Unshod Sloucher Angrily Luxuriates On Sidewalk – February 12, 2012
• Wednesday, January 18 10:01 p.m. A citizen reported a car vs. utility pole collision on Q Street, with the driver leaving the scene. A vehicle with front end damage was located at Stromberg and Chester, two streets that are in different parts of town. The female driver, who had been drinking, was found at Davis Way and Hilfiker. The hospital was notified in case the male passenger showed up with head and hand injuries. The driver was arrested, the wreck towed and PG&E notified of a cracked telephone pole.
• Thursday, January 19 4:57 p.m. A shoplifter at an I Street store nicked two potions with contradictory effects – a beer and an energy drink.
• Friday, January 20 12:57 a.m. “You are too drunk to drive,” one person told another on upper H Street. But drive he did, after a fashion, aiming the vehicle southward toward pedestrian-rich downtown.
6:27 a.m. A man in a hoodie was reported “gyrating” in front of City Hall.
9:33 a.m. Someone used a credit card to order three pressure washers for shipment to Africa at a cost of $2,990.01. The first card was declined, and although the second one went through, the bank said the card didn’t belong to its user, so Africa will have to do without three pressure washers from Arcata.
2:26 p.m. A man reported that his wife had been “blue for days,” and now he found her deceased. The coroner was notified.
4:04 p.m. A woman left a $2,000 Canon digital camera in her unlocked car on 10th Street downtown.
6:18 p.m. An electrical box on Union Street was said to be “sparking and glowing.”
11:17 p.m. The CHP found a car half off the road on Foster Avenue, unlocked and with several bags of marijuana in the center console.
• Saturday, January 21 9:55 a.m. A man was reported lying shoeless on the ground in front of a freak-beseiged H Street shop. Luxuriating on the newly widened walkway, the unshod sloucher refused to move, but at least he was argumentative with passersby. An ambulance was called.
8:21 p.m. A pedestrian’s call reporting a reckless driver at 14th and J streets gave way to sounds of struggle, as though the walker had confronted the driver and they got into a tussle. If so, it ended quickly, as an officer found nothing going on there.
10:20 p.m. Normally one’s relationship with one’s smoke alarm would be a private matter, except that the drunk woman in an Alliance Road apartment kept setting hers off and annoying neighbors. When they complain, she argues, apparently in defense of piercing beeps. An officer went by and calmed everyone.
• Sunday, January 22 12:05 a.m. The CHP had been taking calls about the reckless driving of a car on U.S. Highway 101, and after a near-collision on the freeway it exited on Samoa Boulevard, completing the task by going off the road at Union Street. The driver was arrested for DUI and taken to Boozebreath Central, and the vehicle towed.
3:13 a.m. A car attempted to occupy the same space-time coordinates as a tree at Coombs Court and Forest Avenue, but failed. A young driver was cited.
3:58 a.m. One Samoa Boulevard resident’s anger management methodology consisted of standing outside his apartment bellowing about “killing someone.” An officer went by to ask him to go inside. He did, but as soon as police left he started harrumphing up the grounds with talk about “bring[ing] the cops back here so I can fuck them up.” They did then return, but rather than suffer up-fuckage they arrested him on a public drunkenness charge.
5:39 a.m. The back door of a Valley West restaurant was left unlocked, allowing in burglars who forced open an office door.
2:05 p.m. Five cows were reported loose at Janes Road and Foster Avenue. In order to aid detection, a caller described them as brown, black and white. Before long, the roving bovines made their way back into a field.
5:15 p.m. As a man walked past a woman in a store where everything costs but $1, she made sexually suggestive comments. At this, he confronted her and she became verbally abusive. His sense of moral outrage heightening by the minute, the offended victim complained to the store’s management and police, asking that they contact the nasty-talking woman, who had left.
• Monday, January 23 8:45 a.m. Three occupants of a Valley West storage unit were arrested.
11:02 a.m. A J Street resident claimed his landlord illegally entered his residence and ruined his 215 grow. He also said the property owner is overcharging him for electricity.
12:05 p.m. A heavily betatted, bald-headed man reportedly argued with a woman at the Transit Center and left her weeping.
2:49 p.m. A man left his car parked at the Post Office over the weekend, and when he went to get it, three wheels had been stolen and a computer taken from inside.
5:48 p.m. A digital camera was left unattended in a locked car on 10th Street, and away it went.
6 p.m. A mentally unsettled person recently discharged from a mental health facility reported that he had been chain smoking other people’s cigarettes, was feeling hypothermic and needed to get back to Massachusetts. He was directed to that cauldron of wayward souls, the Transit Center.
