Your Money Or My Clothes – December 1, 2010
• Tuesday, October 26 2:42 p.m. A Park Avenue house is sufficiently pot-reeky to arouse the usual dog-walkers’ suspicions that it’s one of those cute l’i growzy-woezies.
3:10 p.m. A Valley East Boulevard school seems to be the target of low-grade harassment by unknown forces. Two days ago someone pushed over a water cooler and emptied the contents on the ground. On this afternoon, someone dumped a large amount of dirt on the two teacher benches in the playground. And yet no one was seen doing this, nor was anyone with ill intent identified.
3:21 p.m. A man zonked out in the parking lot by the train tracks learned that the Arcata Marsh isn’t a Drunk Sanctuary.
4:04 p.m. Someone thought the kids using the playground equipment in Vinum Park were a little too old for that sort of thing, but police didn’t agree.
4:36 p.m. A Redwood Park user smelled smoke and a park ranger was dispatched. The usual haunts were combed and there, on the trail above the meadow, were four campers and their campfire. A computer system was down, so driver’s licenses couldn’t be checked, at least initially. Everyone got camping tickets, one was arrested on a probation violation charge and his car had to spend the night locked into the 14th Street parking lot.
4:50 p.m. A musician set his cymbal bag down in the alley next to a downtown nightclub, and that was the last he saw of it.
7:21 p.m. A tattooed man in camo pants burst into a high school event in the gym “acting crazy” and saying people were chasing and trying to kill him. If that was true, then any further pursuit would have taken them to the drunk tank.
9:21 p.m. A woman reported that a month ago when she was interviewing a referral from the unemployment office for a job interview, the employment-seeker evinced extra-curricular desires, as in romantic overtures, as in the dum-dum hit on her. Now he was calling again. She was advised on how to notify EDD.
• Wednesday, October 27 12:42 a.m. A camo-panted man made some sort of fuss on H Street, but whirled away in his Tazmanian Devil spiral of fuzzbudgetry before police arrived.
12:53 a.m. A camo-panted man having an argument with himself on Alliance Road was deemed a danger to himself, and committed.
6:03 a.m. A bear has gained a taste for the succulent trash in Diamond Drive cans.
7:27 a.m. A Samoa Boulevard resident was quite understandably upset that his video game console was missing.
10:21 a.m. A park ranger assisted Arcata Fire with an escaped campfire in the Community Forest.
10:42 a.m. A Fickle Hill Road resident called APD about a vacant house which is being used as a squat by travelers. The caller said a City employee told him that about 150 campers live in Redwood Park and the Community Forest. He wanted to know why the City is so tolerant of this and not enforcing the camping ordinance. He was told to call APD when people were in the abandoned house. Meanwhile, a letter was sent to the owner regarding abatement procedures.
11:54 a.m. Neighbor turned on neighbor at a Samoa Boulevard apartment complex, standing in the doorway and yelling about a debt of owed cigarettes.
12:36 p.m. An H Street business complained of constantly being graffiti-tagged and having to paint over the defacement.
12:30 p.m. A tenant in a multi-residence house was upset that the property manager had “sold the residence out from under him” and had given the new owners his information. He was told that as a renter, he has no say in the property’s sale, but he claimed there was a contract which required the property manager to get his permission before selling it. Told it was a civil matter, he countered that no, it was identity theft. The man was “extremely agitated,” so the dispatcher had an officer call him back. At that point he said he wanted to know how to file a report.
1:22 p.m. A man claimed that a local business had stolen the $500 chair given to him at a V.A. Hospital.
2:39 p.m. No injuries in a car crash at 11th Street and Janes Road, except for the cars involved, two of which had to be towed from the scene.
3:08 p.m. A Spruce Way residence was reported as “definitely a drug house,” with activity taking place “24/7.”
3:19 p.m. An 88-year-old woman took a call from someone who knew her name, address and other personal information. The caller said they would be at her house at 4 p.m. with $500,000 cash, but that they needed $350 from her for their trouble. The woman’s daughter called police, but the caller never showed.
• Thursday, October 28 12:56 a.m. A man at the police station front door barked into the phone that he was having a “legal emergency” involving a Tavern Alley taco truck and and an alcohol- horizontalized chap lying on the ground a short distance away. The man had taken the drunk’s property away from him and brought it to the station, and he wanted him arrested so that he could find out his name. Police returned the property and arrested two people in the taco zone – which two are unclear – on public drunkenness charges.
10:22 a.m. A car on Hilfiker Drive was well and truly rent by a vicious new strain of slithy tove. This one entered through a broken window, stole stuff and slashed the tires for bad measure.
11:27 a.m. Another vehicle on Hilfiker Drive suffered the loss of 15 gallons of gas during the night, which the owner valued at $200. You do the math.
1:02 p.m. The disgruntled D Street resident reported other occupants of the multi-residence house growing pot, plus someone living in the storage space. He was told it wasn’t a police matter, but one for the Building department should he wish to call there.
1:29 p.m. A car was cited for being parked in a bike lane on Spear Avenue.
4:09 p.m. An infant was reported present at a gathering of meth-smokers on Spruce Way.
4:44 p.m. A citizen at a Plaza bank hailed an officer to complain about a man who threatened to take off his clothes if he wasn’t given money.
• Friday, October 29 8:15 a.m. When someone decided to trash the back of a Plaza tav, it turned into a multimedia arts and crap project. Strewn debris inluded redwood bark, glass, clothing and trash.
9:52 a.m. The unhappy renter came to the station to report that the new owner of the house he lives in is a convicted felon, and that he wanted to speak to a different officer than the one that helped him last time, and/or a watch commander. He said that this was his right if his rights weren’t observed or proper services not provided. His report of cannabis grows by other tenants had been forwarded to APD’s DTF officer, but he said that that wasn’t sufficient. The man tried to hand the officer a piece of paper, which the officer wouldn’t accept without knowing what it was. Told again that his issues were civil in nature, the man walked away.
10:27 a.m. An Alliance Road resident updated police on her nurturing neighbors’ cordial activities. Well, except for the fireworks constantly being set off. And kicking her cat so hard it needed $1,000 surgery. And maybe shooting her dog in the head. But other than that.
11:01 a.m. After someone reported pot stenchiness from a neighbor’s residence, police asked the stinkhouse resident for a compliance check. The grower agreed, and an officer found that the cannabis was being grown in conformance with City and state laws. One thing – an odor filter was suggested.
12:42 p.m. A young blond woman with a pierced brow asked a resident of the 600 block of Beverly Drive for money, then left.
2:15 p.m. A resident of the 1100 block of Chester Avenue reported a young woman going door to door speaking rapidly, gibbering about gaining “points” for some unknown organization and winning a trip. Her whole presentation screamed sketchy.
4:01 p.m. A Lynn Street home was pumpkin-pummeled.
4:04 p.m. A very emotional woman in the APD lobby said she was being followed and assaulted by a bald man with a large stomach. Asked if he was present now, she said she wasn’t sure. She was taken to a mental health facility.
4:52 p.m. Residents of a Samoa Boulevard apartment asked the downstairs neighbor to turn down her TV’s volume by hanging from the upstairs balcony, which didn’t achieve the intended result.
9:04 p.m. A hitting-and-running drunk driver was followed, pulled over by the Veterans’ Hall and arrested along with two pickled passengers.
10:03 p.m. A man at 11th and F bellowed, blurted and bailed, the specifics of his issues never ascertained.
• Saturday, October 30 1:22 a.m. Loud drums and cast of 30 populated a mega-party in the 900 block of J Street. And yet, the mighty assemblage was dissipated with a flimsy little piece of paper – a warning notice.
1:16 p.m. Same story in the 1300 block of H Street.
1:18 a.m. 1700 block of H Street.
1:59 a.m. 600 block of Ninth Street.
2:06 a.m. 700 block of Ninth Street.
9:03 a.m. A dead body was reported lying under that which many still refer to as the Arlington Overhead. It turned out to be a poached doe, skinned, its backstrap peeled and the carcass dumped. Fish and Game was to handle removal.
11:34 a.m. The host of one of the Ninth Street parties awoke to find his computer missing.
11:21 a.m. Two stop signs were stolen at 10th and K streets.
6:07 p.m. Bicycle-friendly Arcata manufactured another casualty when a car turned in front of a bicyclist at Eighth and K streets. The driver hadn’t used a turn signal, causing the cyclist to smash into the car. She was taken to the hospital with elbow and knee abrasions and pain on her left side.
10:32 p.m. A drunk pounded on the door of a house in the 1000 block of J Street, alternately demanding to be let in and staggering around in the yard. He thought he lived there, but as it turned out, didn’t. His temporary residence for the evening turned out to be county jail.
• All Hallows Eve 1:45 a.m. The entance of a Plaza hotel was mobbed by drunks who pounded on the front door like a ravening horde of undead. “The clerk is afraid.”
1:47 a.m. Someone who didn’t like a guy taking pictures in front of a G Street theater lounge grabbed his camera, jumped into a car and drove away.
1:53 a.m. A fight in front of a no-excuses Plaza bar required police to activate an electrical override on the warriors.
2:44 a.m. When a car crashed into a Zehndner Avenue fire hydrant and damaged a residential fence, the occupants bailed and fled. Public Works stanched the gusher and the car was towed.
12:04 p.m. A student’s cell phone butt-dialed 911. The dispatcher heard laughing and singing.
12:04 p.m. A woman said that her husband planned to “dose” someone, and that she was afraid of him. She was given restraining order information.
5:57 p.m. Another stolen stop sign at 14th and B streets.
10:40 p.m. A woman met a traveler at a Samoa Boulevard store and took him home to her apartment. He left with $300 of her cash, headed, she said, toward the Plaza in a camouflage jacket, black boots and a large backpack.
