Bumbly Stumblers, Burly Blurters, Porch Interlopers And A Slithy Tove With A Heart – March 1, 2011
• Thursday, January 20 2:51 p.m. A 14th Street unlocked vehicle… slithy tove… rummaged… paperwork stolen…
4:04 p.m. An upper H Street resident reported that he was being spied on. He knew this from the hundreds of “clicks” he heard emanating from the wall of his kitchen. He then spoke nonsensically about people being spied on in Arcata, got all angry and hung up. He does this not infrequently.
6:32 p.m. A downtowner reported a man in blonde dreadlocks who sits on the sidewalk a-smokin’ the dope all day and staring at his home.
6:03 p.m. A 12-gauge Wetherbee centurion shotgun went missing during a trip from Arcata to Crescent City.
• Friday, January 21 12:59 p.m. City workers exchanged harsh words with “Lloyd,” who had been working on his car in Rotary Park’s loading zone.
2:43 p.m. A woman was having a conversation with someone outside a Plaza shop when this guy stepped up and interjected his great thoughts into the dialogue. This led to yelling, a call to police and then a reconciliation.
• Saturday, January 22 12:45 a.m.
Among a hotel’s many lodgers
Were some who complained they were bothered
By Plazaland bongos
Coming on a bit strong-o
Cops came and calmed down beatful dodgers
2:05 a.m. Two figures dressed in black were reported lying in the roadway between APD and the freeway. Police found one person with a head injury, and an ambulance was called.
• Sunday, January 23 12:07 a.m. A Valley West motel guest’s stay was irrevocably marred by a visitation from an older, bald, short, shirtless man in splendid sweat pants from Room 123. Accompanying this jarring visage were his howling objections to cartoons being played too loud, as if that’s possible.
• Monday, January 24 8:54 a.m. A Grotzman Road landlady said that following a confrontation, tenants had threatened to burn a house down. Police advised that everyone remain civil and stay away from each other. The tenants were to be out in two days.
10:48 a.m. An Old Arcata Road resident said she had a restraining order against the landlord, who was violating it by being in the backyard. She was advised to call the Sheriff’s Office, as she was outside Arcata city limits.
11:02 a.m. The CHP asked APD for assistance after a car was pulled over on Giuntoli Lane. Two of the occupants had warrants.
11:05 a.m. A man was reported running through a credit union’s drive-thru lane holding a handgun. He wasn’t found, either physically or on the security video.
11:10 a.m. A Frederick Lane resident complained that PG&E was installing a Smart Meter on her house against her will. She was told it was a civil, not criminal matter and to contact PG&E.
12:31 p.m. The assistant manager of a Valley West business reported the theft of a compressor and gave information on the suspect’s vehicle. Police went to the registered owner’s Westhaven address, but it turned out to be his grandparents’ house and he hadn’t lived there in a while.
1:04 p.m. A Samoa Boulevard business owner asked police to come and collect the abandoned traveler property which had accumulated behind a hedge.
3:40 p.m. A woman reported that four days earlier, several items had been stolen from a Plaza bar – her purse and ID, her phone, a friend’s phone and a jacket.
4:19 p.m. A woman who had talked about her suicide fantasies was known to have pills in her possession and was not answering her phone. Police and an ambulance raced to her home and found her having ingested three bottles of pills and half a bottle of wine. She was hospitalized.
9:53 p.m. A drunken man panhandled in a burger place’s drive-thru land and stumbled around at a gas station before being arrested.
• Tuesday, January 25 3:22 p.m. A woman’s panic attack on the Plaza drew emergency forces and a fascinated crowd.
• Wednesday, January 26 2:40 a.m. A neighbor phoned in a noise complaint against Van Dyke Court neighbors who were talking loudly and banging things. When an officer arrived, the neighbors were sitting quietly on the porch, and agreed to go inside. The complainant seemed dissatisfied with this resolution, and could only have been more so after police left. That was when the noisebangers re-emerged onto their porch and yelled a piquant mix of denunciation and retroactive advice. “Fuck you!” observed one particularly gifted wordsmith. His sidekick offered unsolicited guidance on how she should better have managed their dickish blurtage: “You could have just asked us to be quiet,” he lamented, dwelling futilely on What Might Have Been.
2:57 a.m. A behoodied porch interloper sat around out front of an 11th Street resident’s home. When she pulled up in her car he got up, but wandered about the scene disoriented.
7:53 a.m. Many mornings, a Samoa Boulevard businessperson has to clean up the poop and trash left by campers the previous night in the City’s 10 percent landscaping requirement.
5:02 p.m. A Valley West resident found an “X” drawn on her door.
5:09 p.m. Three subjects were persuaded to come down out of the “climbing tree,” which isn’t really that, on the Plaza.
6:27 p.m. Someone was worried because the lady who used to live at the bus stop near City Hall wasn’t snoring. Police checked on her; she was OK and has since been housed.
• Thursday, January 27 8:37 a.m. A citizen became alarmed at the sound of “screaming” goats in the 700 block of D Street. As it turned out, there was one goat and it was stuck in the mud. A strenuous extraction process prompted it to give voice to its goaty frustrations.
10:43 a.m. Another porch interloper, this one in a sleeping bag at Fifth and E streets.
11:06 a.m. A deadbeat Valley West motel was served with notice to pay its water and tax bill like everyone else.
12:33 p.m. A school’s four vans had their gas lines cut, with 10 gallons of fuel drained from each.
2:55 p.m. When a 10th Street resident left a $20 flashlight and $50 binoculars in an unlocked car, nature took its course. In an unorthodox twist, the unknown slithy tove responsible for the theft evinced some vestigial empathy, leaving behind token compensation in the form of one lonely little doobie. Or maybe he just dropped it.
5:34 p.m. A particularly aggressive gaggle of travelers in the 1300 block of F Street not only panhandled a woman, but stated as fact that they were going to sell her some acid.
