Why did he go on a firebombing rampage that lasted 36-hours?  Investigators looking at possibilities and following up on leads. Once such clue has surfaced in the form of an entry Batties made on his MySpace page more than two years ago.  On it, he lists among his desires: “blowing the world up.”

Batties’ bizarre bomb spree began on Friday evening, around 11:00, when he tossed a Molotov cocktail into the San Diego Police Department’s Mid-City station’s fenced yard.  It rolled under a car but failed to ignite. Almost immediately, SD police got a call that someone had thrown another bomb at the nearby Monroe Clark Middle School. That device landed in the schoolyard but no damage was reported there, either.

On Saturday afternoon, Mission Beach firefighters were called to the scene of a Chevy Silverado pickup that was engulfed in flames. Investigators determined the blaze was set deliberately and witnesses told police they saw a white Ford SUV driving away from the area.

Later that same evening, Batties allegedly tossed another homemade bomb over the fence of the San Diego Police Department’s Eastern Division Station.  This was followed by yet another Molotov cocktail hurled at a house on Zencaro Avenue in Serra Mesa.  The homemade bomb smashed a window and then fizzled out on the lawn.

On Sunday, a Del Mar Heights officer who answered a vehicle burglary call spotted an SUV that matched the description of the vehicle seen near the previous fire bombings and the chase was on.

Authorities pursued Batties’ SUV, which he drove at more than 100 miles per hour, to the Riverside County line.  Police said he threw gas cans and other objects, including Molotov cocktails, out the window during the entire chase. The CHP joined the chase about 20 minutes later, laying a spike strip ahead of the suspect at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula. Even after he sped over the spikes and blew out his tires, Batties still managed to continue on about a mile before careening into the center divide, where he was arrested.

Batties is now in a county jail, apparently unable to make bail and prosecutors said they believe he will be arraigned on Wednesday.

In my opinion, Edward Batties’ behavior suggests he should also drop the “s” from his last name and call himself “Batty”.

On the morning of January 27, 2010, six hundred and fifty officers from thirty-four local and federal agencies swarmed the Riva Gang’s territory and arrested fifty alleged gang members, including Riva leaders and members of their rival gang, the 1200 Blocc Crips.

For years, the East Side Riva gangs of Riverside have functioned as a powerful arm of the Mexican Mafia, trafficking in methamphetamine and fighting any African American gang members or bystanders unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Last week, however, all that changed.  Authorities, responding to a federal complaint, successfully ferreted offenders out of hiding on their own home turf and took them into custody.

“We hope we made an impact,” Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach said. “Gangs don’t own the parks and the streets. The citizens do.”

Investigators reportedly spent months grilling informants and wiretapping suspects’ phones to compile evidence.  Local district attorney’s investigators worked alongside Riverside Police gang detectives and FBI and DEA special agents during Operation Promise. They discovered that Riva leaders communicated with Mexican Mafia elders in coded language about large-scale meth trafficking and “tribute” payments for imprisoned gang members’ protection. A federal agent explained that these kinds of relationships have revealed that city gang investigations must be expanded beyond geographical and jurisdictional boundaries.

Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco spoke to the press about the Riva Gang, standing behind a table littered with seized weapons like assault rifles, shotguns, knives, armor-piercing bullets.  Most bizarre was the inclusion of two venomous rattlesnakes in his display. “They don’t have jobs … They’re living off the fruits of their drug sales.” He said of the suspects.

In a related sting, authorities also arrested Riva Gang’s rivals — members of the predominantly African-American gang called the 1200 Blocc Crips. These two gangs once worked together to target mutual enemies in the Casa Blanca region of central Riverside, officials said, until the Mexican Mafia ordered the Latino Rivas to attack blacks, launching a race war.

Over the last 20 years, Riva gang members have since been convicted and sentenced in several hate crimes against innocent bystanders, including the 2005 shooting of a Nigerian tourist on University Avenue and two separate murders of 13-year-old African-American boys in 2002.

Despite Wednesday’s arrests, officials say about three-quarters of the seven hundred Riva members are still active in this community.  They also believe that about two hundred active members of the 1200 Blocc Crips roam on the streets, as well.

She’s also suspected of holding up two more banks in Poway which she’s not officially been charged for, yet. Pennock was arrested in Temecula on November 6th, just minutes after a woman robbied Temecula Chase Bank. She was later stopped in a van that witnesses identified at the crime scene.

Guilty or not, Pennock is out of jail on a $25,000 bail. Her lawyer, declined to comment after she was ordered back to court on December 17th.  Officials have some further investigations to do. The FBI is now on the case along with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

To top it all off, Roxanne Pennock lives in Poway. What a coincidence that Riverside authorities uncovered evidence from the robbery of the Chase bank in, you got it… her hometown, Poway. The van was recovered with evidence which links Ms. Pennock to the downright dastardly deeds.

Further, she lives only minutes from a San Diego National Bank on Poway Road which was robbed at semi-automatic gunpoint by a person wearing a clown mask and hooded sweat shirt.  A second robbery took place at a U.S. Bank in Poway where it was robbed by a person “matching the description of the previous suspect.” Sounds suspicious all right. I wonder if she ever saw “Mad Money…” the movie, that is.