welme to "assignment 7". today on our program -- >> you'rehe guy. >> eight year ago, the fajita fight that triggered a police scandal. a look at where the key players are now. no way out. a local fire engine stranded for years behind a washed out bridge. an7 on your side investigates, an arrest warrant issued and bank accounts froz. but it was all a mistake. les begin with a look back at fajita gate that started over a street brawl over an ord of fitas and grew into a scandal that toppled two police chiefs and ght years later, what

haened to the key players? >> reporter: it all started over this. a fight over fajitas. but the brawl turned into what some called the biggest scdal ever to hit the s francisco police department. >> doesn't seem like eight yers. seems like it's only been a few months. >> reporter: david lee was a rookie cop who was charged with assault in that fight adam snyder claims heas the victim of the beating. >> i was pummeled. it seems like yesterday. >> reporter: in the early morning hours of november 22, 2002, snyder had just closed the blue light saloon where he word as a bar tender. he and a customer walked out on union street. lee and two other off-duty officers were laving the bus stop bar, a block away. >> they wanted my food. >> reporter: one of them demandehis bag of fa tee at thats. he refused and the fight starte the three officers were detained ut not arrested. from there, it grew into a huge

scandal. it turned out fagan junior's father s the assistant police chief. district attorney cried cover-up, saying the department intentionally mishandled the investigion. the three young officers were ultimaty charged with assaulting snyr and santorum. a grand jury indicted chief earl sander fagan senior, five members of their coand staff, and two oher ranking officers. the charge? obstruction of justice. although the charges against the police chf and the department were ultimately dropped, the upheaval from the scandal continued to rock the department. lee, tonsing and takinger junior were acquitt of assault charges. a jury found two liable for some damages. lee wa completely exonerated, but evenfter eight years, his past still follows him. >> i'm known as you're the guy from fajita gate.

>> lee and fagan junior left the pice force after fail to go mplete their probationary serve as rookie officers. lee now works in private security. but his dream is to be rehid by the department. he applied aga three years ago. >> passed the written test, the physical agility test, psychological evaluation. the hiring board unanimously said, let's roll with him. >> reporter: but l says former chief'sdministration passed him over. >> when you're und not guilty, i thought that meant something. it doesn't. >> reporter: townsing is no longer police officer. fagan junior is now an army ranger serving with an elite special ops unit in afghanistan. li has begun good to adam snyder. he we want to part own of a group of nightclubs but still feels animosity toward the three former officers. >> absolutely. >> there is no closure? >> not really.

>> will there ever be closure? >> i hop so. maybe we day we bump into each other and there is an apology hand out. >> chief handers took a disability retirent. takinger senior succeeded him, but left the department to serve as head of the emergency services and then he retired. saers wrote a book about the serial murdersf the 1970s which held the city in terror. he says, there will be a movie down the road. fagan willoon move to london as thepouse of a diplomat would be assignedto the american embassy. james santorum's life has been full of twists and turns. he was arrested after police found large quanties of cocaine and marijuana for sale in his home. his lawyers the former disict attorney who lost his reeleion bid to harris a year after fajita gate. santoro became another big playern another scandal.

his drug charges were dropped, along with huneds of others when the crim lab was shut down when a former lab technician admitted stealing cocaine evidence the d.a.'s office says it will refile charges. vick lee, abc 7 news. >> stanford researchers say they're one step closer to finding a cure for hearing lo. abc 7's lisa amean says why stem cells se to be the key. >> reporter: at stanford school of medicine -- >> when we saw this, this was a major point. >> reporter: excitement is buildinground something that's invisible to the naked eye. >> th is beautiful. >> reporter: but could make all the difference in the ear. researchers say these small stem lls could be the key to finding a ce for hearing loss. >> stem cells are widely available and you can ow them up to the millions. our original thought wa to generate tm center stem cells. >> reporter: inner ear cells ar

almost impossible to test on because there are so few of them. now they're not only able to grow them by the millio but recreate the small hairs found on top of the cells that detect vibration and sound in the human ear. right now one in three adults over the age of 65 have hearing loss, specifically caused by the destruction of hair cells in the ear. now with so many testable cell, researchers hope to test drugs on them in the coming years and find a cure for deafness. >> we can look for drugs that lead to regeneration of the cell. >> reporter: this doctor isart of the research team and has treated people for hearing loss. >> it's really a tough situati fothem and there is no cure. >> rerter: he's sure this discovery which was published will give patients hope. >> say the word. >> report: at the hearing center, it alreadys. >> for them to be able to sin thetically do it, it's fantastic

it's a great leap in hearing. >> reporter: it's a leap so many c't wait to take. in san jose, abc 7 news. when "assignment 7" continues,o way out. >> any way to take the fire truck in and out of the station in a satisfactory manner. >> a coastal community where the onlyire engine in townas been left stranded for years. also, he you ever wanted to do this? we'll show you a ple where people can make and air tv programs of their own chce. and a sonoma coun car company and a sonoma coun car company tapping into china's were prese i want y to

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weome back. a north coast vacation spot is facing a ifth consecutive year of long delay for emergency fire and medical service. the problem is in the town of jenner. has a fire station, but no bridge for its eine to use. abc 7's dna ashley reports.

>> this picturesque town has beenrawing visitors for decades. jenner is nestled at the foot of the rusheriver along the cific coast, a stunning spot where sometimes you can find more harr sales than humans. only 125 people liv here year round. bu jenner still needs emergency services for thousands of tourists who pass through. at the moment, though, those services take a long time to get here. >> it is problemati >> reporter: he's talking about the volunteer fire department and their engine. here it is. ready to go at a moment's notice. but there is a b problem. the bridge from the fire station into town has been condemned. so the engine can't cross it. >> wle we have a fire station here that has a fire truck, we don't have any way to take the fire truck in and out of th station in a satisfactor manner. >> reporter: the bridge crosses jenner creek, usually a pleasant stream with water so low you can't even see it behind the fe house. but five years ago, during a big

storm, the creek roared over its banks. david kenly, the president of the community club saw it happen. >> the abutment under the entire south end of the bridge had bee washed away. there was water coming over the bridg >> reporter: with the bridge no longer passable, th only way out of the station is an often muddy road that meets hhway 1 and a blind curve. >> some of the firemen have said they will not drive out this way. thy consider it to be so ngerous. it's not worth thei life. >> reporterso when there is a fire or medical emergency, the engines have to come from ou of town. >> it takes 20 minutes, 20, 25 mines for the truck to get here from up in duncan mills. >> reporter: that makes many residents nervous. >> we feele are not protected to th degree that we need to be protected. >> reporter: in e old days, the towns people might have spent a weekend just fixing the bridge themselves. but that's not an option now. >> we have to meet the reuirements of 11 different agencies. >> reporter: those agencies are require ago new, much stronger

bridge and the stream is a protected salmon area, so there are lots of environmental restrictns. that adds up to $4,000 for a new bridge. the federal emergency manement agency, fema, will pay 300,000, but that still leaves 100,000 and the fire department simply doesn't have it. >> we're like everybody else in the whole state. tching our pennys. >> reporter: the town of jenner raised re than $20,000ith community events and bake sales. but theres still a long way to go. >> $80,000s a lot of brownies. >> reporter: so now the town is hopi some of those people who like to visit jenner will be willi to help. >> we have one more tourist. peopl coming here to go kayaking, come out to the various restaurants. >> reporter: ocourse, the more people who come, the greater the risk of an emergency. in fact, th day we were in jenner, an engine had to come all the way from ten miles away to respond to a call for help. after five years of fundraising, jenner is badly in need of a

benefactor. >> we're ovel ready and we don't have the money. >> repoer: dan ashley, abc 7 news. >> the explosion athe new social media means just about anybody can post video or send meages on-line. but as abc 7's karinausk report good old-fashioned community access tv has its place, even in silicon valley. >> reporter: the team is a full service, nonofit media center in downtown san jose. the community access channel is called create tv. behind the lights, cameras and action is suzanne st. john crane, th executive director who manages the pubc and educational channels on comcast cable. >> you see cooking shows, politil talk shows. we have programs in seven differen languages on channel 15. so we are giving voice to a lot of communities thatouldn't have one on television. >> repoer: the shows that air on channel 15 are as divers as

san jose itself. here are about 150 people and organizations o produce content on regular basis. including this in studio production f a program called arabic tv. >> normally the media main media, thy like to show the bad things, blood, killing. we like to show the other way around. we want to show the culture, the community. >> reporter: create tv is not just a place to make and air community programming. it's a learning center for hundreds of people who want access to statef-the-art video and editing equipment. members can ke class and ren professional grade, high def field equipment for as little as $20 a day. >> a tripod, a mic, it's here. >> reporterafter two years in their new facility, word of this valule resource is gettin out. creat tv now has about 600 members. >> it's wonderful. it's been great. i have actually put together

some musi videos and hip-hop videos. >> reporr: the programming on channel 15 reaches 170,000 households in san jose and campbell. it also streams live on create tv's web site. in san joseabc 7 news. >> a santa rosa electric car company is set to break into the car market in china, which is set to become the biggest in the world. now at story. >> reporter: this zap car all electric suv sits in zap's santa rosa show room. right now only a handful exist. but zap chairman pes that some day soon, there will be thousands of them rollin through the streets of china's biggst cities as taxis. >> not all of them will convert immediately. but the government h committed, in order to reduce pollution, to have as many of these taxis become electric vehicles.

>> reporter: and she says the goverent is backing that commment with subsidy. >> there is t only subsidies for the manufacturers to deliver these vehles, but also the city government who actually owns the taxi business, if you will, is committed to actually make this happen because it has to support the central government. >> repoer: she wants zap to be the first inine for those subsidies. it just signed a deal for mass production with chinese auto maker johnway. >> right now the particular partnerhat we have is capable of producing 4,000 vehicles per month and scing up to 6,000. >> reporter: the suv taxi runs on 117 will lithium batteries and can go 180 miles before recharging. the batteri are positioned underneath the car, so cargo and passenger space are preserved. sales price, betwe 20 and $30,000. the zap sports car alias, was just shown a the beijing auto show. it will also eventually be produced at the china plant. and some day may in the u.s.

>> we'll be filing with the d.o.e. for grant mey to, in fact, have a manufacturing plant here in santa rosa, as well as in kentucky. >> reporter: it remains to be seen how many taxis they can sell. so far they have an oer for 400 from korea and working on prices and orders for china. the first taxi could be rolling off the chinese assembly line at the endf this ye. abc 7 news. >> up next, a warrant for her arrest and her bank accounts frozen. michael finney with a warning about a simple mistake that turned aay area woman's life upside

the constant expansion of electnic records, you never now which databases might conta your name and identity. 7 on your side michael finney reports on how a simple mistake g one woman blamed for a crime she didn't commit. >> reporter: it all began here at free month city jail, a woman

named maria jimenez was booked for assault with a deadly wean and then a terrible mistake. one that reached all the way to the central valley to the tiny town of riverbank to this close knit family of five. and turned their quiet lives upside down. >> i'm thinking, there is no way. i'm a good person overall. this can't be happening to me. >> reporter: at first maria duena had no clue of any problems. she was workg full time, raising thr kids and caring for a husband who is blind and diabetic. then one day, $150 was taken from her bank account, and the accot is frozen. it's all by court order from, of all places, the city of fremont. she called to find out why. >> she said when y got out of jai you stopped payi. it was like someone just pulled the rug o from under me. i lost it. i was like, i was arrested?

and i screamed it out while i was at work? >> reporter: maria had never been arresd, yet now there was a bench warrant out for her. but she frantically tried to find out why she had no access to her money, no food,o gas, no insulin for her husband. she tolder children to borrow moneyor lunch. >> i couldn even look at them. i codn't even look at them when i told them i dn't have money. >> reporter: her husband says she is sugar level shot dangerously high without insulin. >> it happened t be at that time that i ran o of my medicine. fingers started tingling. will i wake up in the morni and be in the hospital? >> reporter: it took weeks to figure out what was going on, which brings us back to maria jimenez. booked for assault and tha mistake. >> whate did amounted to a da entry error. we had a new system at the ti. the jailer wasn't that familiar

with it. >> reporter: the detective explains when jimenez was booked, 13omen with the sme name popped up in the computerized database. they included our maria because her maiden ne was mara jimez. by mistake, the jailer clicked on our maria's name. the rea inmate wasin jail, but all the blame went to our nocent maria. >> ithould have been checked. it's the jail technician that should have looked at it and seen the date of birth was differen >> reporter: she didn't know she had someone else's criminal record and owed someone else's restitution. to pre she wasn't the conct, she had to go to her local shiff's office. deputies there took her fingerint. she wondered if they would lock her up, too. >> i thought, oh, my god, if i d't come out, i need to make sure somebody comes out fr school. >> reporter: it took two weeks to car her name and release h funds. but it had cost her time and

anxiety and money. she filed a $5,000 claim with the city of fremont. the city simply said no. >> you're joking, right? you can't turn somebody's life around, turn it upside down that way and force somebody to ha to look into their kids' eyes or be ashamed to look into their eyes. >> reporr: the city said a government agency is immune from liabity for this type of miste. dean johnson says that's true. >> some cases like her case, even though wrong may have been done, the suit simply can't be brought because the government is immune from suit. >> human error and we do make mistakes. unfortunately this caused some grief for someone who didn't deserve that to have grief. >> i just wanted to get my own money back. that's all i wanted was my own money back for a crime i didn't commit.

>> reporter: michael finney, 7 on your side. >> after reviewing maria's case, the city did pay her $726 for e time she ent unraveling this me and her bank reimburseoverdraft fees. ahea the uptown theater in downtown napa, newly restored jewel is now lighting up the night [ female announc ] to do well, kids need to eat well. and eating well means tting enough whole grain and calcium. angeneral mills big g kid cereals can help. did you know it's the ly leading line of kid cereals

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art deco jewel of a theater reopened in may after years of restoration. arts and entertainment reporte don sanchez give us a tourf the new uptown theater. >> reporter: it's a claic of 1937 art did he co- design, such few of them remain. this man bought it in 1998, hopg to bring it back to life. >> it was such a beautiful thing at one time. i want to restore it. >> reporter: it had been turned into a fourcomplex, run down, then shut down. george would have to wait. >> downtown was deriorating. so i quit when i thought i

thought, i'm not gng to lose my shirt. so i'll kind of hold it and entually napa will come back. >> reporter: last year he decided itwas time. breaking through coats of paint and wlls, they found these digns. his granddaughter directed the pricey restoration. >> there were a lot of original details that had to work with. that was helpful. >> reporter: in a word, it is stunning, recapturing a past glory. >> its a beautiful job. it been pain-stakily refurbished and the detail, the ceing. >> reporter: it took 12 yearso open this place as the city of napa went through some tough economic times. now the uptown and other businesses are the catalyst for good times downtown, a new night life is dawning. >> now those people are goin to stay here, good for napa. >> reporter: times are channg here. visitors aren't passing by napa to go up valley. >> what i like to call realizing the destination it should be. >> it's like a breath of fesh air.

>> the mor says it's become a place o opportunity for businesses. new hote, restaurants. t change came with a flood control project. >> once we cleared the safety community, everybody seen the jewel behind it. >> this is the most uniqe thing i'll ever do in my life. >> don sanchez, abc 7 news. >> if you want more informatn on the stories on our program toay, go to our web site and look under the news links on the left side for "assignment 7". that's all, thanyou for joining us. we'llee you next time. ♪ ♪

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