Slain doctor remembered for faith and zest for life

He was remembered by patients and colleagues as a caring and talented physician, one who followed his father's footsteps into medicine. And his friends spoke of how devout he was in his Jewish faith as well as of his kindness and his zest for life.

"He was just a good soul," one colleague and friend said.

Now police are trying to determine why someone would walk into the urologist's Newport Beach offices and shoot him to death.

Dr. Ronald Gilbert was killed Monday in an exam room of his practice in the heart of a bustling medical community, allegedly gunned down by a 75-year-old retired barber who recently told a neighbor that he had cancer and didn't expect to live much longer.

Stanwood Fred Elkus of Lake Elsinore was arrested within seven minutes of the first call from the medical offices next to Hoag Memorial Hospital, authorities said. Elkus, who is being held on $1-million bail and is expected to be in court Wednesday, was described by neighbors as having problems with his prostate and undergoing surgeries. He recently told a neighbor that he believed he would soon be dead.

One neighbor, Sherry Martin, said that Elkus would always ride through his Riverside County neighborhood on his bike, wearing a baseball cap. Sometimes, he offered to give haircuts to neighbors.

But Elkus had run-ins with other neighbors in the past, including a dispute over bushes in a woman's backyard that was exacerbated into more than a year of Elkus allegedly taunting her family. Melissa Evans, 36, said that he would pass by on his bike or in his car, staring them down, or would harass their dog late at night.

"He just couldn't let it go," she said. "He couldn't let go of something so small."

Evans said the erratic behavior was so unsettling that she, her husband and three sons moved to a community 10 miles away. But even after they moved to Wildomar, she said, he was spotted driving by their new home about three months ago.

Gilbert's death, however, has prompted a different sort of reaction: an outpouring of warm memories and shock at his violent death.

Colleagues said Gilbert, 52, had an "impeccable" reputation, having worked as the chief of urology at Hoag Hospital from 1998 to 2002 and as a volunteer faculty member at UC Irvine's Medical School, from which he graduated in 1987. His research interests included sexual dysfunction and bladder and prostate cancer.

He had also developed a spray designed to treat premature ejaculation. Dr. Eugene Rhee, president of the California Urological Assn., said Gilbert was especially proud of that work. "It was a much-needed medication," Rhee said.

Bruce Sechler, 61, had been Gilbert's patient for about seven years. "Right off the bat," the Huntington Beach resident said, "he could put you at ease and make you feel like he was genuinely concerned about you as a person and your needs."

Gerry Crews, a close friend who had known Gilbert since their high school days in Whittier, said that he knew how to have fun too, and loved classic rock. He sang in a garage band with Crews' older brother in high school. But he also had a laser focus during his undergraduate years at UC Santa Barbara so that he could achieve his ambition of becoming a doctor like his father.

"I was not a hard worker in college; he was," Crews, 51, said. "From the start, he planned to go to medical school and he worked very hard to get into medical school."

Even with his focus on medicine, friends recalled that he had a unique ability to keep an open and balanced life. He held on to a deep appreciation for music, and would have jam sessions with his sons, who played guitar and drums. He also traveled and snow-skied.

Faith had also been a pillar in his life, friends say, influencing his choices and how he approached the world.

Crews said he moved from Tustin — where his old friends lived nearby — to Huntington Harbour so that he could be closer to his synagogue and walk there on the Sabbath. He had also retrofitted his kitchen to prepare kosher meals. And his oldest son had recently been living in Israel.

"On Saturdays," Gilbert's neighbor Betty Combs recalled, "they dressed to the nines and walked to synagogue."

Those who knew him also said he had built up a stable of friends over the years because he was willing to share his time and knowledge. Crews remembered him being a source of support on the two times his wife had breast cancer.

"He was generous of himself," said Tom Mayer, a longtime friend and a registered nurse who once worked at Hoag Hospital. "He gave you everything."

When he heard of a shooting at the Newport Beach medical campus, Mayer, 49, drove straight there from work in Mission Viejo, still dressed in his scrubs. He had called and texted Gilbert, but there was no reply. The next day, he recalled the impact Gilbert's unconditional friendship had on his life.

"He was a light," Mayer said. "He was someone who could be turned to, just to talk.... My life wouldn't be the same if I never met Ron."

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com

rick.rojas@latimes.com

Times Community News staff writers Jill Cowan and Lauren Williams contributed to this report.

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India Ink: Delhi Gang Rape Trial Will Be Held in Delhi, Supreme Court Rules

NEW DELHI —India’s Supreme Court dismissed on procedural grounds a plea on Tuesday to transfer the New Delhi gang rape trial outside the city.

Advocate M.L. Sharma filed the petition on behalf of Mukesh Singh, one of the five men accused of the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving bus last month. The petition claimed that press coverage of the trial and continued agitations had created bias against the accused.

The petition also said that “personal interest shown by the chief minister as well as various cabinet ministers” in the case would cause the judiciary to be “under pressure to work against the petitioner.” Since the crime occurred, the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, and other government figures have pledged to make the city safer for women.

The plea to move the trial out of Delhi was dismissed because of questions raised about Mr. Sharma’s authority to represent the accused, rather than on the substance of the plea.

The Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, said in dismissing the plea, “Your authority to appear in this matter has been totally denied by the accused.”

Mr. Sharma and a second lawyer, V.K. Anand, have both claimed to be representing Mr. Singh. The Supreme Court rejected the plea following an investigation that determined that Mr. Singh was actually represented by advocate V.K. Anand.

The five men accused in the Dec. 16 fatal gang rape are being tried in a fast track court in the Saket District Court Complex in New Delhi. They could face the death penalty if convicted of murder. On Monday, the Indian Juvenile Justice Board declared that a sixth person accused in the case was officially a juvenile, meaning the maximum sentence he could receive is three years in a detention facility.

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Soldier talks about his new arms after transplant

BALTIMORE (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs in an Iraq roadside bombing has two new arms following a double transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Twenty-six-year-old Brendan Marrocco along with the surgeons who treated him will be at the Baltimore hospital on Tuesday to discuss the new limbs.

The transplants are only the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant ever conducted in the United States.

The infantryman was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. The New York City man also received bone marrow from the same dead donor. The approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new arms with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military is sponsoring operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in the wars.

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Legislation proposed to help California launch healthcare overhaul

SACRAMENTO — The state Legislature gaveled in a special session on healthcare Monday, pushing forward with sweeping proposals to help California implement President Obama's healthcare overhaul.

The measures, including a major expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for the poor, would cement the state's status as the nation's earliest and most aggressive adopter of the federal Affordable Care Act. Beginning in January 2014, the law requires most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

Gov. Jerry Brown called the special session so healthcare bills that he signs can take effect within 90 days rather than next year.

State lawmakers are racing to pass rules for enrollment in a new state-run insurance market in October. They include a requirement for insurers to cover consumers who have preexisting medical conditions.

Legislative leaders in both houses sponsored bills that would dramatically expand Medi-Cal. Under the proposals, individuals earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level — or $15,415 a year — would be covered, potentially adding more than 1 million Californians to the rolls.

The federal government would subsidize costs for the first three years, phasing down to 90% afterward.

"Ensuring that every Californian has access to quality, affordable healthcare is one of the most important public policy challenges we face," said Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) at a Capitol news conference. "No Californian should ever face bankruptcy or severe financial setbacks due to illness and injury."

Brown, in his State of the State speech last week, sounded a note of caution even as he embraced the federal law. The long-term costs are unknown, he said, and hold the potential to undermine California's precariously balanced budget.

He called the Medi-Cal expansion "incredibly complex," adding that "it will take more time" to achieve than other parts of the healthcare overhaul. Brown has said the change could allow the state to reduce the roughly $2 billion it gives to counties to care for the uninsured, but county officials and healthcare advocates say that such a move could hurt their ability to help the millions of Californians who will still lack coverage.

The special-session legislation would also streamline the Medi-Cal enrollment process to help sign up hundreds of thousands of Californians who are currently eligible but not enrolled. According to a recent study by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, that change could add 240,000 to 510,000 people to the Medi-Cal rolls by 2019.

Brown has earmarked $350 million in his budget proposal to pay for the increased participation. Costs for the currently eligible group would be split evenly between the state and federal governments.

For all their enthusiasm, legislative leaders also said they were working within fiscal constraints. Pérez defended the state's moves, for instance, to slash Medi-Cal reimbursement rates two years ago. Healthcare providers have appealed a federal court's decision allowing the cuts, arguing that the reductions would cause community clinics to close and prompt doctors to turn away Medi-Cal patients.

California, Pérez said, lacks the resources to better compensate doctors, hospitals and pharmacists.

"I don't think we're in a situation to make fundamental changes to that," he said.

michael.mishak@latimes.com

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Letter From Washington: Changing the Path to the Presidency

WASHINGTON — Imagine if the 2012 election had turned out this way: President Barack Obama won the popular vote by five million votes and almost 4 percentage points, taking seven of the eight largest states, as he did, yet the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, took the oath of office last week.

Such a scenario might not be far-fetched if some Republican politicians in statehouses around the country get their way.

U.S. presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College. Each state gets one elector for each senator, or two apiece, plus additional electors based on the number of congressional districts it has. With the exception of two states, Maine and Nebraska, electors are awarded on a winner-take-all basis; 270 of a total of 538 are necessary to become president.

Individual states set the rules for these electors; the current system, by most accounts, has worked well. Three times — twice in the 19th century and then in 2000 — the Electoral College victor lost the popular vote.

Now, Republican state legislators in as many as a half-dozen states where they control the governmental machinery even though their state was carried by the Democratic candidate in the past couple of presidential elections want to change the system and tilt it decidedly in their party’s favor. They would do this by scrapping the winner-take-all rule and awarding electors by congressional districts.

“This would amount to a legal subversion of democracy to game the system for political advantage,” says the legal scholar Walter Dellinger, who served as U.S. solicitor general under President Bill Clinton.

That’s not a frivolous alarm. Republican legislators, with tacit support from their governors, in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are advocating this. The party’s national chairman, Reince Priebus, is keeping a low profile and signaling encouragement.

To gauge the potential effect, consider what would have happened if these states, along with Virginia, Florida and Ohio, where Republicans also control the statehouses, had divided electoral votes this way in the most recent presidential election.

Mr. Obama carried all these states, sweeping 106 electoral votes. But Mr. Romney won two-thirds of the congressional districts; if all else had been equal, the Republican would have carried the Electoral College, becoming the first president who was trounced in the popular vote.

Scratching your head? Some of this maneuvering is a result of redistricting or gerrymandering of congressional districts, a process largely controlled by Republicans after their big victories in 2010. Also, Democrats tend to congregate in the same districts, while Republicans are more diffuse.

Two examples: Mr. Obama won Pennsylvania by five points and Michigan by nine points, clear-cut by any standard. Yet Mr. Romney carried 13 of the 18 congressional districts in Pennsylvania and 10 of the 14 in Michigan and would have won a substantial majority of delegates in both states that he lost decisively.

Allotting presidential electors by congressional district would increase the incentives for partisan gerrymandering, already a factor in congressional dysfunction.

There is a longstanding and substantive debate over whether presidents should be decided by the Electoral College or the popular vote. That flared anew when George W. Bush won the presidency 12 years ago even though Al Gore won the popular vote.

Supporters of a change say it would create a genuine national election. Last autumn, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney focused almost all their resources and time in eight states, all carried by the president. In a general election, voters in places like San Diego, Houston, New Orleans and Buffalo, New York, only lay eyes on candidates who are in town for a quick-hit fund-raiser.

Defenders of the Electoral College dismiss this argument, claiming the present system strikes a political balance between states and regions that the Founding Fathers envisioned. A direct popular election, they contend, would depersonalize the campaign, turning into nothing more than incessant money-grabbing and television advertising. The focus last time was on a handful of states; Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama had to spend considerable time meeting real voters in Columbus, Ohio, or the Washington and Denver suburbs.

Either the current Electoral College or a decision by popular vote, if the prolonged ballot counting in some states could be remedied, would produce a winner with legitimacy. The controversy over Mr. Bush’s election in 2000 wasn’t related to the system but whether he really won Florida, which gave him the Electoral College victory.

Still, changing to a popular vote probably would require a constitutional amendment with approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states. It’s not going to happen.

What might stop these attempts is if smart Republicans realize how manipulative it looks, and that it could come back to bite them; that’s the view of the former party chairman and ex-governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour. And such a system would dilute the clout of the states that adopt it, which is why Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia is opposing any change.

If this sort of political coup had been pulled off earlier, instead of celebrations on the streets of Washington during the presidential inauguration last week, there would have been protests.

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Pentagon to boost cybersecurity force

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon plans to assign significantly more personnel in coming years to counter increasing threats against U.S. government computer networks and conduct offensive operations against foreign foes, a U.S. defense official said on Sunday.

The plan, which would increase both military and civilian staffing at U.S. Cyber Command, comes as the Pentagon moves toward elevating the new command and putting it on the same level as the major combatant commands.

The official said no formal decisions had been made on the expanding staffing levels or changing Cyber Command into a “unified” command like U.S. Strategic Command, which currently oversees cyber command and the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

Any changes to the combatant command structure would be made based on strategic and operational needs, and take into account the need for efficient use of taxpayer dollars, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The Pentagon was working closely with U.S. Cyber Command and the major military commands to develop “the optimum force structure for successfully operating in cyberspace,” the official said.

The Washington Post, quoting senior defense officials, reported late Sunday that the Pentagon had decided to expand Cyber Command’s current staffing level of 900 to 4,900 in coming years.

The official confirmed that Cyber Command planned to expand its force significantly, but said the specific numbers cited by the Post were “pre-decisional.”

The newspaper said senior Pentagon officials had agreed to increase the force late last year amid a string of attacks, including one that wiped out more than 30,000 computers at a Saudi Arabian state oil company. it said

The plan calls for creating three types of force under the Cyber Command, said the defense official.

“National mission forces,” would protect computer systems that undergird electrical grids and other kinds of infrastructure. “Combat mission forces,” would help commanders abroad execute attacks or other offensive operations, while “cyber protection forces,” would focus on protecting the Defense Department’s own systems.

Details were still being worked out, the official said.

(Reporting by Sarah Lynch and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

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Funniest Quotes We're Still Talking About from the SAG Awards

Tina gives a shout-out to Girls' baby mama Amy, Jennifer Lawrence's super sweet 16 win and more LOL one-liners

Credit: Michael Buckner/WireImage

Updated: Monday Jan 28, 2013 | 12:20 AM EST

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

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CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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IHT Rendezvous: The Clinton Doctrine of American Foreign Policy

The partisan political theater, of course, was top-notch. Sen. Rand Paul’s declaration that he would have fired Hillary Rodham Clinton; her angry rebuttal of Sen. Ron Johnson’s insistence that the Obama administration misled the American people about the Benghazi attack; Sen. John McCain’s continued outrage at the slapdash security the State Department provided its employees.

Beneath the posturing, though, ran larger questions: what strategy does the United States have to counter the militant groups running rampant across North and West Africa? And what kind of secretary of state has Ms. Clinton been? In her last Congressional hearing in that position, Ms. Clinton expressed exasperation with Washington’s political trench warfare.

“We’ve got to get our act together,” she said.

Ms. Clinton has been a very good but very cautious secretary of state, many analysts say – one who, for the most part, kept her distance from Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and other seemingly intractable conflicts.

One State Department official, while praising Ms. Clinton’s tenure, nonetheless looked forward to the arrival of Sen. John Kerry, her designated successor: “I came to admire Clinton as secretary of state, her focus on women and innovation in particular,” the official told me. “But am really happy to have someone in the job who does not retain political ambitions.”

In a recent assessment of Clinton’s tenure, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution argued that she had enjoyed some success, including restoring the United States’ image abroad, but she made no historic breakthroughs, he said.

Mr. O’Hanlon argued that Ms. Clinton’s famed work ethic paid off. She made few mistakes, no major gaffes and did not “needlessly antagonize” friends or enemies. O’Hanlon called Ms. Clinton’s role in the administration’s “pivot to Asia” and tough stance toward China arguably “her greatest and most memorable contribution.”

The problem, as last week’s hearing showed, is that the Middle East and the threat of terrorism continue to dominate American foreign policy. Even as the United States becomes more energy independent, terrorist attacks like the kidnappings in a remote oil facility in Algeria will make headlines and influence markets. And barring a massive shift in American domestic politics, Israel’s security will continue to be viewed as a vital interest of the United States.

Ms. Clinton, to her credit, made forty trips to Europe that helped produce crippling new sanctions on Iran. Last fall, she helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But she failed to personally engage in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

To be fair, the Obama White House may have limited her options. After promising more open debate than occurred under President George W. Bush, the Obama White House tightly controlled the formulation of American foreign policy. Critics have also accused Mr. Obama of being overly cautious in foreign affairs.

With the exception of the Libya intervention and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama was “coolly calculating and reluctant to engage” in his first-term foreign policy, The Economist magazine recently argued.

Mr. Obama, of course, is trying to avoid the over-reach his predecessor displayed in Iraq. He also faces enormous fiscal pressures at home. But there is a risk that the pendulum is swinging too far toward a smug isolationism in Washington.

As Ms. Clinton departs, worrying trends are emerging in the way America engages with the world. The new U.S. weapon of choice is the drone strike – a tactic that carries zero political risk at home but spreads anti-Americanism abroad.

Complex foreign policy problems that threaten American security are increasingly seen as “entanglements” best avoided. And there is a convenient view that there are no “good guys” in the power struggles now unfolding in the post-Arab-Spring Middle East.

The potential lesson of the bruising political battle over Benghazi is simple: Take few risks, turn embassies into bunkers and avoid political firestorms at home. In her testimony, Ms. Clinton passionately argued against that approach.

Declaring Somalia and Colombia success stories, she said the United States could counter militancy in Africa and the Middle East by working with regional organizations and training local security forces. U.S. funding and training of an African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, Ms. Clinton said, had slowly succeeded in driving back al-Shabaab and other Islamist forces. In Colombia, the government has driven back FARC rebels and narco-traffickers.

There have been setbacks and the efforts in both countries are imperfect. But local security forces trained and funded by the international community slowly gained ground in painstaking efforts over many years.

“What we have to do is recognize that we’re in for a long-term struggle here,” Ms. Clinton said at the hearing. “And that means we’ve got to pay attention to places that historically we have not chosen to or had to.”

During their heated exchange, Mr. McCain criticized Ms. Clinton and the Obama administration for not doing enough to train Libya’s security forces. Secretary Clinton replied that House Republicans had put a hold on the funding the administration requested to train Libyans.

“If this is a priority and we are serious about trying to help this government stand up security forces,” she said, “then we have to work together.”

Ms. Clinton is right. And so is Mr. McCain. Congressional politicking hinders the State Department. And the State Department executed terribly in Benghazi. But Ms. Clinton, who I have criticized in the past, won the day.

“We are in a new reality,” she said, referring to the change sweeping across the Middle East. “We are trying to makes sense of events that nobody had predicted but that we’re going to have to live with.”

Ms. Clinton called for the United States to show “humility” abroad and stop making national security issues “political footballs” at home. She said a Cold War style bipartisan agreement should be reached to launch a long-term American effort to strengthen local security forces and promote democracy across Africa and the post-Arab-Spring Middle East.

“Let’s be smart and learn from what we’ve done in the past,” she said. “Put forth a policy that wouldn’t go lurching from administration to administration but would be a steady one.”

“We have more assets than anyone in the world,” Ms. Clinton added, “but I think we’ve gotten a little bit off track in trying to figure out how best to utilize them.”

A “little bit off track” is a euphemism for partisanship endangering national security. If the U.S. doesn’t get its act together, expect more Benghazis.

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SAG Awards: Watch Live with PEOPLE

01/24/2013 at 06:30 PM EST

Happy Screen Actors Guild Awards!

On a night when the biggest stars of TV and film honor each other, we will be covering every inch of the red carpet beginning at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT) on our live pre-show, hosted by PEOPLE's Deputy Managing Editor Peter Castro and PEOPLE StyleWatch Managing Editor Susan Kaufman, right here on PEOPLE.com.

Join our @StyleWatchMag and @peoplemag Twitter party on Sunday to discuss the best dresses, the hottest hair and makeup and the most eye-popping jewels that nominees like Claire Danes, Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence will be wearing. Just use hashtag #PeopleSAG and your comments could appear on PEOPLE.com.

Once the show starts at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT), the fun continues as we track the winners, losers and best speeches of the night. PEOPLE editors and the stars, including Busy Phillips, will be Tweeting commentary, exclusive photos, behind-the-scenes tidbits and more on one of Hollywood's most heartfelt nights.

The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will air live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 27, at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Be sure to join us!

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