Top 5 Westside Stories: Campus Shooting, Obama Visit, Midnight Bandit, Beach Fires, Model Slaying

By John Schreiber

Here are the five stories that topped the headlines last week on Westside Patch sites:

• 7 people, including a suspect, were killed Friday in a rolling wave of violence that began with a shooting and fire in a Santa Monica neighborhood, then continued with a gunman firing randomly at people and vehicles on Pico Boulevard and then on the campus of Santa Monica College, where the suspect was killed by police.
• President Barack Obama Paid a Short Visit to Los Angeles Friday during which he will spoke at a luncheon fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Santa Monica. The President's departure was altered due to the Santa Monica shootings just a few miles away. The President then left Los Angeles for a meeting with the Chinese president in the Palm Desert.
  
• Police are looking for a man known as the "Midnight Bandit." The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department released photos Monday of a man suspected of committing 58 gas station robberies, including one in Culver City over the last 18 months. Nicknamed the 'Midnight Bandit' because he's alleged to have committed the crimes in the middle of the night, authorities are seeking the public's help in identifying the man.
• Beach Fires Will Continue to Burn in Los Angeles County if the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has anything to say about it. The Board voted Wednesday to oppose a proposed air quality regulation that would prohibit beach bonfires, saying the matter should be left to the discretion of local officials.
• A woman once described as a "female James Bond'' was acquitted Tuesday of first-and second-degree murder in the slaying of a 21-year-old aspiring model in Santa Monica -- a killing prosecutors claimed was carried out in response to a failed business deal involving the victim's father.