters on Friday, referring to the pervasive rumors about the court’s impending action in a fiery speech defending his decree. “We will dissolve the entire homeland, as it seems! How is that? How? Those waywards must be held accountable."

He said that corrupt Mubarak loyalists were “hiding under the cover of the judiciary” and declared, “I will uncover them!”

But instead of rallying the public to his side and speeding the country’s political transition, as Mr. Morsi evidently hoped, his decree has unleashed new instability across the country. On Sunday, the first day of business here since the decree was issued, the Egyptian stock market fell by about 9.5 percent, erasing more than $4 billion of value.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s political offshoot, the Freedom & Justice Party, faced the ire of protesters. Nader Omran, a spokesman for the party, said on Sunday that as many as 13 of its offices around the country had been burned or ransacked, and he blamed the attacks on an organized conspiracy.

The most significant sign of the growing pressure on Mr. Morsi, though, may have been the apparent efforts of Mr. Mekki, the justice minister, to address the crisis by finding a way to scale back the decree.

Kareem Fahim, Nevine Ramzy, Mayy El Sheikh and Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

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Tom Cruise Films Helicopter Scene in Empty Trafalgar Square

11/25/2012 at 05:15 PM EST

Tom Cruise in Trafalgar Square

FameFlynet

Back to work!

After spending Thanksgiving with daughter Suri, 6, Tom Cruise filmed scenes for the sci-fi action film All You Need Is Kill in London on Sunday.

The actor, who plays alien fighter Lt. Col. Bill Cage, landed in a helicopter in the middle of the usually bustling Trafalgar Square, which was shut down for the scene, in the heart of London.

Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel, the movie follows Cage as he battles the Mimics, a violent race of alien invaders, while stuck in a time loop.

Emily Blunt also stars in the film as Special Forces fighter Rita Vrataski, who according to Deadline.com, has destroyed more Mimics than anyone else on earth.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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University's neighbors complain about student parking

On a recent stroll in her Westchester neighborhood, Leslie Rittenour watched a dusty white Cherokee with Washington plates wedge its way into a small parking spot on the street in front of her home.

Like the two cars it squeezed between — a gray Prius and a beat-up Honda — it had a Loyola Marymount University decal on its windshield.

Rittenour pursed her lips as she walked past the cars.

"They say it's a public street," Rittenour said, scoffingly. "If every day it's like this, it's really just an LMU parking lot."

For Rittenour and others whose homes border the edge of the university campus, competing with students for parking leads to frequent frustrations — ones they fear will get worse when the school starts charging for on-campus parking in January.

Local residents have had to get creative to find solutions. One woman put out a row of trash cans strung together with red ribbon to save spots for a dinner party. Others put bricks in the road.

Several neighbors gathered with a panel of LMU employees at the Westchester Senior Center on a recent evening to discuss some of the issues causing tension between the school and the neighborhood. The biggies: loud parties and street parking.

Clarence Griffin, director of LMU's community and government relations, nodded and jotted notes as neighbors made complaints. Though the university is bound by its 20-year master plan, officials are open to ideas from the community.

During the meeting, for example, one resident suggested that the school block off some entrances so students can't get to campus as quickly from the neighborhood. She asked Griffin if he would pass along her idea. He nodded. "I think that's definitely something that would be worthy of conversation," he said.

The school's master plan — a slew of modernization and renovation projects approved unanimously by the Los Angeles City Council in February 2011 — didn't increase the campus-enrollment cap of 7,800 students or its acreage. It did, however, approve more on-campus parking.

Neighbors welcome the prospect of added parking spots, but not the plan to charge for them. Students will pay $670 a year; staff, $696.

The school hopes the fees will add an incentive for the students, faculty and staff who live nearby to walk, ride a bike or take public transportation. LMU plans to expand its shuttle options and create a carpool website, which will help people find other commuters within their ZIP code.

Rio Gomez, a 21-year-old liberal studies junior who lives a 10-minute drive from campus, said that once LMU starts charging he'll probably do the same thing he does now: park off campus.

On a recent afternoon, he parked just south of campus along Loyola Boulevard and rushed to the library to print a paper for his educational psychology class.

His habit of parking on nearby streets started after one too many mornings of waiting in a long line of cars looking for campus parking.

"I'm a procrastinator," Gomez said through a smile. "I'm usually late to class, so I rush, park in a residential area and go to class."

One possible solution for keeping students off the streets is to create a permit-parking district.

Residents could get up to three annual passes for $34 each, two $22.50 visitor passes that would last four months and day passes that cost $2.50.

LMU officials are taking no position on the permit parking. If the neighbors want it, though, the school's master plan set aside $24,000 a year to help pay for residents' parking permits.

Linda Kokelaar, who lives just east of campus, vehemently opposes permit parking because she doubts the school's subsidy will cover everyone's fees.

"Why should we have that burden?" Kokelaar said. "That's not fair."

Kokelaar started a petition — "Permit Parking is NOT the Solution" — and enlisted the help of her 93-year-old neighbor Mary Rennells.

Rennells and her late husband moved into the Westchester neighborhood east of campus in 1949 and she doesn't like to see it change. So this summer, she canvassed the streets and collected signatures.

"I walked, and it's not easy to walk," Rennells said. "But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everyone signed. I quit counting after 100."

On a recent afternoon, as she picked tulips from her small garden, a black Volvo zoomed up. A baby-faced boy clutching a stack of books hopped out. He is one of the crew of LMU students who live next door.

He saw Rennells and a smile spread across his face. He waved and said hi.

Rennells' eyes lit up and she waved back.

"They're really, really high-class boys," Rennells said. "They're really sweet to me."

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

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