State gets official sport — surfing

Gov. Jerry Brown bolstered his beach cred Monday with a nod to California’s sweet waves, declaring surfing the official state sport.

The decision, made at the behest of Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance (Los Angeles County), recognizes surfing as “an iconic California sport.”

“I am stoked that surfing is now California’s official sport,” Muratsuchi, an avid surfer, said in a statement after Brown signed AB1782. “No other sport represents the California

A San Francisco man stalked his ex-boyfriend — hiding a GPS monitor under the victim’s vehicle and following him for months to his workplace, home and his mother’s property, all while sending barrages of threatening text messages, officials said Monday.

Joshua Elliott’s campaign of fear, though, ended on Friday when he was convicted of felony stalking and misdemeanor domestic violence charges, prosecutors said. A San Francisco Superior Court jury deliberated for just five hours before coming back with the guilty verdict.

“This victim was absolutely terrorized by his stalker; he was living in fear,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “I commend him for getting out of an abusive relationship, and I urge anyone living in fear to come forward and to contact authorities. We are here to help.”

Elliott, 45, was in a relationship with the victim, and the two lived together for two months in 2017. But things turned ugly when Elliott became possessive and controlling, so his boyfriend broke things off, prosecutors said. The victim was not named.

“The San Francisco Police Department’s Special Victims Unit takes intimate-partner stalking seriously, and we recognize that it can quickly escalate into violence,” said Inspector John Keane, who investigated the case. “I encourage people experiencing stalking behavior to report it to police immediately.”

In January, after the couple broke up, Elliott began his troubling campaign, sending the victim phone messages, saying he knew where he was, officials said.

It turns out that he probably did.

Elliott had purchased a Spytec GPS tracking device, which comes with software that allows the user to follow it electronically from another location.

While leaving San Francisco General Hospital at 2 a.m. one January morning, the victim spotted Elliot slowly driving by and staring at him as he got into his vehicle, police said.

A week later, the victim was walking his dog outside his home in San Pablo and spotted his stalker sitting outside. Elliott confronted the victim, telling him things were going to “get worse” for him, prosecutors said.

The next month, things got worse. Elliott followed the victim over the Bay Bridge, and the victim tried to lose him, but when he got to work later that morning, his stalker was waiting for him in the parking lot of his workplace, police said.

Elliott threatened the victim, prosecutors said, telling him ominously that his daily routine would soon change and that he would not be “getting up every day.” The victim began video recording the episode with his cell phone, at which point Elliott attacked him and tried to wrestle his phone away, officials said.

Bystanders intervened and Elliott bolted. The victim called police and was treated for minor wounds to his hand and back, prosecutors said.

Four days later, police said the victim went to San Francisco’s Hall of Justice to give them a statement and got a text from Elliott saying, “What do you know? While meandering around the city, I happened to see your car by the courthouse. Could be a work coincidence.”

Prosecutors said Elliott had tracked the victim to the courthouse with the GPS monitor.

Increasingly suspicious, the victim searched his vehicle and found the unit in a magnetic box stuck under the driver’s side rear wheel of his car.

He decided to pretend he hadn’t discovered the device and put it back. He later drove to Georgetown (El Dorado County) to visit his mother’s property, where prosecutors said he got a text saying, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you how beautiful the property is.”

That same morning he checked his vehicle and found the device had been removed.

Two weeks later, on March 9, the victim got a string of text messages from Elliott saying, “Today is the day” and it was a “turning point,” prosecutors said. The victim also noticed the tracker was back on his vehicle.

The victim became worried he would be attacked and took the tracker off his car. Elliott then began showing up at the victim’s workplace and followed him on several occasions, authorities said.

Police arrested Elliott on March 27 and found the records associated with the tracking device. They revealed that he was monitoring the victim’s mother’s home, his workplace, his grandparents’ home, his friend’s home and his trailer area.

Elliott is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 21. His attorney did not return messages.