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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2020
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‘Right place, right time’ Davis officer details fiery crash rescue
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
BY LAUREN KEENE
Enterprise staff writer
Enterprise staff writer Pheng Ly never expected to make national news. But that’s exactly what happened to the Davis police corporal last week, after the Davis Police Department released dramatic video of him rescuing a woman from the wreckage of a burning car — and likely saving her life. “I was just doing my job. To me, it’s something that any competent first responder would have done,” Ly said of the Oct. 17 incident, which in addition to receiving local media attention saw coverage on the NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News and in People magazine. “I’m just glad I was in the right place at the right time,” the 21-year law-enforcement veteran added. For Ly, the right place was downtown Davis, where he patrolled the streets while listening to the police scanner, as he’s done since his high-school days. As he crossed through the Richards Boulevard underpass toward South Davis around 10:30 p.m., he heard California Highway Patrol dispatchers
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Davis Police Officer Pheng Ly sprints toward a burning car on Oct. 17, before pulling out the vehicle’s driver. alert officers to a vehicle rollover on Interstate 80 near Highway 113 in Solano County, where the car flipped on its roof and caught fire. The nearest Solano CHP officers, however, were at the Solano County Jail in Fairfield at the time — about 25 miles away — which meant Ly likely was the officer closest to the scene. Although the call was out of his jurisdiction, “someone needs help, so I’m going to go,” Ly said. With the fire department not yet dispatched, “I’m going to get there first, and I’m probably going to be by myself.” So Ly headed west on I-80,
looking along the darkened roadsides for signs of a car ablaze. On the eastbound side, he spotted two vehicles with their emergency flashers activated, followed by an “orange glow.” He exited at Pedrick Road and backtracked eastbound, coming upon the wreck along with two people standing nearby. At first, he thought they were crash victims who had escaped from the burning car, but they turned out to be good Samaritans who had pulled over to help. “It was like slow motion,” Ly said of the ensuing events, which were captured on both
Ly’s patrol-car and body-worn cameras. See the video at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Yj9ICLXmEBg. Footage from the videos show Ly running straight toward the burning car, where he discovered a woman trapped in the back-seat area. She appeared impaired, which Ly at first suspected was due to the crash impact. “I could feel the fire radiating on the right side of my face,” Ly recalled. He began inhaling smoke and noticed that flames had spread to the dry grass on the roadside.
SEE RESCUE, PAGE A7
GOP candidate flouts COVID-19 precautions BY CALEB HAMPTON
people don’t know you.” Hamilton’s Facebook page posted several photos of her embracing speakers and attendees who were not wearing face coverings.
Enterprise staff writer Tamika Hamilton, an Air Force veteran and Republican candidate running for Congress in California’s 3rd District, held an indoor fundraiser Friday at the Church of Glad Tidings in Live Oak. Despite the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in the district, Hamilton has held three recent campaign events at which public health protocols appear to have been largely ignored. A photo Hamilton tweeted of Friday’s spaghetti dinner fundraiser shows her speaking in a crowded auditorium. “Another sold out event,” she tweeted. “If you can’t pack the house, the
VOL. 123 NO. 131
Frerichs, Arnold lead cash race
HAMILTON Air Force veteran
The Dixon resident is vying to unseat Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, who has represented California’s 3rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2013. A Trump supporter, Hamilton is a mother of four who served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force for 14 years. If elected, she says
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she wants to combat homelessness and keep taxes low. In June, Donald Trump Jr. named Hamilton his “MAGA Candidate of the Week.” Promotional materials for Hamilton’s campaign fundraiser at the Church of Glad Tidings advertised raffle prizes that included a handmade quilt, a rifle and a Glock 17 handgun. Janae Grant, a spokesperson for Hamilton’s campaign, said the campaign followed Sutter County’s public health guidelines at the event. They placed hand sanitizer at tables, displayed signage with safety guidance and asked attendees to sit in family cohorts, Grant told The Enterprise. “We highly encouraged attendees to utilize
SEE CASH, PAGE A7
Yolo County stays in red tier BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer
masks, but could not reasonably enforce it in every instance as several guests communicated to us that prior conditions prevented them from wearing a mask,” she said. The Enterprise could not verify those statements and photographs of the event appeared to contradict some of them. Dozens of attendees are shown in photos and videos of Hamilton’s three recent fundraisers. Hardly any of them can be seen wearing a mask. Other aspects of Sutter County’s guidelines, such as physical distancing and avoiding unnecessary contact, were also ignored. Throughout the pandemic,
Yolo County remained in the red tier of the state’s blueprint for reopening on Tuesday. It’s the county’s fifth week in the red tier, where a number of businesses have been able to resume indoor operations at limited capacity and schools allowed to open for inperson instruction. However, the county continues to move closer to a return to the most restrictive purple tier — which would require those businesses to close again and prevent additional schools from reopening — rather than toward the less restrictive orange tier. A key metric used by the state — the adjusted daily new case rate — stood at 5.4 per 100,000 residents on Tuesday, up from 5.3 the week before
SEE CANDIDATE, PAGE A9
SEE TIER, PAGE A7
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With a maximum donation of $150, individual campaign contributions to Davis City Council candidates only go so far in exerting political influence. The money is helpful in paying for advertising, mailers and more, but it serves as much as a gauge of a candidate’s support within the community as anything else. Even then, campaign contributions only go so far. In 2018, Councilman Dan Carson collected nearly FRERICHS twice the amount of Incumbent money as his nearest competitors and earned a spot on the council, but it was Gloria Partida, who collected less than half that of Carson, who received the most votes and is now mayor. Two years later, it is the incumbents who lead the contribution race, with Councilman Will Arnold in District 2 and Vice Mayor Lucas Frerichs in District 3 outraising their
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