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Heather Ishimaru

Heather Ishimaru

E-mail Heather Ishimaru

Heather Ishimaru covers the Transportation beat, but has also had the Courts & Cops and Power beats. That's Power as in electricity, not political or otherwise.

Ishimaru was in the courtroom for every day of the landmark dog mauling trial of Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2002. They were charged in the 2001 killing of their neighbor, Diane Whipple. She pioneered internet coverage of that trial with her "Trial Notes," a very popular daily journal of the proceedings. She did the same thing with the Scott Peterson murder trial in Redwood City in 2004. In that case, she also led live field coverage of the murder verdict and death penalty verdict as they happened.

During her time as the Courts and Cops reporter, Ishimaru covered the story that came to be known as "Fagitagate," where virtually the entire San Francisco Police Dept. command staff was indicted. She broke the story of the explosive personnel records of San Francisco police officer Alex Fagan, son of the then police chief. That story led to an internal police department investigation. The leak has never been identified.

As the Transportation reporter, Ishimaru was there the day the MacArthur Maze 580 bridge collapsed, and virtually every day thereafter until it was reopened. She helped get Governor Schwarzenegger's attention on a neglected stretch of Highway 12 that is in desperate need of improvement.

Ishimaru started her career behind the scenes at KTLA, KCBS and KTTV in Los Angeles. She was a reporter/anchor in Bakersfield, Seattle and at WFAA in Dallas.

While in Dallas, she led coverage of the kidnapping of Amber Hagerman, whose legacy is the "Amber Alert" system for missing children.

A native of California and a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, she earned a Master's Degree in Journalism from USC.

She joined ABC7 in 1996.