Las Vegas Strip shooting suspect is arrested in L.A.

A man suspected in a deadly car-to-car shooting in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip was arrested Thursday at a Studio City apartment complex, bringing an end to a weeklong manhunt.

Los Angeles police and FBI agents surrounded the suburban apartment complex in the 4100 block of Arch Drive about noon and ordered Ammar Harris to surrender. Officers said there was a woman inside the apartment where he was holed up; she was not arrested.

Harris, 26, is being held on suspicion of murder and is expected to be extradited back to Nevada.

"This arrest is much more than just taking Ammar Harris," said Las Vegas Sheriff Doug Gillespie, speaking at police headquarters near the Strip. "The citizens of our community as well as tourists who visit and work in the Las Vegas Valley are entitled to a safe community."

Harris — described by law enforcement officials as a man with an "extensive and violent criminal history" — is accused of being the gunman in the Feb. 21 shooting that killed three people, including Kenneth Cherry Jr., an Oakland native and rapper known as Kenny Clutch.

Las Vegas police said Harris opened fire from his Ranger Rover on Cherry's Maserati on Las Vegas Boulevard after an altercation at a valet stand at the Aria hotel resort.

The Maserati then sped into the intersection at Flamingo Road, where it rammed a Yellow Cab, which erupted in flames near the mega-wattage casinos of the Bellagio, the Flamingo and Ceasars Palace. The explosion killed the taxi driver and passenger inside.

Cherry and a passenger in his Maserati were taken to a hospital, where Cherry was pronounced dead. Four other vehicles were involved in the fiery crash, which left three other people with injuries.

"What I can tell you is that Mr. Harris' behavior was unlike any other I've seen, and I've been in this community in law enforcement for 32 years," Clark County Dist. Atty. Steve Wolfson said.

"I cannot imagine anything more serious than firing a weapon from a moving vehicle into another moving vehicle on a corner such as Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo."

Even in a city accustomed to spectacle, the shooting and collision were shocking.

On the night of the shooting, Harris was accompanied by three people in his Range Rover, none considered suspects, said Lt. Ray Steiber of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. On Saturday, Las Vegas police found Harris' black Range Rover at an apartment complex in the city. The district attorney charged Harris with murder even though he could not be located, and a federal magistrate signed off on a charge of fleeing the jurisdiction.

Federal court documents show Las Vegas homicide detectives suspected that Harris may have fled to California because his phone showed he made calls in the state.

According to law enforcement sources, Harris operated as a pimp in Las Vegas. In a video released by Las Vegas police, Harris flashed a fistful of $100 bills as he bragged about the money. He boasted about money, guns, expensive cars and run-ins with the law on social media accounts, authorities said.

On one social media site, using the name Jai'duh, someone authorities believe was Harris posted pictures of stacks of $100 bills and a Carbon 15 pistol.

Harris' record includes a 2010 arrest in Las Vegas on suspicion of pimping-related offenses of pandering with force and sexual assault. He has previously been arrested on suspicion of a variety of crimes in South Carolina and Georgia, authorities said.

Harris is slated to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Monday for an extradition proceeding.

richard.winton@latimes.com

john.glionna@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

Glionna reported from Las Vegas. Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.

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IHT Rendezvous: Q and A: Keeping ‘A Chorus Line’ in Step

LONDON — For a musical that’s all about dancers, there’s not a huge amount of dancing in “A Chorus Line,” which opened last week at the London Palladium — the first West End revival of the musical since it opened here in 1976, a year after its smash-hit debut on Broadway.

But the most dance-intensive moments are fundamental to our very idea of “A Chorus Line”: the “Aaaah-5-6-7-8!” that unleashes the explosion of movement with which the musical opens, and the slow sideways-moving line of gold-clad top-hatted dancers with which it closes. In between those moments is the meat of the show; the passage from anonymity as the dancers begin the audition, to individuality as they tell their stories — and then back again, to an impersonal line of identically dressed, identically moving performers.

On opening night at the Palladium, the audience greeted those first moments with a roaring cheer, a salute to the love-story that “A Chorus Line” tells — not between its characters, but between them and showbiz. The choreography may look stylized, but it doesn’t really matter. Watching, we are both in 1975 (as the opening projection tells us) and in 2013; leotard and dance styles might have changed, but the desire to be on Broadway has not.

Michael Bennett, who conceived of the show, choreographed and directed it, died in 1987, and it is his co-choreographer, Bob Avian, who has been responsible for directing the major “Chorus Line” revivals since.

So how much does the dance (and the dancing) matter in “A Chorus Line”? Two days after the London opening — greeted by a positive storm of approval by the critics — Mr. Avian flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a well-earned rest after several months of putting the musical together in London. Speaking by telephone, he discussed the choreography, his approach to staging the work, and why “A Chorus Line” still speaks to a contemporary audience.

Q.

How did you and Michael Bennett approach the choreography? Is the opening number really the kind of routine you would have asked an audition group to do?

A.

Michael and I were a good team, because he was a jazz dancer, and my training was classical. Between us we came up with a lot of choreography that was more integrated. A lot of it was based on dance crazes of the time — disco, the toe-heel-heel, the body shifts that go along with that. We pulled on elements of popular dancing as we were doing it; we were children of our times, dance-wise. There’s actually not much contemporary dance in there; there is ballet, typical broadway and tap. The only jazz combos are in the opening sequence and the montage sections.

Q.

Did you initially think it would be more of a dance show?

A.

Well, it was a very slow process and I’m not sure we had an idea of how it would be. We had the original tapes of the stories from our dancers and once we decided to put those stories in the framework of an audition, we were able to construct the piece. But it took us a very long time. We did four workshops, which no one did in those days — we were the first ones ever to do it. The montage, which is 22 minutes, took us six weeks. You wouldn’t be able to do that today, it would be too expensive.

Q.

Is the routine we see at the beginning a realistic idea of what you might see at a Broadway audition today?

A.

A dance call is still pretty much the same. When we have an open call, you might get 700 people. We divide them into groups of 10 and make them all do double pirouettes — you can immediately see people’s training. We keep 2 or 3 people from each group, then we teach them the opening combination, a shortened version, then the full one, then the ballet combination. You get a feel for their jazz style, and the ballet combination is very revealing in terms of technique.

Q.

Are you strict about remaining faithful to the original choreography? Do you adapt to different dancers or, perhaps, a more contemporary style of dancing today?

A.

The ensemble stuff is set in stone, but with the solo work, we are very open. For Cassie’s dance, for instance, we try to pull on the strengths of the dancer performing the role. If she has a great extension, or very supple back, we make tons of adjustments along the way. In structure it’s still the same, because it’s about the music and the storytelling — it’s about narcissism, about the need to have her gifts recognized.

In the individual stuff, the staging of the songs, I make adjustments all the time. At the beginning of the rehearsal process, I just let them do the number and see what they will bring to it. In that way, I suppose it becomes more contemporary because they are performers of today.

Q.

Have the technical capacities of dancers changed since you first staged the musical in 1975?

A.

Undoubtedly. The quality of the dancing is much higher than it was when we made it. Also, then you still had a singing chorus, or a dancing chorus; it was hard to get people who could do everything really well, and now that is the norm.

It’s still hard to get a woman who can do Cassie’s big song-and-dance solo; we’ve had performers who are great dancers, but can’t really sing it. It’s a very difficult song and you need a lot of stamina. But every time I return to the show, the caliber is higher in general.

Q.

Is there a difference between the U.S. and the U.K in the quality of musical theater performers, given that there is more of a conventional theater tradition here?

A.

Not essentially. They were perhaps a little behind America in the past, but that’s mostly to do with the fact that we pull from a population that is so much bigger — it’s a numbers thing. But now they have the same all-around training, and they are fully the equals of U.S. performers. In fact, I think this London cast is the finest company we’ve had in 35 years. Every time I do “Chorus Line,” I think, not again! But this was all pleasure.

Q.

The audience was beyond rapturous at the performance I attended. Why do you think people identify so strongly with “A Chorus Line”?

A.

I think it speaks to everyone because it’s really about people on an assembly line. They are not stars, and they aren’t trying to be stars — they are trying to succeed in essentially a humble way. And the musical talks about things that weren’t discussed on Broadway before: homosexuality, plastic surgery, angry or troubled or loving relationships with parents. Even though much has changed socially since we made it, those issues don’t go away.

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Rachel McAdams Finds Unlikely Suitor at Toronto Raptors Game

By Tim Nudd

02/28/2013 at 11:15 AM EST

Rachel McAdams and the Toronto Raptors's velociraptor mascot

IPHOTO

Rachel McAdams's last boyfriend was a little older than her. Now it looks like she's keeping company with someone from the Cretaceous Period.

The actress, 34, who recently split with her beau of two years, actor Michael Sheen, was courted by the Toronto Raptors's velociraptor mascot on Monday night.

He presented the Midnight in Paris actress with flowers and a stuffed dinosaur as the Toronto public-address announcer introduced the London, Ontario, native to the crowd, who cheered wildly.

McAdams, sporting newly red locks, seemed charmingly embarrassed by the whole episode, but took it in stride, grinning her famous smile as she accepted the presents.

As NBA mascots go, the Raptor would be a prize catch for any Hollywood actress. Described as "165 lbs. of pure solid fur," he's been voted the most popular NBA mascot in each of the past three seasons.

He also "enjoys making people laugh, whether with him or at him, usually at him," according to his bio.

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Eric Garcetti showed political savvy during busy student years

Fourth in a series of articles focusing on key periods in the lives of the mayoral hopefuls.

Ben Jealous still recalls walking into a Columbia University meeting of a new group called Black Men for Anita Hill and seeing a half-Jewish, half-Mexican kid from Los Angeles leading the discussion.

"What's he doing here?" he asked the professor who organized the meeting.

"Honestly brother," the teacher replied, "he's the only one here I'm certain will really work hard."

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It was Jealous' first exposure to Eric Garcetti, a committed young progressive known on campus for gliding between different worlds and liberal causes. As a political science major at Columbia, Garcetti patched plaster and painted walls in low-income apartments in Harlem while also serving as the president of an exclusive literary society known for its wealthy membership. He led a men's discussion group on gender and sexuality, ran successfully for student government, and wrote and performed in musicals.

His busy student years offered hints of the future political persona that would later help him win a Los Angeles City Council seat and emerge as a leading candidate for mayor. As he pursued countless progressive causes — improved race relations in New York City, democracy in Burma and human rights in Ethiopia — Garcetti also exhibited a careful stewardship of his image and a desire to get along with everyone.

Some of his critics complain that he is confrontation averse, and say his chameleon-like abilities are political. Others complain that he has lost touch with his activist roots, citing his recent advocacy for a plan to allow taller and bigger buildings in Hollywood despite strong opposition from some community members.

But Jealous, who went on to study with Garcetti at Oxford, where they were both Rhodes scholars, remembers his classmate as "authentically committed" to social justice and naturally at ease in different settings. That was a valuable trait in early 1990s New York City, when tensions between whites and blacks were high, said Jealous, who is now the president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. Against a backdrop of racial violence, including the stabbing of the Rev. Al Sharpton in Brooklyn in 1991, "there was an urgent need to build bridges," he said.

On Columbia's campus, Garcetti pushed to involve more men in Take Back the Night protests against sexual violence and tracked hate crimes as president of the National Student Coalition Against Harassment. He also worked against homelessness and founded the Columbia Urban Experience, a program that exposes incoming freshmen to city life through volunteerism.

Judith Russell, a Columbia professor who taught Garcetti in a yearlong urban politics course, remembers him as a skilled organizer. "Eric was one of the best people I've ever met at getting people to agree," she said.

He was also ambitious. Russell says she wrote countless recommendation letters for Garcetti, who was always applying for some new opportunity. "For most people I have a file or two. For Eric I have a folder," she said.

Even as a student, Garcetti went to great lengths to guard his image and public reputation. In a 1991 letter to a campus newspaper, a 20-year-old Garcetti sought a retraction of a quote that he acknowledged was accurate. A reporter wrote that Garcetti called owners of a store that declined to participate in a Columbia-sponsored can recycling program "assholes." Garcetti said the comment was off the record.

"I would ask, then, if you would retract the quote, not because of the morality of my position, rather the ethics of the quoting," he wrote.

That self-awareness came partly from being raised in a politically active family. Back in Los Angeles, his father was mounting a successful campaign for county district attorney. His mother, the daughter of a wealthy clothier, ran a community foundation. Her father, who had been President Lyndon B. Johnson's tailor, made headlines in the 1960s when he took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling on Johnson to exit the Vietnam War.

Garcetti's family wealth allowed him to carry on the legacy of political activism. While attending L.A.'s exclusive Harvard School for Boys, he traveled to Ethiopia to deliver medical supplies. In college, while other students worked at summer jobs, he traveled twice to Burma to teach democracy to leaders of the resistance movement.

In 1993, after receiving a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, Garcetti departed for Oxford. There he met Cory Booker, a fellow Rhodes scholar who is now the mayor of Newark, N.J., and a likely candidate for the U.S. Senate. Garcetti, Booker said, "was one of those guys who would be in the pub at midnight talking passionately about making a better world."

In England, Garcetti worked with Amnesty International and also met his future wife, Amy Wakeland, another Rhodes scholar with activist leanings. Garcetti remembers being impressed when Wakeland missed President Clinton's visit to the Rhodes House at Oxford because she was on the streets protesting tuition hikes. Her worldview aligned with his, he told friends.

In his second year at Oxford, Garcetti persuaded student leaders to join him in a hunger strike after the passage of Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot measure that denied immigrants access to state healthcare and schools.

Looking back, he sees the hunger strike as a bit of youthful folly. "We were young," Garcetti said. "Was a fast an ocean away going to overturn 187? No. But in my book, whether it's me in Los Angeles seeing an injustice across an ocean or vice versa, you have to stand up and be heard."

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 27

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Meet the Biggest Star in Music Right Now: A Goat!

By Cara Lynn Shultz

02/27/2013 at 11:15 AM EST

The biggest duet partner for music's biggest stars right now? A goat.

We're not kidding.

If your coworker bleating with joy, he or she has probably stumbled upon a new meme, which mashes up pop hits with an old clip of a goat screaming as if it were a human. (Some might argue that the goat improves the songs, but we'll leave that discussion to the comments section.) So far, Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble," Justin Bieber's "Baby" and Katy Perry's "Firework" have all gotten the wooly treatment.

Put on your headphones (our goat pal is loud), throw your hooves in the air, and wave them like you just don't care to some of our favorites – before this goat gets a record deal!

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont woman whose face was disfigured in a lye attack has received a face transplant.

Doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital say 44-year-old Carmen Blandin Tarleton underwent the surgery earlier this month.

A team worked 15 hours to transplant the facial skin, including the neck, nose, lips, facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

The 44-year-old Tarleton, of Thetford, Vt., was attacked by her former husband in 2007. He doused her with industrial strength lye. She suffered chemical burns over 80 percent of her body. The mother of two wrote a book about her experience that describes her recovery.

It was the fifth face transplant at the Boston hospital.

Physicians are planning to discuss the case Wednesday at the hospital.

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Imperial County betting its future on renewable energy

Situated in the southeastern corner of California, bordering Arizona and Mexico, Imperial County has long depended on agriculture and cash crops that grew from the good earth.

But lately the region — which carries the dubious distinction of having the state's highest unemployment rate at 25.5% — is betting its future on a different kind of farm: green energy.

Spurred by a state mandate that requires utilities to get a third of their electricity from green sources by 2020, renewable energy companies are leasing or buying thousands of acres in Imperial County to convert to energy farms providing power for coastal cities — bringing an estimated 6,000 building jobs and billions in construction activity to the county.

Although renewable energy projects are sprouting up across the Golden State, no county needs them as much as Imperial, which has consistently ranked as the worst-performing region of California even in boom times.

The prospect of a construction boom has excited residents hungry for work. But some farmers and Native American tribes are crying foul, angry that the new projects are encroaching on land that they claim has cultural value or should be devoted to crops.

Solar, wind and geothermal projects are popping up on farms that once grew wheat, alfalfa and sugar beets. County officials say the normally hardscrabble region is benefiting from vast tracts of affordable land and lots of sunshine, the one resource the region can almost always count on.

"It's sunny 365 days of the year, damn near," boasted Mike Kelley, chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors. "Renewable energy is going to give Imperial County a shot in the arm."

Local advocates are betting that a "green rush" will lift a county that has struggled with economic upheaval. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just ranked El Centro as the second-worst metro area for job hunters, after Yuma, Ariz. Its unemployment rate fluctuated between 25% and 33% from 2010 and 2012.

Two of the county's top five employers are the Calipatria and Centinela state prisons. The agriculture sector shed jobs as farmers moved to automation and switched to less labor-intensive crops. Construction work vanished when El Centro, the county's biggest city, was hit hard by the housing crisis. Long-standing businesses such as a food processing plant moved elsewhere, taking away hundreds of jobs.

But with green energy companies scrambling to build solar installations and wind farms throughout the county, some residents are convinced that Imperial's fortunes will soon be looking up.

Tenaska Solar Ventures plans to break ground this year on its second project in the county after nearing completion on its first site, known as the Imperial Solar Energy Center South, on nearly 1,000 acres near El Centro.

The company came to the region both for its "abundant sunshine" and also proximity to the Sunrise Powerlink, a power transmission line completed last year that connects Imperial and San Diego counties, said Bob Ramaekers, Tenaska's vice president of development.

More than 500 construction workers have been hired to work on Tenaska Imperial South, with 70% coming from the local community, he said. A job fair held last year drew about 1,200 applicants. The second project will generate as many as 300 construction jobs, with priority given to local hires.

"One of the advantages of solar projects is they are not really high-tech. Anyone who has worked at all in the construction business can work in a solar facility," said Andy Horne, deputy executive officer of the county's natural resources department. "It's like a big erector set — you bolt these things together and ba-da-bing, you have a solar project."

The lure of a steady, well-paid job is what persuaded Victor Santana, 27, to start training as a journeyman electrician two years ago. He had studied film in college and hoped to make movies, but ended up working a series of odd jobs after the economic downturn — driving tractors, operating hay presses, selling vacuum cleaners. Even a video-editing gig he eventually found paid minimum wage,

"Things had dried up. There was only field work, or fast food, or working at the local mall," the El Centro resident said.

Santana finally decided to switch careers after hearing the pitch from green energy companies trickling into town. Now he earns about $21 an hour with regular raises every six months, and the prospect of steady work for another seven to 10 years just from the stream of solar and wind projects. "I feel a lot more secure than I did," he said.

Green energy may help Imperial hold onto its young people, who often try to land a government job or leave the county altogether in search of better-paying jobs elsewhere. Calipatria Unified School District is launching a vocational program this fall to prepare high school graduates for jobs in renewable energy. San Diego State is building a power plant simulator at its Brawley campus.

"With the advent of renewable energy, we are seeing a different kind of industrial base," said Mike Sabath, associate dean of academic affairs at San Diego State's Imperial Valley campus. "Hopefully that will provide opportunities to develop more job stability in the region than what we have enjoyed."

But construction has raised the hackles of some locals. There are farmers wringing their hands over fertile land snapped up by energy companies; they worry that a way of life is being edged out by corporations eager to cash in on the modern gold rush.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 26

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Seth MacFarlane's TV Guide Critic Reacts to Oscar Mention

02/26/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Seth MacFarlane (far left) and William Shatner, with Stephen Battaglio (inset)

Zuma; Inset: Getty

So, how does it feel to have your name dropped before a billion people?

Surprising, says TV Guide columnist Stephen Battaglio, who was part of the lively opening exchange between Oscar host Seth MacFarlane and intruder from the future William Shatner.

In a spoof (and a screen grab), the Star Trek captain showed the Family Guy guy what would be his upcoming review from Battglio.

"I didn't know it was coming," Battaglio writes on TV Guide's website. "I was watching the show at home with my wife. Staring at the byline, it took a few seconds to absorb."

And once it did, he says, "every electronic device in our apartment was ringing, buzzing, pinging or vibrating."

For the writer's full reaction, click here.
– Stephen M. Silverman

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