Backyard Braggart Berates Bushes With Sappy Transplant Tale – February 17, 2010
• Monday, January 11 12:12 p.m. A woman called from Berkeley to report that a friend had been driving by her Alliance Road house and noticed that the front door was open. The friend went in and saw that the TV had been stolen, locked the front door and called the out-of-town resident.
2:50 p.m. A Buttermilk Lane dog was reported to be flea-infested and starving, with firewood stacked up to keep the animal confined or “pinned in.” An officer paid a call and determined that the purportedly put-upon pooch was not neglected or abused.
4:33 p.m. A woman and her two children trying to put their lives back together are reportedly harassed by a man she knew in the past, who is not endearing himself to them by leaving notes and setting her car on fire.
• Tuesday, January 12 10:50 a.m. A Stromberg Avenue resident’s landlord said her tenant was threatening to move out because the driveway crank lab up the street was ruining the neighborhood.
1:45 p.m. A Cropley Way resident’s 40-inch flatscreen was stolen, possibly by a roommate.
2:09 p.m. A 911 call from 11th Street sort of sounded like it was coming from an impaired old person, but it turned out to be a baby playing with the phone.
5:38 p.m. A residential van parked on 10th Street, and though the occupant seemed “out of it,” he undertook the cooking of crab.
8:46 p.m. Someone called APD from an 11th Street store, said “Ah, shit,” and hung up.
• Wednesday, January 13 5:20 a.m. A man called from the Transit Center to report that he hadn’t slept in weeks, had “no hope” and was about to “walk into traffic.” He was placed in a mental health facility.
8:32 a.m. A suspicious character in the requisite skeezy white van and pedo-perfecto giant black glasses sat out front of a Baldwin Avenue elementary school, eyeing children with questionable intent. He was gone when police arrived.
9:25 a.m. While tooling along on the Seventh Street freeway overpass, a cyclist said a traveler clad in an army t-shirt, overcoat and knit hat leapt out in front of his bike to scare him.
12:02 p.m. A woman alleged that her ex had stolen her debit card and gone on a $120 spending spree at gas station mini-marts in Valley West and downtown Arcata.
12:09 p.m. When employees of a Valley West school bus depot arrived for work, they found a gas can and siphoning hose sitting next to a charter school bus. It was moved to the gutter, and police notified.
1:16 p.m. A woman said that her ex, who had recently been involved in a spectacular poly-drug/grow house raid, was texting and calling her with death threats. She feared for her life, and planned to move far away.
2:09 p.m. Another debit card, one that never left the possession of its rightful owner, was mysteriously used by someone else at a gas station and a Uniontown variety store, with charges totaling $285.
2:45 p.m. The enormous white bus out on westernmost Eighth Street was reported “sticking out in traffic” and posing a hazard to passing vehicles. Police didn’t see where it was obstructing the roadway, but did try to get in touch with the blindingly white Brobdingnagian blight.
4:21 p.m. Had it not been for an alert neighbor at pastoral Zehndner Avenue and Q Street, two lazy-ass slobs would have succeeded in dumping a mattress there. They had the mattress out of the truck when they saw that they were being observed, and put it back and drove off. Police were given their vehicle details, so if a clapped-out mattress turned up anywhere, they might become slobs-of-interest to the investigation.
4:38 p.m. A warning light indicating that a gas cap wasn’t properly sealed was the first sign that someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to steal a guy’s petrol.
5:03 p.m. A bilingual officer assisted at a Valley West business, where the owner was accused of sexual harassment, he denied it, but the employee picked up her paycheck and vehicle and was to contact the Better Business Bureau.
5:30 p.m. Police were called to an Alliance Road apartment complex, where a man was described rather uncharitably as “talking nonsense” about having blood in his veins from another plant as well as his association with CSI Miami. Police found the man “having an animated discussion with a plant in his backyard.” The botanical babbler was deemed not to be a danger to himself or others, if you don’t count boring the foliage to death.
• Thursday, January 14 8:37 p.m. If you’re passing your ID to an underage pal for purposes of tricking the bartender, do it right in front of him.
• Saturday, January 16 8:34 a.m. First a man said that there were traffic control cones at Old Arcata and Bayside road for no reason, and that he had removed them. This information was related to the CHP, since SR 255 is a state route. But when a CHP officer called the man, he changed his story and said that the cones were located at Jacoby Creek Road and that he hadn’t moved them.
8:39 a.m. A citizen reported that a neighbor had thrown feces at her home and threatened her son with a shovel. The son called too, saying that the neighbor was yelling and waving a shovel. The supposed shovel-wielder told an officer that he hadn’t meant for the poop to hit the house, but that he had been trying to place it in the neighbor’s driveway, perhaps with excessive zeal. He said he was tired of the neighbors’ letting their two vicious dogs roam and crap freely around the ’hood. This issue has shattered neighborhood cohesion.
11:32 a.m. A Stromberg Avenue resident reported being attacked by two pit bulls, that gray one being the more aggressive.
11:56 a.m. A “messy” and bearded man tore a torrid streak of tempestuousness on the Plaza’s west side, dealing devastating blows to serenity ranging from a women’s clothing emporium to the inevitable destination, that donut shop eternal. There he was arrested on a public drunkenness charge.
1:10 p.m. Yo, skate park kiddies! Two words: Hel. Met. Two more words: no bikes.
1:27 p.m. A noisy conflict erupted near an Alliance Road dumpster, with one combatant reportedly clad in a white T-shirt and baseball cap. An inspection of the dumpster’s sphere of influence revealed no wrongdoing, but a man and woman were found on an adjacent street. They said the dumpster disruption had been a verbal clash over child custody.
5:51 p.m. A dog chased a cat at Sixth and J streets, and a lady asked for police advice on how to keep her cat safe.
• Sunday, January 17 3:31 a.m. “You wanna lose your life?” This was the interpersonal inquiry overheard at a G Street apartment. Police found things quiet and non-lethal.
6:37 a.m. A man walking on Boyd Road complained of being followed by a “van full of Mexicans.”
6:50 a.m. An officer awakened a number of campers and warned them about their illegal campsite not in the Community Forest, not at the Marsh, but on Giuntoli Lane.
9:19 a.m. Remarks were taken out of context on 10th Street.
3:01 p.m. A large piece of aluminum broke partially free from an historic Plaza storehouse, and hung over the sidewalk. Hazard cones were set out, but the dangling metal was soon re-affixed.
8:03 p.m. A car door handle-tryer in a leather trench coat worked the Plaza. He was arrested on Tavern Row on a public drunkenness charge and held on a warrant out of Santa Cruz County.
• Monday, 8:53 a.m. A woman complained that her ex-boyfriend was violating their child-sharing arrangement. He is supposed to take the girl to school every morning, then the mother picks her up. But this day was a holiday, so the girl was supposed to be with mom. When she called the boyfriend, he said he’d bring her home after breakfast, and hung up. The mother also complained that the girl was staying at the boyfriend’s warehouse, which has one toilet and no kitchen or shower. She said they bathe at a local health facility and go out to eat during the day. She also said that the dad wouldn’t let her talk to her daughter immediately following the recent earthquake.
10:24 a.m. A sweat-panted man was seen lingering near the rear area of a storage unit facility. The door to a unit was found open, and a smattering of clothing and porn magazines littered the area.
• Tuesday, January 19 10:14 a.m. Side mirrors were reported torn from vehicles along upper I Street.
10:23 a.m. A man complained that while walking near 13th and H streets at 1:30 a.m., he was confronted by two Hispanic males who notified him that they would “kick his ass.” At this, he said, they shoved him to the ground, hurting his knee and tearing his trousers (but sparing his imperiled ass). When an officer interviewed the man, he said he hadn’t reported the incident at the time because he was drunk. He asserted that the shove was “the beginning of a ‘machismo takeover,’” and that California is a “Mexican ghetto.”
11:32 a.m. Someone was bitten by a dog at the Marsh.
2:03 p.m. Entrepreneurs set up a drugtaking-device shop in a parking space at a Uniontown shopping center. An officer went by to remind the bong barons of two things: seller’s permits and trespassing.
2:45 p.m. A man returned from a trip to find that his X-Box, his jewelry box and $50 had been stolen from his room. His roommates said they has seen someone walking in, then running away from the back yard.
4:22 p.m. A woman with a broken arm made a scene at Valley West business, summoning enough might to push a door off its hinges.
5:37 p.m. A man said that panhandlers supposedly threatened his friend with axes and knives a few days previous.
• Wednesday, January 20 12:17 a.m. A woman reported that she couldn’t get the handcuffs off of her boyfriend because the key broke.
2:20 a.m. A drunk ran aground behind a downtown donut shop.
9:07 a.m. An unlocked pickup truck on Larry Street fell prey to a doorhandle-tryer, who entered and rummaged without taking anything.
11:59 a.m. A man was seen “punching things” in an historic Plaza storehouse.
2:33 p.m. A woman reported losing her wallet at a Westwood laundromat, and her credit card was subsequently used eight times in Eureka and Blue Lake, ringing up charges of $30.31, $81.11, $60.02, $38.34, $163.53, $142.o4, $30 and $17.01.
• Thursday, January 21 2:02 a.m. A 14-year-old boy took all the pills in his medicine cabinet an hour earlier, and now his hands were burning and his eyes felt weird. Police took him to the hospital and then a mental health facility.
10:45 a.m. A mammoth black bus roared to life and idled in place on Valley East Boulevard, the exhaust fumes engulfing a nearby business.
