That’ll Be 150 Fajitas And A Side Of $1,200, Please – November 24, 2010
• Thursday, October 21 1:24 p.m. A $2,000 light blue Surley Long Haul Trucker bicycle with front and rear racks was left unlocked on the Plaza.
3:32 p.m. A $200 to $300 Specialized bike with head and taillights left on an F Street porch may or may not have been locked, but certainly was stolen.
4:26 p.m. A one-woman anger machine stormed down H Street toward the Plaza, clad in dirty jeans and white sweater and starting fights with random passersby. Given her demeanor and “black and blue” face, someone suggested that she might be fit for the bin. Police found the woman just mighty peeved about something or other, and the facial injury was something that happened in Eureka.
• Friday, October 22 2 a.m. Gunshots were reported fired on G Street in Arcata Heights, and a Glock .40 clip was found there. One subject was detained and searched behind a theatre lounge, but then released. The investigation and witness testimony added up to someone throwing an M80 out a car window.
2 p.m. A woman in ripped jeans sold magazines door to door on upper I Street, since they’re so hard to find by any other means. She told one customer she was from Vancouver and needed to sell mags to gain “points” and win a trip.
• Saturday, October 23 12:41 a.m. After a man was kicked out of a Plaza tavern, he realized that he’d left his wallet inside. He called police to see if they could stand by while he retrieved it. An officer arrived 14 minutes later, but the walletless bar refugee was nowhere to be found.
1:35 a.m. A wrong-way driver at Eighth and G streets was found to be drunk, was arrested and the vehicle towed.
2:28 a.m. A male-female domestic dispute in a Samoa Boulevard apartment followed the usual script: yelling, banging then the sound of a woman crying. Another mandatory plot point was his committing violence against an inanimate object – in this case, a mirror – and injuring his hand in the process. Police extensively counseled both individuals.
4:08 a.m. A dreadlocked man was observed attempting to pry numbers off the doors at a Valley West no-budget motel.
4:38 a.m. A 911 caller from Stewart Court was well beyond drunk, and into the alcohol poisoning category.
5:03 p.m. You wouldn’t say he was the ideal driver, that man in a gray Subaru on the Plaza, the way he sped up and slowed down and flipped off that lady.
5:30 p.m. A man taking refuge in a Valley West liquor store was thoroughly convinced that he was about to be kidnapped. Police took him to a safe place where no one could harm him, even himself.
8:43 p.m. A fairly spectacular, alcohol-related three-vehicle car accident took place at 11th and B streets. As police administered a “chemical test,” traffic was blocked from the debris-strewn roadway. Flatbed trucks towed away the vehicular wreckage, and the City’s mighty Tymco Regenerative Air 600 Street Sweeper was awakened and brought to the scene to remove the glistening glaze of granular glass and shards coating the street.
9:17 p.m. A 93-year-old gentleman passed away at his Beverly Drive home with his family in attendance. The coroner was summoned.
9:39 p.m. A video was slipped from a case and stolen at a Seventh Street shop.
10:35 p.m. A Valley West resident reported her frying pan and “chicken pan” missing.
• Wednesday, October 24 12:48 a.m. Police visited a party in the 900 block of I Street, advising calm. Things quieted down.
12:56 a.m. A woman was reported on a riverside trail by a mobile home park in far northernmost Arcata. An officer found her clad in raingear. She said she’d missed the bus and was looking for an out-of-the-way place to spend the night. Morning would bring arrangements for a ride home.
1:42 a.m. Police revisited the I Street party, issuing a citation, and things calmed down.
1:44 a.m. A youth – estimated age 18 years old – snabbed a can of “beverage” and scooted from a Uniontown supermarket in the company of a cohort of similar age. Fleeing toward the freeway overpass, he ditched the bev, which was recovered and returned, and was last seen in a t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, “Go ahead and run your mouth.”
2:05 a.m. As soon as police left the I Street party, it started back up, so this time three officers returned and stood around while celebrants dispersed. The host will be getting a bill for their time.
2:08 a.m. A berserkers man stormed HSU residence halls, assaulting students. APD and UPD located and arrested a suspect.
2:44 a.m. Back at the I Street party zone, the embers of the mostly-quenched wingding flared anew in the form of one noisy drunk who couldn’t let go. He was arrested.
11:51 a.m. A petrol-swiping slithy tove worked the parking lot of a riffraff-saturated Valley West motel the previous night, draining one car of its dinosaur juice.
12:41 p.m. Jacoby Creek flooded and police were called in to… what? Dust for flooding? Handcuff the water?
3:25 p.m. A man at the transit center auditioned for the role of howly growler of the day, but when police arrived he turned out to be a more conventional kind of street screecher, arguing with his girlfriend into a cell phone.
9:38 p.m. A man called an Alliance Road resident and addressed her by name. He then asked her if it was raining and if it was movie night, then advised her that he was touching himself.
• Thursday, October 25 2:33 a.m. A man tried to buy beer at an Alliance Road stop ’n’ rob, but was refused due to the time, and settled instead for cigarettes. But matters took a larcenous turn when he threw the cig money on the counter, grabbed the beer and ran out the door. He was last seen in a green Chevy headed northbound on Alliance Road.
3:40 a.m. A camper on the north side of a mold-encrusted house of worship on A Street was shuffled along.
9:33 a.m. A middle school student was caught with pot.
10:13 a.m. As a man walked down Crescent Lane near Grotzman Way, a loose pit bull exploded out of a nearby yard, then charged and attacked him. An officer found two dogs, one aggressive and one not, and took the dangerous one to the county shelter. A neighbor was to care for the other animals while the owners were away.
11:48 a.m. A heated argument first reported as a fight broke out on Davis Way. The dispute had to do with doors being left open.
1:42 p.m. A gaggle of goodtimers set up a customer-deterring dope-smoking, guitar-playing party zone in front of an H Street business. Trouble was, the people inside the store were trying to earn a living.
2:10 p.m. If he was trying to pick up chicks, the man lying alongside a Samoa Boulevard tax preparation business with orange hair, dirty pants and his shoes off was going about it all wrong. For one thing, he was so booze-blasted that he wouldn’t have known anyway whether any passerbabes were enamored of his soiled britches, since you kinda hafta be conscious to properly woo damsels. Police scraped his bulk off the roadside.
2:58 p.m. How was the driver who had aimed her car down K Street and then turned east on Samoa Boulevard supposed to slow down for or otherwise regard pedestrians? She was talking on her cell phone, and it’s simply too hard to jabber and drive competently at the same time.
4:13 p.m. An officer was called in to pick up some hashish discovered at a 13th Street market place.
5:07 p.m. A woman awoke at a Boyd Road mobile home park and wasn’t sure what had happened, but suspected that she may have been violated since her pants and shoes were off.
5:22 p.m. A woman who claimed that someone had stolen her baby’s blanket somewhere between Arcata and McKinleyville was deemed unable to care for herself and transported to a mental health facility.
7:16 p.m. A hoodie-clad couple went into a Northtown business in fairly obviously chemically modified condition, but maybe not sufficiently so, because they went straight into the bathroom and took more of something. They then wandered away, she bearing the logo of the Los Angeles Dodgers on her dodgy garment.
7:59 p.m. A caller to a Valley West restaurant used a credit card to order 150 fajitas and $1,200, with the money to be wired back to him. The restaurant not being either a bank or a branch of Western Union, its employees called police. It turned out to be a scam originating in Texas, inhabitants of which probably have little use for Northern Calfornian fajitas anyway.
• Friday, October 26 9:30 a.m. A woman said she ended her relationship with her father in July because he’s a marijuana grower. But he’s not as willing to choose between the two. She said he follows her around and continues to try to contact her, and last night had followed her into a store. She told him she was going to call the police on him, but he told her that if she did, he could send her boyfriend to jail.” She was provided restraining order information.
9:50 a.m. An apartment complex manager reported that the two children of a man who lives with them in a van urinate on the property, and he’s worried about the kids’ welfare.
10:22 a.m. A Todd Court goat was attacked by dogs which continue to run loose, regardless of the owner’s promise to restrain them.
10:24 a.m. A woman reported being stalked by her father, whom she says has an extensive prior history of harassing her. Now he has gotten a job in the same building in which she works.
12:54 p.m. A woman reported concern about the well-being of her neighbor, an elderly gentleman. His hearing and eyesight isn’t what it once was, and he seems to be struggling with living alone. The woman’s husband had visited the fellow and noticed an empty kettle on a stove burner which was turned up high, with the man unaware of this. The neighbor asked that police visit the man and notify Adult Protective Services.
