B4 LATIMES.COM
Long Beach police shot
and killed an armed man
they said was trying to rob a
business on Pacific Coast
Highway, police said.
Detectives began follow-
ing the man late Thursday
because they were monitor-
ing the car he was driving,
which they said was linked to
a series of recent burglaries,
said Shaunna Dandoy, a
spokeswoman for the Long
Beach Police Department.
The man stopped the car
in the 5100 block of East Pa-
cific Coast Highway about
11:30 p.m., and detectives fol-
lowed him inside a 7-Eleven.
They saw that he was
armed and witnessed him
try to rob the store, Dandoy
said. Detectives repeatedly
asked the man to drop his
weapon, but he refused.
Police shot the unidenti-
fied man, who was pro-
nounced dead by paramed-
ics at the scene. No one else
was injured.
A male passenger in the
suspect’s car was also de-
tained. Devontae Moore, 22,
of Long Beach was booked
for robbery and is being held
on $350,000 bail.Times staff writer Colleen
Shalby contributed to this
report.Man shot dead
during robbery
try, police say
By Alejandra
Reyes-Velarde
Matching funds made up
nearly a fifth of the money
raised by Martinez for her
2015 reelection bid. Under
the city’s election rules, Mar-
tinez needed to collect at
least 200 donations of $5 or
more from residents living
within her district to qualify
for those funds.
The district attorney’s
decision comes roughly a
year after The Times re-
ported that current and for-
mer Martinez staffers, along
with some of her $5 donors,
had been called to appear
before a county grand jury in
June 2018.
Yochelson said in his
memo that investigators
found no evidence linking
the “discrepancies” in the
campaign contributions to
Martinez, former chief of
staff Jim Dantona or Mar-
tinez’s husband, Gerardo
Guzman, a political consult-
ant who “effectively” served
as her campaign manager.
“In a criminal case, the
prosecution bears the bur-
den of proving each element
of the offense beyond a rea-
sonable doubt,” he wrote.
“Here, although our investi-
gation showed discrepan-
cies in the donor reports, we
are unable to determine
whether they are the result
of fraud or simply poor
record keeping.”
The district attorney’s in-
vestigation was one of two
that focused on Martinez’s
fundraising activities. In
2016, The Times reported
that FBI agents had inter-
viewed several Martinez
contributors, some of whom
were summoned before a
federal grand jury.
Several people told The
Times that they had not
made those donations to
Martinez, even though they
were listed in Ethics Com-
mission records as having
done so. One of them, a jani-
tor living in Sun Valley, said
she, her husband, her son
and her daughter were in-
correctly listed as having
given $5 donations to Mar-
tinez’s campaign.
Another person who was
listed as a Martinez contrib-
utor told The Times that he
learned he had purportedly
given $10 to Martinez’s cam-
paign when FBI agents
showed up at his door. He
said he later discovered that
his daughter had named
him, his wife and another
daughter as campaign
donors without their knowl-
edge.
Several of the people who
collected Martinez’s $5 and
$10 donations were low-level
staffers, The Times
reported. Among the people
listed as giving the smaller
donations were 18 relatives
of a single Martinez aide.
The Los Angeles City
Charter prohibits campaign
donors from giving on behalf
of another person without
that person’s knowledge and
participation.
Dantona, who left Mar-
tinez’s office in December,
said in an interview Friday
that he was unaware of the
district attorney’s memo.
“I don’t think we ever did
anything wrong,” said Dan-
tona, who helped manage
Martinez’s 2015 campaign.
“So I always had a question
as to why the investigation
was even initiated.”
FBI spokeswoman Laura
Eimiller said she could not
discuss whether her agency
is looking at Martinez’s con-
tributions. A spokesman for
the U.S. attorney’s office had
no comment.D.A.’s office ends
fundraising probe
of councilwoman
[Investigation,from B1]
members of Congress, urg-
ing them to heed scientists’
warnings.
Many youthful demon-
strators said they wanted to
join a generation of activists
trying to build a more sus-
tainable world.
Yasmeen Tsipena, 17, of
Encino became an ambas-
sador for Youth Climate
Strike Los Angeles after
watching a Vice News docu-
mentary about teens lead-
ing the movement, she said.
She asked herself, “How
am I sitting here right now in
my room when these people
younger than me are making
insane changes?”
At noon in L.A., pro-
testers spilled from Pershing
Square onto a cordoned
block of Hill Street adjacent
to the park, and heard from
speakers and performers in-
cluding actress Jane Fonda.
The solar-powered speakers
had a hard time reaching the
back of the crowd.
Not all the protesters
were on the same page.
Vegan activists shouted
about the harms of meat
consumption, disrupting
speeches, including those by
indigenous high school stu-
dents.
“You be quiet,” Fonda
said into the mic, pointing
her finger down at the pro-
tester who interrupted her
before addressing the crowd
again.
She agreed that “it’s very
important for us to stop eat-
ing meat and get rid of plas-
tics and drive electric cars.
That’s great. But it’s not
enough. We are not going to
be able to cut our emissions
in time unless we change our
economic and social sys-
tems.”
Speakers called on cor-
porations to reduce their cli-
mate emissions and want
federal recognition of
refugees who are fleeing cli-
mate disasters such as
hurricanes, floods and
droughts. They encouraged
protesters to tell governors
to stop issuing oil-drilling
permits and stop oil produc-
tion.
Fullerton College stu-
dent Emily Dewell, 20, hopes
lawmakers and President
Trump take note.
“We need at least some
sort of bills passed aboutemissions or to at least fol-
low the Paris agreement,”
she said.
Some heads of state will
announce new climate
pledges at the U.N. summit,
but not the United States,
which under Trump is with-
drawing from the Paris cli-
mate agreement.
The young demon-
strators also talked about
the changes they want to
make themselves. Dewell is
studying environmental sci-
ence and sustainability so
she can make an impact on
what she believes will soon
be a pressing need — access
to fresh water.
“It’s vital to our health.
Like without it we are going
to die,” she said. “I want to
make sure it’s a resource
that’s available to all.”
The downtown crowd
was larger than expected,
said Landen Ramirez, 15,
one of the organizers. He
hopes those in power watch-
ing realize that until there is
large-scale change, students
will continue walking out ofschool.
“It’s pointless to save our
money for retirement that
may not even happen,” he
said.
Others echoed the senti-
ment, expressing dark
thoughts about the future.
Skate Courduff, 20,
skipped her film and math
classes at Cal State
Northridge because “what’s
the use of getting a diploma
when there’s not going to be
a world to use it on?”
She worries for her gener-
ation and the ones after, who
will have to cope with a fu-
ture in which “they’re not go-
ing to have a world with good
natural resources, not going
to have clean air to breathe.
The world is going to be on
fire.”
Aliou Sullivan first
learned about the ills of fos-
sil fuels in fourth grade. The
10-year-old and his dad,
Michael, took the bus from
Long Beach to Pershing
Square with a sign that read,
“There is no planet B.”
Aliou and his father bike
and walk as much as pos-
sible.
Other adults need to do
their part too, he said. “They
should start using bikes
more and the people in
power should make high-
ways and freeways smaller”
so commuters will use more
public transit, Aliou said.
“I’m kind of mad and sad
about how the Earth is
changing. It shouldn’t be
changing,” he said.
The fossil fuels that make
cars run “pollute so much,”
he said, looking up at the sky.
“I hate watching trucks,
the exhaust coming out.”Times staff writer Richard
Read contributed to this
report.STUDENTS PROTEST inaction on climate change Friday in Pershing Square. Many said they wanted to join
a generation of activists trying to build a more sustainable world. Speakers included actress Jane Fonda.Photographs byIrfan KhanLos Angeles Times‘It’s pointless to save our
money for retirement’
[Climate,from B1]FIJI CHAMBARET, 15, braves the noxious smoke
coming from road work on 6th Street while taking
part in the downtown climate change rally.‘We need at least
some sort of bills
passed about
emissions or to at
least follow the
Paris agreement.’
— Emily Dewell,
Fullerton College studentheart to accept what he can
pay, sometimes $1,200,
sometimes $1,100.
He is a proud man, too
proud to show me how he
now lives. I first meet him to
hear his story at a table
outside a Gelson’s.
Like many an older L.A.
resident, Bolla tells me he
has faced lean times trying
to get by on Social Security,
finding his age a barrier to
work, living a life of increas-
ing isolation as friends have
died off or disappeared.
In recent years, some of
his plates have been all but
bare.
But don’t call for the
check yet. His meal’s not
over. This is a story about
how a second chance some-
times can sneak up by sur-
prise.
For Bolla, dessert is on
the way, to the rescue —
thanks to his 27-year-old
daughter, Isabelle.
Before we serve it up
though, let’s huddle to-
gether near the sink and
take in the courses already
cleared away.
Because as Bolla puts it,
you have to see the rain to
appreciate the sweetness of
the sunshine that comes
after.
Bolla, who was born in
Asti, Italy, for a while lived acharmed life. As a young
man, he went to hotel
school, then traveled the
world on cruise ships, wait-
ing tables that tilted in
storms. When he set foot on
the dry land of Los Angeles
in 1969, at 21, he was hired
right away as the maitre d’
of the Beverly Wilshire
Hotel.
He went on to other elite
hotels and country clubs
before he blazed a path of
his own.
He once prepared the
fare for a party where Ella
Fitzgerald sang. He fed Tom
Bradley, Jerry Buss, Rich-
ard Burton, Jane Seymour
and people with names on
the city map: Skirballs and
Trousdales and Gettys.
Details of his menus regu-
larly appeared in this news-
paper’s “Social Scramble”
accounts of the most exclu-
sive soirees.
In 1981, he had just one
week to plan dinner for 600
on the lawn at Pickfair. He
still remembers the swelter
of that summer night — but
according to the society
pages of the Los Angeles
Daily News, his “crab legs
and shrimp served in ice-
swans were delicious and
cold.”
Still, those triumphs,
proudly preserved in stacks
of crumbling photo albums,came before a long, slow
slide.
Before his first wife, the
love of his life, died at 49, of
breast cancer. Before his
first divorce, from the
mother of his second child.
Before breast cancer also
took his eldest child, at age- Before, at a time when he
had hoped to be enjoying
life, retired, his much young-
er third wife — and mother
of his two late-in-life young
children — kicked him out
and he found himself sleep-
ing in his truck.
Before he started mak-
ing panicked, often tearful
calls to Isabelle, who was
living far away with her
husband in Spain. Before
she decided she had to
return to L.A. to do what she
could to help out.
But what can you do
really when you are facing
older-parent issues so early,
just as you are trying to
launch your own adult life?
Isabelle grew up as her
father’s baby. Her half sister
Cira was 19 years older. But
when Cira died in 2014, she
became the load-bearing
eldest, now big sister to
Levi, 11, and Teresa, 8 — who
is 19 years younger than she
is.
At first, she offered what
little money she could spare.
Then inspiration came out
of the blue.
This past summer, as a
belated birthday gift, Bolla,
with Isabelle as sous chef,
whipped up the tiramisu
she loves — in a quantity
befitting a caterer for
crowds.
Tiramisu is decadent
and rich, made up of ladyfin-
gers dipped in (usually
spiked) coffee until they are
moist, then layered into a
fluffy, heady mix of egg yolks
and sugar, cocoa and mas-
carpone.
Bolla made for Isabelle
and her husband tiramisu
for at least 30. They knew
they couldn’t and shouldn’t
eat it all. So they shared it
with their Encino neighbors
and even gave the mailman
a slice. Right away the tast-
ers asked how they could get
more.
Which gave Isabelle, who
works in marketing, a way to
help her father that would
draw on her modern-day
savvy, not her bank account.
In early July, she went on
social media — on Next
Door and on a private wom-
en’s group she belongs to on
Facebook. First she said a
word or two about her fath-
er’s glory days, then about
his more recent hard knocks
and her own inability to
support him.
“Now the true purpose ofthis post. He makes the
most DIVINE Tiramisu
ever,” she wrote. “I know it’s
a long shot, but I’m hoping
maybe if someone has an
event or a sweet tooth and
would like a full Tiramisu
cake they’d be willing to buy
one! He loves making them
and they are INSANELY
delicious, so I thought it was
worth a try.”
In no time at all, in the
women’s group alone, her
first post had more than 400
likes and loves and well over
200 replies — many of which
asked if a tiramisu could be
made for the coming week-
end or an upcoming celebra-
tion. Some offered advice for
promotion, including a
website.
So launched Giovanni’s
Tiramisu and an accompa-
nying Instagram account,
which is fast filling out with
photos of smiling custom-
ers, often posing with their
tiramisu and Bolla, who has
been delivering it all over
town. He now often gets
over 30 orders a week. He’s
already got repeats as well
as one for Thanksgiving.
This week, I’ve gone out
with him on delivery runs —
to Hollywood, Lake Balboa,
Sherman Oaks, Mid-
Wilshire. In Isabelle’s
kitchen, he assembles the
tiramisu (a little messily —he used to have a staff to
clean up) and freezes it in
her garage freezer. She
hands him spreadsheets of
names, addresses, phone
numbers and delivery dates.
She’s hooked up his old car
so that he can speak to his
phone hands-free for direc-
tions — though the app he
uses sometimes has trouble
processing his thick Italian
accent.
Then off he goes on his
travels, arriving each time to
open arms. Moments after
he pulls a tiramisu out of his
backseat cooler, he’s being
hugged by a customer who
already knows all about
him.
In Lake Balboa, Jodi
Sisson, waiting at her front
door, calls out, “You’ve got a
daughter that loves you!”
Which, of course, Bolla
knows well. Together, he
and Isabelle are now hatch-
ing plans for a small food
truck, serving tiramisu and
espresso.
Earlier this summer, just
a few deliveries in, Bolla left
his daughter a voicemail she
plans to keep forever. In it,
he weeps — not with despair
but with joy. “It’s unbeliev-
able, Isabelle, all these kind
people coming to help me,”
he says. “It’s amazing. It
really is amazing. Thank
you, Sweetie.”A onetime caterer gets a second chance, thanks to his daughter
[City Beat,from B1]