Jessica Tapia will receive $360,000 in a settlement with the Jurupa Unified School District in Riverside County, as reported by The Press-Enterprise.

She was placed on administrative leave in 2022 and fired in 2023 after “refusing to abide by state law prohibiting discrimination against transgender and gender-nonconforming students,” as reported by Patch. Tapia said the policies are incompatible with her Christian faith.

“I chose to stand for truth and my religious beliefs by informing my school district that I would not comply with their directives that would require me to lie to my students about their gender, lie to their parents about that information and allow boys into my girls’ locker room,” Tapia said in a social media post announcing the settlement.

In a statement to The Press-Enterprise, district spokesperson Jacqueline Paul said “the district has not admitted any fault or wrongdoing as part of this settlement.”

“The decision to settle this case was made in conjunction with the district’s self-insurance administrators and in the best interest of the students, such that the district would be able to dedicate all of its resources and efforts to its student population regardless of their protected class,” the spokesperson added.

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The 17-year-old boy, whose identity has not been released, was a resident of Hesperia, though he had been involuntarily committed using a 5150 hold three days before the deadly encounter after he cut his wrists.

While being transported from a local hospital to a mental care facility, the teen “absconded” from medical care and showed up at the home of his two sisters, who are also in the foster care system but who live in a separate home in Victorville, Dicus said.

The sisters’ parents reported the teen as a trespasser, but he locked himself in a bathroom inside the home.

Armed with a knife, the boy threatened to harm himself, and given the small space, deputies were unable to use stun guns.

Instead, after half an hour of trying to deescalate the situation, they used pepper spray and attempted to physically take the boy into custody, with deputies yelling at the boy to “let go of the knife.” One deputy was sliced on the hand in the process.

During the fracas, one deputy opened fire, according to Dicas and confirmed by body camera video. The teen was struck and pronounced dead at a local hospital, the SBSD said in a press release.

Dicas mourned the “significant tragedy” that occurred while encouraging the public to “realize we can do better with” mental health crises.

The sheriff said not only is his department working to improve their responses to these issues, but he thinks Gov. Gavin Newsom and the recently passed Proposition 1, which allows the state to borrow up to $6.4 billion to build mental care facilities, are steps in the right direction.

“The overriding issue here that we need to be paying attention to as a society, and this is in lockstep with Proposition 1 and what the governor has stated, we have a mental health crisis on our hands, not just in this county, but in the entire state,” he said.

Dicas also referenced a couple similar incidents in which his deputies killed teens, saying that the 15-year-old autistic boy who charged deputies with a bladed garden tool in March was going through a similar mental health crisis before he was killed.

Dicus differentiated this recent shooting, however, from the shooting of 15-year-old Savannah Graziano, who was killed by deputies in 2022 as she tried to escape her father, who had kidnapped her and killed her mother.

He also referenced the recent video of a deputy seen punching and kneeing a person in the head after they had been restrained by deputies.

These incidents and the deputies’ actions during them are under investigation, and Dicus said due to “legal complexities,” he’s limited in what he can say about some of them. That said, administrative and criminal investigations are underway.

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Viorel Pricop, 66, of Allen Park, Michigan, was convicted on Tuesday of six counts of arson of vehicle or property in interstate commerce.

Between December 2021 and September 2022, Pricop “maliciously set fire” to six semi truck trailers belonging to Phoenix-based Swift Transportation, four of which were in San Bernardino County and two of which were in Riverside County, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

“In each of the incidents, the Swift-owned trailer was parked at or near a truck stop when a fire occurred on the trailer portion of the vehicle, mainly on or near the trailer tires,” authorities said.

In addition to the Southern California fires — two in Coachella and one each in Newberry Springs, Ludlow, Barstow and Hesperia — Pricop burned at least 18 other Swift semi trailers beginning in June 2020.

Most incidents occurred on the 10 and 40 freeways and stretched as far away as McCalla, Alabama. Pricop faces additional federal charges in those burnings in Arizona and New Mexico.

Pricop’s motivation appears to be related to a previous conviction for a theft spree involving Swift trucks from 2010 to 2015.

“Pricop was sentenced to time served in that case, amounting to approximately 26 months’ imprisonment,” the release said. “His term of supervised release ended in June 2019, approximately one year before the arsons in this case began.”

In addition to the timing, Pricop was implicated by evidence seized from his truck, home and personal vehicle, as well as cell tower records connected to a phone and a navigation unit, and a similar method used in each of the arsons.

“This defendant went on a rampage of retaliation against a victim of his last crime,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in the release. “Rather than take advantage of the second chance offered to him, he chose an incredibly reckless and dangerous path. We will not accept arson and other violent crime on our streets, and I am grateful that this defendant will now be held to account.”

Pricop is scheduled to be sentenced on June 7. He faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and up to 20 years on each count.

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