911 Caller Seeks Emergency Permission To Gnaw On Roadside Dead Thing – July 15, 2011
• June 12 1:21 a.m.
A spontaneous bongo insurgency
Provoked some Plazoidal perturbancy
Cops came in five minutes
In three more t’was definite:
There was no percussive emergency
1:52 a.m. Police responded to a suspicious person report at Western and Sunset avenues regarding five to eight persons “throwing up hand signs.” An officer was unable to locate whatever that was.
2:24 a.m. It may have been the same gaggle of nocturnal wanderers who were reported starting arguments not far away on Alliance Road. They were found tipsy and told to return to their friend’s home and stay inside.
• June 13 12:45 a.m. A man in a red sweatshirt pioneered a novel mechanism for hailing a cab – kicking the back door of a Plaza tavern. The bartender summoned the taxi so as to whisk Mr. Kicky away.
12:22 p.m. The camo pants were a two-way giveaway of dubious doings afoot. Apart from the generally disreputable air such quasi-militaristic garments impart to the wearer, there’s the dismal failure of foliage-patterned pants to disguise their presence in an urban setting. Especially when they enclose legs which are attached to a man tampering with a lock box at the Community Pool. His next move – climbing the utility pole at 12th and J – further engulfed his stealth garments in unwanted attention. The mystery man ended his meaningless mission and slouched from the scene before police arrived.
• June 14 12:45 p.m. The drunken yelling man of the day wore a green cap and sweater, accessorized with a skateboard (its color scheme undocumented, but probably adorned with the usual skulls and Olde English goth-metal band logos). From his perch near a 13th Street natural history museum, he railed unintelligibly but with admirable enthusiasm at customers of a marketplace across the street. Eventually the philosoraptor spent his furies and wandered away.
3:36 p.m. A woman asked that police retrieve a possibly loaded rifle and ammunition from her car.
• June 15 8:57 a.m. Parks Division storage sheds at the Community Park were broken into overnight.
9:29 a.m. A man walking around at the Marsh yelling about how he was going to kill people was removed from the area.
• Thursday, June 16 10:35 a.m. A woman called a doctor’s office to report that people bringing her son in for an appointment were going to murder him. Police discovered that she didn’t care for her son’s unlovely companions, but he was OK with them and they weren’t the patient-murdering type. She was told to stop calling the office.
1:28 p.m. Denied medication, a fat guy with a backpack threatened to blow up a medical building – possibly on the faint chance that some of the prized pills might shower down into his waiting hands after the explosion. Then he left.
3:01 p.m. A Plaza shop worker’s wallet, checkbook and paycheck were stolen. She thought it might be that woman who did the same thing at that other shop and was caught on camera.
• Friday, June 17 8:07 a.m. The Sheriff’s Office reported a man calling 911 to demand that he be given the “buck meat” from a dead deer on the side of the road somewhere. Arcata Police contacted the man, who admitted calling the emergency line in his roadkill fleshquest. He was told to leave the corpse alone.
12:20 p.m. After creating an entirely unnecessary contretemps at a Ninth Street service center, a bandana-topped fusspot made for the Plaza, then headed back toward the scene of the tawdry imbroglio. He was told he could wait for a bus at the transit center, but not to revisit the manners-meltdown zone. Denied access to further frisson-fomenting, he wandered away.
5:41 p.m. A parent called from out of state to report that her boyfriend in yet another state said her daughter in Arcata had been taking LSD for three days, hadn’t slept and was suicidal. Police found the daughter’s roommate, who said she was on her way to a mental health facility for self-committal. Police confirmed that she was there.
8:50 p.m. A green-panted woman was reported lying on the roadside in a fetal position on Sunset Avenue. She told police she was resting.
9:17 p.m. A mustachioed man with a little kid at a Westwood supermarket seemed like he was drunk or something. Police found him and he explained that he was “goofing around in the aisle.” He was advised not to make a scene next time he went to the store.
9:53 p.m. “You’re going to die, bitch.” This tender felicity was phoned to a woman who had no idea who would say such a thing to her.
• Saturday, June 18 11:07 a.m. With the Oysterfest causing downtown merchants to attempt to reserve their parking lots for their customers, a territorial clash or two was bound to happen. In Uniontown, a store had taped off a part of the lot, but a man who wanted to park there to go to a different store defied the commandments of an employee, drove underneath the yellow tape after being “extorted for fees.”
11:25 a.m. A bivalve-focused driver parked a car in front of someone’s driveway on I Street, and got a ticket for it.
4:06 p.m. Gentlemen associated with a truck laden with black trash bags on 10th Street stood atop the crudmobile shrieking to the skies that they needed more alcohol. But in an unexpected twist, the universe provided not the needed booze but a police officer bearing succinct behavioral counseling.
5:13 p.m. More “goofing around” led another man to a police encounter on Forest Avenue. The wacky hijinks ended with the man striking his head on the pavement. He was given wipes to clean the blood off his face.
9:58 p.m. Roommates – well, that’s kind of what they are except that one of them lives out in a side yard of the house – got into an argument which included alleged harassment and shoving. Police advised them to seek civil remedies and perhaps counseling “when all parties were sober and in better moods.”
• Sunday, June 19 1:36 a.m. Two drunks rallied all their might and motor-control-impaired main in an effort to throw a mattress onto the freeway. Beavis and Butthead, er, that would be Bogart and Irvin, were arrested on public drunkenness charges.
9:20 a.m. A bum ran inside a Hidden Creek Road church, snatched the pastor’s wife’s purse and boogied at thief-velocity. Police responded, looking for a 40-something man wearing a cream-colored Australian or cowboy hat and leather jacket. Among the logical places to look were the vast traveler campground under the St. Louis Overhead and surrounding trails. Meanwhile, the victim’s cell phone carrier was contacted to ping her phone in hopes of getting location info, but they can only do that in matters of life and death, not purse.
10:23 a.m. A senior had taken a phone call on June 17 from someone claiming to be her grandson. He claimed he had been kicked off a plane flight and needed $700. She sent the check, but now he was calling back for more money and she was refusing the request. A fraud case was initiated. See APD press release, above.
10:36 a.m. The previously alcohol-deprived operator of the garbage-festooned truck on 10th Street was reported screaming obscenities, then leaving on a bike.
• Monday, June 20 4:36 a.m. A man wearing a headlamp was reported pushing a baby stroller and stopping at driveways along Spruce Way. Police found him and his stroller, which was filled with recyclable materials, and advised him to roll along.
9:06 a.m. A Spruce Way resident reported recyclables stolen from up and down the street and asked for extra patrols on Monday when curbside bins are left out for pickup.
10:22 a.m. A man in a Valley West parking lot wearing a knife in his belt attempted a bold, innovative and completely ineffectual method for getting a ride to Trinidad to get his backpack and motorcycle. This involved threatening to get a gun and shoot people. His snitty threatdown ended quickly, and he vanished.
