Arcata Police Log: Weirdo Scours Nowhere For Thereness
• Monday, February 18 9:40 a.m. A pocket-dialed cell phone treated the police dispatcher to the sound of some guy coughing.
9:49 a.m. Another pocket dial delivered sounds of television entertainment.
• Tuesday, February 19 11:19 p.m. “Leave me alone!” pleaded a man at a party at Fifth and J streets. Someone had pulled his hair.
• Wednesday, February 20 10:20 a.m. A Crescent City woman said she gave someone in Arcata $60 to buy her meds and send them to her. The man said he had picked up the benzodiazepine but not the Norcos, but hadn’t sent them due to a matter of principle – she owed him money, plus unspecified and highly conveeeeenient “other issues.” But he pledged to send the drugs that very day.
11:47 a.m. A man at a local employment agency reported a bit of a disagreement during a conversation with someone in Florida, who threatened to cut off his head.
12:46 p.m. A man reportedly sits in a parked truck outside a house with boarded-up windows at 15th and H streets, watching the residence.
6:35 p.m. A caller said a man in Arcata was refusing to take his 11-year-old daughter to the hospital for treatment of her infected ear. The child reportedly told her mother in Kentucky that the father had put urine in her ear. An officer visited their home and found the girl happy, “jumping around and talking on the phone with her mother.” The dad said she had just gotten over a cold.
• Thursday, February 21 1:54 p.m. A burglar used his least useful appendage – his cranium – to break an H Street store’s window. The incident was captured on video, and the suspect was described as a white male with a head injury.
3:26 p.m. A baggily-panted, behoodied man with some sort of metal rod was reported lingering outside a Fourth Street store. He was arrested on a narcotics charge and his car towed.
• Friday, February 22 11:03 a.m. A man in his twenties roved Bayside Road, going door to door, describing himself as a “boy,” claiming he was from Seattle and “selling magazines for points.” One resident said she felt like he was casing her house.
11:21 a.m. A woman in her twenties let herself in to a Buttermilk Lane resident’s entryway and aggressively solicited funds for a “public outreach program.” She was adamant about her cause and wouldn’t take no for an answer, but eventually did and was last seen westbound on Buttermilk.
11:45 a.m. A woman who doesn’t keep apprised of current events left a bag of groceries and her purse on the front seat of a car parked at the Marsh’s South I Street parking lot.
1:28 p.m. Someone set a Christmas tree on fire in the middle of Janes Road, and the acrid fumes engulfed the area mobile home park.
1:49 p.m. A large woman in black sweatpants and sweatshirt came to the door of a Chester Avenue house asking for “donations” to an unspecified cause.
2:03 p.m. An angry and asterisk-crazed resident left a note on an I Street vehicle, which contained a cordial admonition: “Mother f***er, if you park at the end of my driveway again I’m going to f*** up your car.”
5:25 p.m. A shoeless man wearing a brown hat acted “strangely” at 14th and G streets, jumping to and fro, hitting himself and taking his clothes off. He couldn’t be located, or possibly couldn’t be singled out from among the legions of similar-acting goofazoids populating Arcata’s byways.
11 p.m. A man who seemed mentally unstable reported a possible sexual assault which he said occurred in a beach house somewhere between Arcata and Manila. He said he had a picture of a suspect that he took at a downtown donut shop.
• Saturday, February 23 10:14 a.m. A mother said that when her son was in the custody of his father, the dad smokes an unknown substance from a round object in the garage. He is also telling the kid his mother is a “bitch,” a “slut” and a “whore,” and that the lad shouldn’t love his multi-talented mom.
12:53 p.m. A person was seen walking with two unleashed pit bulls near the wastewater treatment plant on South G Street.
10:06 a.m. The coroner was summoned to a Blakeslee Avenue address.
• Sunday, February 24 10:33 a.m. After a businessperson was ejected from an I Street building, the owner expressed concern about retaliation and possible damage to the property.
• Monday, February 25 10:57 a.m. A Villa Way car was entered through the rear passenger-side window, and one bag each of adult and children’s clothes were stolen because they could be.
11:57 a.m. A woman using an online dating service specializing in romance among military veterans contributed more than $10,000 to help a fellow veteran hire attorneys. But this trifling sum left the service unsated, and it asked for more money. This left the woman suspecting that she had been scammed.
12:23 p.m. A Hallen Drive resident got a picture of someone she said stole a vehicle tire from her home.
1:37 p.m. An East 11th Street resident cut her wrist on a broken window and was taken to the hospital.
2:23 p.m. A middle-aged man took off his sweatshirt, lit it on fire and threw it into the middle of the street. He was last seen headed toward the bars.
2:49 p.m. When renters moved out of a Spear Avenue house, they thoughtfully left a sprawl of trash behind for wild animals to forage through, and an access point to the house. A neighbor reported cavorting critters jumping in and out of a broken window in the front door.
4:19 p.m. An I Street resident reported a vehicle blocking her driveway, and said she would leave a note on the car and a sign on the fence.
4:40 p.m. A bearded man carrying a gallon jug of water paused near a Diamond Drive entranceway to the forest. Dog at his side, he looked around the neighborhood, then disappeared into the woods. The caller suspected that he is camping there.
5:22 p.m. A man called from his parked car at 14th and G streets, relating a sad litany of personal reversals-of-fortune. He was drunk, he admitted, and someone had taken his car keys away from him. Meanwhile, his girlfriend was in distant Valley West, ensconced in a no-budget motel. He asked that his car be towed, and his wish was granted. He too was towed, to the drunk tank.
• Tuesday, February 26 11:39 a.m. A 20th Street thrift store’s truck battery was stolen right out of the vehicle.
12:06 p.m. As a man returned to his Lewis Avenue home, he passed a car headed eastbound on 11th Street and noticed that his snowboard was in the vehicle’s front seat. When he got home, he saw that the metallic blue Burton “Method” board with red and silver bindings had been stolen out of his yard.
8:09 p.m. An elderly woman in a gray jogging suit looked “weird” and “spooked” as she lingered on Alliance Road at Spear Avenue. She was described as “looking around as though something was there,” while in fact there is very little there there.
• Wednesday, February 27 9:05 a.m. Gym and swim bags, plus an MP3 player, were left in a car with breakable windows on Fifth Street.
1:37 p.m. A Brigid Lane resident reported a goat he didn’t know on his front porch. When an officer arrived 23 minutes later, the mystery goat was gone.
3:31 p.m. Red Bull and Monster drinks, plus maybe a bag o’ chips, were the contraband nutrition-of-sorts purloined by two young stuff-stealers at an Alliance Road mart. They bicycled away toward Sunset Avenue.
4:01 p.m. Another vehicle smash-and-grab burglary on Villa Way, with “expensive property” in a bag stolen.
4:27 p.m. A she-strangeling lurked amid bushes between homes on Grotzman Lane, clinging to a manila folder and a lighter. She said she was waiting for a bus, and then went to wait elsewhere.
5:57 p.m. Another wheeled lad stole a Monster drink and a knife from a market at the far western reaches of 11th Street, then rode off northbound on Janes Road.
8:23 p.m. A woman whose bicycle was stolen went right to what an APD detective called “the world’s biggest fencing operation,” Craigslist, and sure enough, there was her purloined bikey. She arranged to meet the seller in a local store’s parking lot, and her boyfriend called APD for an officer standby, as he wasn’t comfortable with her meeting the guy alone. The bike salesman said he had bought the bike from some kid for $200. The woman forewent charges, and the seller agreed to fix the broken chain.
8:50 p.m. A Valley West resident reported his unlocked laundry room entered and clothing thrown around everywhere. He posited that the culprits were travelers who come inside to sleep. The upshot of the laundry melee was that only underwear was stolen.
9:04 p.m. A Stromberg Avenue resident entered into an ill-fated and unfulfilling transaction with another woman, to whom she was attempting to sell her car. The supposed purchaser gave the car owner $100 and signed some kind of homemade agreement to pay the balance on Tuesday when she got her tax refund. But like Wimpy with his beloved “hamid-burgers,” Tuesday came and went without the promised payment, and the written agreement turned out to be naught more than a tissue of lies. Meanwhile, the car owner’s boyfriend saw some other person cavalierly piloting the vehicle around, and the driver didn’t know a damn thing about any sale arrangements.
10:21 p.m. A Valley West motel employee disenjoyed the sight of a tall man in a black mask carrying some sort of instrument whose intent can only be guessed at – a spike mounted on some sort of handle. Police found the man at the freeway overpass, and he was carrying a vehicle shifter. There was no evidence of any related damage in the area.
• Thursday, February 28 2:58 a.m. The raging sleazeballs lodgers at a Valley West motel hell didn’t even make a pretense of neighborliness. Multiple guests reported the subjects in Room 222 fighting and throwing things. Police arrived, and as one occupant was arrested on a drunkenness charge, several other honored guests collected their belongings and left. En route to jail, the arrestee utilized his hitherto underutilized cranium to hammer at the police car’s center divider. Correctional facility personnel were alerted to meet the officer at the sally port to safely ferry the uncooperative former motel guest into a living situation more suited to his special needs.
10:09 a.m. An unstable and contentious child custody agreement broke down amid mirror-image accusations of violation by the father and mother to each other.
11:44 a.m. A school administrator became aware of questionable images on a female student’s cell phone, but did not wish to view them in case they were pornographic. An officer got permission from the girl’s parents to view the pics, and deemed them non-pornographic. At the same time, the officer pointed out to the parents that the shots could cause problems for their daughter in this age of social media. They both agreed that the photos should be deleted and the matter left at that.
11:58 a.m. A menacing man loomed in front of a Vallley West dollar store, then took flight through a breezeway.
12:44 p.m. Police officers were asked to make themselves readily available at the hospital birth center, where they would be placing a hold on a newborn infant. Officers were asked to wait at the back doors in case of trouble, but not enter unless summoned.
12:48 a.m. Just because a man wearing a camouflage sweatshirt hangs out in a Valley West parking lot on a brown sedan with a canvas-taped window and uses a key to start the car, doesn’t mean he deals drugs out of a hotel room.
12:59 p.m. A passerby noticed a couple walking westbound on 11th Street near Q Street, when the man, clad in a black sweatshirt and black-and-red hat, whapped his female companion, a heavy-set, curly-haired woman in a tank top, with his umbrella.
2:45 p.m. Those apaartments on K Street reek reek reek of pot.
4:48 p.m. A lower H Street resident complained that someone known only as “Hippie” was waiting out front of his home in a vehicle. Hippie had previously assaulted him, but for now seemed satisfied with lurking.
9:19 p.m. A man stood outisde a Samoa Boulevard business with his pants down, opening and closing his car door. He told police he was waiting for a ride.
10:52 p.m. A woman’s phone number somehow became posted at a Northtown erotic supply depot, and soon she was getting calls from men looking for a “good time.”
• Thursday, February 28 4:08 a.m. Someone in a nearby apartment shone a laser beam on a fire dept. crew on scene at Alliance Road and Foster Avenue. The laserer was cited.
• Saturday, March 2 5:22 a.m. Arcata Police officers assisted the CHP with a truck headed south on the freeway. It was easy to spot,being the one with a white front tire that had gone flat, been ground away, with sparks now flying out of the bare wheel grinding on the pavement. The driver was arrested as drunk.
10:49 a.m. A person fell through a skylight and plummeted 30 feet to the ground at a West End Road factory.
10:58 a.m. A car was burgled in Zelia Court.
12:20 p.m. A Zelia Court garage was burgled, with power tools, hand tools, rain boots and other items of value taken.
1:27 p.m. It was at a Westwood laundromat that a balding older man with a goatee got into a yelling match with a younger man over laundry.
6:13 p.m. A child custody exchange in a park went awry when the father threatend the mother with a stick.
• Sunday, March 3 1:12 a.m. A man in a mohawk, green jackey and camouflage shawl spent a lot of time in the candy department of a Uniontown variety store, squatting, opening boxes and concealing items about his person. At checkout, he paid for one item but not the others, was inrecepted on the way out and warned not to return.
9:45 a.m. A dreadlocked woman wearing multiple skirts and a hoodie wasn’t drunk, wasn’t crazy, just liked pouring water over her head and screaming nonsensically by the donut shop.
