Arcata Police Log: Tell You What, Keep The Porn But Don’t Come Back
• Saturday, December 15 4:42 p.m. A Valley West resident reported someone peeing near her car, which gave her some trepidation about checking on it. Police found the car unscathed, though peed-near.
4:59 p.m. A man later described as wearing a white and maroon flannel shirt called 911 two times from an Alliance Road mini-mart, only to hang up both times. He then went inside the store and asked an employee, “Do you know Dan the pain?” and also requested a ride to McKinleyville, then left.
5:58 p.m. A woman said her son’s father had declared, “I’m going to kill your mother, and you will read about it in the newspaper tomorrow.”
10:06 p.m. A Valley West resident asked for assistance in disposing of a skunk she had caught in a trap. She and an officer let it go in what was described as “a safe place.”
• Sunday, December 16 1:30 p.m. An individual whom friends had been concerned about over his increasingly bizarre Facebook postings, which seemed to describe fantasy relationships with celebrities, was seen wandering around in what looked like pajamas. He next turned up at a Northtown business he used to own, behaving strangely. The man was detained in handcuffs, declared 5150 and then taken to the nervous hospital for treatment.
2:44 p.m. A woman said her ex-boyfriend might be sending his new girlfriend to Humboldt County to kill her.
7:53 p.m. A homeless man said he had been drunk at a party somewhere on Sunset Avenue Saturday night, when he got into a verbal disagreement with six or seven college-age persons. A scuffle ensured, and he got two black eyes.
8:09 p.m. A passed-out man at a Valley West burger stand was awoken and asked to leave, but refused, stating, “Call the cops.” His commandment was obeyed, with the result that he was arrested on a public drunkenness charge.
• Monday, December 17 7:39 a.m. For the past two years, said a witness, a woman has sped in her car past the Mad River Fire Station and Pacific Union School. She then runs the stop sign at Alliance and Upper Bay roads. This time the driver was followed to an Upper Bay Road business, where she parked by the office. An officer located the car, contacted the driver and advised her of the complaint.
7:56 a.m. Let us all take satisfaction in the ticket the person who wasn’t handicapped got for parking in a blue spot in the 100 block of Old Arcata Road.
8:08 a.m. A cell phone and paperwork were stolen from an upper H Street location.
10:06 a.m. An upper H Street resident returned home to find his front door open and two backpacks stolen. Burglars often exit plundered residences without closing the front door, which ought to be illegal.
10:24 a.m. A man went crazy near a K Street car wash, throwing a bicycle into the roadway, screaming and tearing off his clothing. He was 5150’d and taken to the nervous hospital.
11:04 a.m. A woman plopped down on the ground by the transit center and took some rips off a whiskey bottle until arrested for drunkenness/druggedness.
3:44 p.m. A man advertised for a roommate on Craigslist, with familiar results. A woman who said she was from the Philippines gave him a check for $1,1950, which he deposited. Then the bank called with bad news about his account.
4:16 p.m. A 12th Street resident reported that the previous night at 9:30 p.m., a man had been peeping through his daughter’s bedroom window as she folded laundry. Family members then went outside with flashlights and saw someone hiding in the bushes wearing New Balance shoes. The father hadn’t reported this to police at the time, but decided the next day to have it documented.
7:05 p.m. A man in a dark hat was reported passed out in front of a Uniontown pharmacy. He told an officer he was taking a break, apparently from his permanent vacation. He was ousted and warned of trespassing.
• Tuesday, December 18 7:39 a.m. A caller reported overhearing people talking about putting away a baseball bat on Olympia Way. An officer found three people, one holding a bat. But that’s legal, all was amicable and the bat-conversationalists were asked to keep the noise down.
8:13 a.m. A caller reported a tenant in an apartment complex bothering neighbors. Often drunk, verbally aggressive and even threatening, the man advertises himself as a “dealer” and notifies other tenants that he can sell them marijuana.
9:48 a.m. A caregiver stole a week’s worth of morphine from a patient, and was fired.
12:49 p.m. A car left unlocked on 14th Street was gutted of property, with CDs and DVDs later found tossed along the roadside. After a neighbor turned them in, they were returned to the owner.
3:08 p.m. Left unattended for two-and-a-half hours, a 12th Street apartment was burgled of a laptop computer, iPod and checkbook.
• Friday, December 21 12:40 a.m. Despite his frumpy hoodie, a lodger at a Northtown motel cut a dashing figure with his bald head and goatee. But his signature flair was yelling, and lots of it – on the phone, in his room, in the parking lot. At some point he joined forces with other enthusiasts of the howling arts, and they had some sort of scream-in hoedown in the room.
3:42 p.m. A reported spray paint vandalism in progress at the high school led police and suspects on a chase. Two youths were collared, cited and released to their parents.
12:23 p.m. A weirdling anchored himself to a sofa in the lobby of a Plaza business, complaining loudly about “not being served.” But he didn’t seem receptive to service, and certainly didn’t want to leave even after being asked several times. Eventually, he uprooted himself and ambled on.
3:38 p.m. The crosswalk at 17th and G streets is on the Transportation Safety Committee’s (TSC) radar for what is becoming a common situation there: A man and friend were crossing G Street in the crosswalk when a car driven by a lady in her sixties struck them, hurting the man’s wrist. The pedestrians yelled at the driver who stopped. The man opened her car door and asked her why she did that, then asked for her driver’s license, which she refused. When he asked for her insurance card, she pulled the door shut and drove off, declaring, “You will be fine.” At some point the man told her he would call the police, and he was confident that this had scared her. A citizen recently told the TSC that she walks well outside the crosswalk’s northernmost lines for an extra safety margin against negligent drivers who drift into the crosswalk.
10:09 p.m. When an ex-boyfriend says he’s coming over to “finish what [he] started,” positive outcomes would seem elusive. More police were seen in the neighborhood while she dusted off that restraining order paperwork.
• Saturday, December 22 8:11 a.m. From outside APD’s jurisdiction on Old Arcata Road, someone called complaining of gunshots from her neighbor’s residence. She said the neighbor had been harassing her for months, but it wasn’t clear if this was a related incident.
10:04 a.m. A barely-clad bloke in cutoffs and boots was warned for indecent exposure in Uniontown.
11:35 a.m. A soaking wet iPod was found at Eighth and H streets and turned in to police.
11:38 a.m. A woman drinking alcohol and Valium was reported talking about “being so upset she could kill someone.” It didn’t happen.
11:48 a.m. Two former employees of a Valley West store were reported having been stealing bags of items from the place for years.
• Sunday, December 23 2:29 a.m. A man suffered heavy damage to his eyebrow on his birthday. His friend had taken him to a swingin’ Plaza night spot for some beers, and as the two walked home, a man in a black hoodie came up from behind them and punched the birthday boy in the eye.
8:57 a.m. A man in sandals and dreadlocks strolled down I Street offering alertness-abatement substances to passersby. He was cited for drug possession and police attempted to contact his parole officer.
11:20 a.m. A woman was unable to awaken her 81-year-old mother, and soon the coroner was called to the scene.
12:45 p.m. A woman reported her landlords having entered her home without permission while she was away. Nothing was missing or disturbed, and there was no evidence of a crime, but the intrusive landlords “act” like they have been in her place.
4:35 p.m. A road rage episode culminated in a big fight out front of a Valley West store. Apparently one person was injured enough to need medical treatment, but first the victim was driven to McKinleyville, where Sheriff’s deputies had pulled over a vehicle matching the assailant’s description. After positively identifying the suspect, the victim was taken to the hospital.
8:07 p.m. A Valley West woman’s jewelry went missing from her home, where babysitters and roommates had been present.
10:49 p.m. A woman came to the police station front door, using the courtesy phone to demand entry to the station. “This is urgent, regarding a federal officer,” she said. The agent works in Fortuna but lives in Arcata, she said. Then a 911 call came in, and the woman was put on hold, but hung up. An officer later recontacted her, and she spoke of an FBI agent and a missing person. She said she was calling from behind “Clyde’s,” an address which turned out to be in Eureka, so she was advised to call that town’s police department.
• Monday, December 24 2:39 a.m. A man called saying his roaring drunk girlfriend had come over without his permission. She was gone when police arrived.
10:12 a.m. A grandmother reported that after her grandson went to jail, a bunch of unknown persons moved in. Police went by and warned several people about trespassing, though one person had permission to live in a trailer in the driveway.
10:48 a.m. A man reported Big Al harassing a female hitchhiker, with the caller coming to her defense. He also reported Al’s dog tethered there.
12:14 p.m. A man at Fifth and K streets was reported shouting at passersby and banging his head on things. He was deemed a danger to himself and committed to the nervous hospital.
1:41 p.m. A man wearing a tie-dye t-shirt and backpack with Rastafarian stripe made some sort of scene in an H Street store, then swaggered off. He’d mouthed off at a skate park on South G Street the night before, and a week previous, the caller had returned home to find the man inside.
2:26 p.m. A motorcyclist was seen entering the forest on a trail off Diamond Drive.
2:29 p.m. Multiple reports came in of a man and woman stealing recycling at apartment buildings on Bayside Road.
4:28 p.m. A Chester Avenue resident reported an extended bout of yelling in progress somewhere in the area. An officer contacted a neighbor, who said it sounded like someone was dying in Sunny Brae Park. An officer found three people in the park who had been “actually trying to sing.” They agreed to cease the caterwauling caroling.
5:37 p.m. A man said his friend had made off with his prescription medication, and he was going to call him and ask him to bring it back.
6:18 p.m. A drunken man in a winter coat with the hood up was said to be wobbling southbound on G Street with a basket full of Christmas wreaths. He wasn’t found.
6:49 p.m. A woman with a large backpack was reported harassing patrons inside a Sunny Brae laundromat. She’d been slightly cocktail-emboldened, and was sent on her way.
10:20 p.m. A man wearing a backpack stole an adult magazine from a Fourth Street market, then rode away on a green bike. At first the store said it wanted the magazine back, then asked that if he was found he be told not to come back.
• Christmas Day 8:26 a.m. A mother who showed up 15 minutes late for a child custody exchange in the police department parking lot was advised about being on time for the tension-wracked ritual.
9:44 a.m. An L.K. Wood Boulevard resident said that his mailbox had been torn from its moorings because he is Jewish, and that it was a hate crime.
12:14 p.m. An unlocked car on Union Street yielded its iPad bag, keyboard and charger.
4:20 p.m. A man reported that his baby’s mother hadn’t shown up for their 4 p.m. visitation. It turned out that a restraining order against one or the other was pending, with a Jan. 2 court date set.
5:49 p.m. A man was seen knocking on doors and trying car door handles on Diamond Drive.
6:35 p.m. A woman who ingested 12 to 15 hydrocodone pills at a Samoa Boulevard residence was taken to the hospital.
• Friday, December 28 3:39 a.m. A woman reported that her “super-manic” boyfriend had gone off his medication and was yelling and banging on her door, trying to get in to her place. He was deemed 5150 and committed.
9:47 a.m. A sex registrant had a friend call to say that he was out of compliance for his annual check-in, as he had been in the hospital. The friend brought the offender in for the required registration.
11:52 a.m. A woman in Valley West said a waitress had come outside a restaurant to throw water on her and her baby.
3 p.m. A woman said she had been mugged and her purse stolen around noon in a Uniontown parking lot.
4 p.m. Three pounds of marijuana was discovered in a package at an Eighth Street shipping facility.
5:11 p.m. A man said that while he wasn’t home, his child’s mother showed up at his apartment screaming and kicking at the door. His mother and sister didn’t answer the door, as they didn’t know a child custody exchange was scheduled. The mother then left the child with a neighbor, and when the father found out about this, he called police to report child abandonment by the mother.
• Saturday, December 29 12:16 a.m. Two were arrested in Larson Park on drug charges.
12:17 a.m. Two were arrested at a Fifth Street yard on drug charges.
3:22 p.m. A large amount of mail with a Western Avenue address was found along the northern trail linking that street to Alliance Road. An officer found the mail “stepped on, soaked and covered in mud,” the address unreadable. It was disposed of.
3:57 p.m. A friend of a woman whose purse had been stolen from an H Street movie theatre on Christmas reported that remnants of the property had been discovered in a Uniontown dumpster.
2:15 p.m. Someone saw bags of something being passed between cars in a Sunny Brae parking lot. Police found a person with a 215 card, and no drug dealing.
5:01 p.m. Still another person who left valuables in a vehicle lost them to the systematic slithy toves who work the night all over Arcata, and this time, a friendship was lost as well. A woman said she left clothing, a backpack, rain jacket and shoes inside a friend’s vehicle parked at Ninth and K streets. She had minimal information on the theft and the vehicle, as the friend wasn’t speaking to her. All he said was that her backpack was stolen and that he had reported it. But police had no record of the report.
8:05 p.m. A man in a wheelchair in the Samoa and Union roundabout was said to be weilding a gun. Or maybe a pistol. No, just an umbrella.
• Sunday, December 30 1:53 a.m. A slithy tove in a red sweatshirt was spotted trying vehicle door handles on Spruce Way.
8:08 a.m. A vehicle was reported parked but running for several hours on Heather Lane. A man was sleeping in the car to get away from his arguing roommates.
8:31 a.m. A Union Street man was reported “acting crazy,” and had earlier attempted to report an “illegal manhunt.” He said he was being stalked by by people in Shasta and Butte counties, where illegal drugs are being made.
10:51 a.m. A woman said she called what she thought was her daughter’s cell phone to discuss “storage options,” but the daughter’s father answered and started screaming and cursing at her. She hung up, but he called her back to complete the hostile yowling. She hung up and he called again, but she didn’t answer.
2:35 p.m. Teenage caped crusaders roved Sunny Brae Center, stamping out supervillains and causing mild concern. One wore a clear shower curtain for a cape, and he or his super-sidekick was toting a rifle. Located at a veterinary clinic, a lad’s air rifle was taken away from him, and he was driven home.
5:02 p.m. A slouchabout clash took place in the alley behind the bars, with one antagonist wearing a baseball cap.
9:29 p.m. A vehicle with an “Oversize Load” sign on the back couldn’t maintain a kand lane position while headed westbound on Samoa Boulevard.
• New Year’s Eve 8:43 a.m. That time-honored “wounded fawn” routine succeeded in gaining attention and sympathy, except that this time it was an actual fawn, actually injured and in distress behind some Union Street apartments. Fish and Game was alerted.
9:55 a.m. A curly-haired man stationed himself near the back stairway of Stewart School to bellow profanities. It being an ongoing problem, he was warned away on pain of trespass.
1:01 p.m. A man at a Valley West motel said he has severe allergies to perfumes, synthetic materials and other substances, and is so distraught and tormented by the constant irritation that he saw few alternatives except suicide. For now, he was to spend some time outside in fresh air, away from the allergens.
