Los Angeles, Ca
Southern California woman terrorized, harassed by alleged dognappers
A Pasadena woman is being held hostage by fear after dognappers have terrorized her with alarming texts and harassing messages about her beloved Rottweiler. Now she’s speaking out in hopes of not just getting her dog back, but also getting justice.
Jackie Luca told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade that she and her family are petrified while police haven’t done much about the situation.
“I’m not able to sleep,” she said. “I’m still trying to cope with everything that’s going in my life.”
The last month and a half, according to Luca has been a nightmare, with a strange man lurking outside her Pasadena home and her dog, Rocko, disappearing on Feb. 1 after she let him out for his morning walk.
“He has a tendency to just run out, but he usually comes back and just waits for us in the driveway,” Luca said of Rocko. “This time, as we were locking the doors to leave, I was walking down the stairs, he was gone. He was nowhere to be found.”
Luca and her family plastered fliers around the neighborhood about her missing Rottweiler that included her phone number. That’s when she says she began receiving bizarre and scary text messages.
“They text me, telling me that they have the dog and that they took it to Palm Desert,” she said. “I asked for the address. They provided me with an address.”
Luca told KTLA that she contacted authorities in Palm Desert and had them escort her to the address, but no one at the property knew what she was talking about.
“They called us, telling me, ‘Do you want to hear your dog?’ and you hear them hitting my dog in the background and I could hear my dog crying,” she said.
Shortly after that, the callers started asking for money.
“At first, they asked for $500 and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m willing to give you that. If not, I can give you $1,000 if that’s what it takes to get my dog back.’ They were like, ‘No, we don’t want that.’ Then I offered $2,000 and they still didn’t want the money.”
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A man caught on surveillance video outside the victim’s Pasadena residence. (Viewer photo) -
A lost pet flier for Rocko seen in this undated photo. (Viewer photo) -
A lost pet flier for Rocko seen in this undated photo. (Viewer photo) -
The family’s beloved rottweiler Rocko seen in this undated photo. (Jackie Luca)
Then a person from a second number, which authorities traced back to a man wanted for murdering a little boy, started reaching out.
“He was texting me pictures of my dog, saying that he has the dog and that he’s going to actually just kill it and give me my fur,” Luca said.
Then there’s another man who continues showing up at her home several nights a week. Luca believes the two men are working together.
“Yeah, they’re friends, for sure, because the Eduardo guy calls the other guy Tyrone,” she said. “So, they’re friends.”
As the harassment continues, Luca said the texts have included unsolicited naked pictures and messages that they’ve seen her young daughter walking around the neighborhood.
KTLA has reached out to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department about the case and is awaiting a response.
If you live or want to live in Los Angeles, the city controller has released a new dashboard highlighting some of the city’s most notorious problem rental properties, a tool designed to help renters avoid future headaches.
“This project comes at a time when tenants are reporting harassment and illegal evictions violating the City’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance and Tenant Anti‑Harassment Ordinance, but very few of the complaints end up leading to strong enforcement or real accountability,” L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia said in a media release Thursday.
The new Top 100 Problem Rental Properties dashboard includes a searchable database of all residential addresses with reported housing violation cases within the city of Los Angeles, a ranked list of the 100 addresses with the most violations and an interactive map.
“There has never before been an uncomplicated way for anyone to look up years’ worth of violations by address,” Mejia said in the release.
Data for the dashboard was compiled from multiple sources, including the Los Angeles Housing Department, Los Angeles City Planning and the L.A. County Assessor’s Office, according to the controller’s office.
The release also identified the top three addresses with the highest number of reported housing violations:
1. 636 1/2 North Hill Place, Chinatown
192 housing violation cases
2. 11700 West Wilshire Boulevard, Sawtelle
166 housing violation cases
3. 6650 West Forest Lawn Drive, Hollywood Hills
113 housing violation cases
“Our new dashboard is an easy‑to‑understand public tool that we hope will help renters and organizers document patterns of harm, as well as put pressure on both landlords and the City to act,” Mejia said. “Everyone deserves safe, stable and dignified housing.”
Authorities discovered millions of dollars worth of counterfeit luxury goods in a downtown Los Angeles bust.
On May 14, detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department executed a search warrant at two locations — a retail store in the 500 Block of South Los Angeles Street and a commercial warehouse in the 500 Block of Main Street.
Inside the warehouse, deputies found a significant amount of counterfeit luxury merchandise. In total, the retail value of the goods was estimated between $5 million and $10 million.
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Authorities discovered a warehouse filled with counterfeit luxury goods worth an estimated $5-$10 million in a downtown Los Angeles bust operation on May 14, 2026. (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
Two unidentified suspects, a man and a woman, were taken into custody.
“This remains an active investigation,” LASD said. “Additional arrests or charges are possible as the case progresses.”
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call LASD’s Major Crimes Bureau’s Tip Line at 562-946-7893.
Anonymous tips can be provided to L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at lacrimestoppers.org.
At least one person was critically injured in a house fire that erupted in Montebello early Thursday morning.
Crews responded to the blaze engulfing a detached unit in the 100 block of South 5th Street near West Whittier Boulevard around 5 a.m.
Flames quickly spread to a nearby electrical pole, blowing a fuse and knocking out power in the area. Sparks could be seen as a loud pop was heard in a Citizen.com video later obtained by KTLA.
At least one person was believed to be in critical condition due to burn injuries, though officials have not released further details.
There was no immediate word on a possible cause of the fire.
A neighbor told KTLA that three people lived inside the home, including a child.
This is a developing story.
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