Arcata Police Log: Flip-Flop Hike From Jail Dries Out Sidewalk Slumper
By Kevin L. Hoover & Hannah Johnson
• Thursday, April 25 4:13 p.m. Someone graciously donated a bookcase to the middle of 30th Street. Police analysis concluded the bookcase was too much of a traffic hazard to justify the additional storage.
5:24 p.m. After rocks and sticks were thrown at a man, the stoning victim quite understandably dialed 911. As he did so, his antagonist declared, “I’m going to find you in your sleep and kill you.”
• Friday, April 26 1:17 a.m. Subjects were heard partying on a staircase. Police were unable to apprehend the subjects because no one knew whether they went up or down.
9:44 a.m. As a man and woman smoked something out of tinfoil at the Skate Park, another woman blocked the gate so that no one could enter their al fresco heroin den.
9:58 a.m. A L.K. Wood Boulevard neighbor’s excitement over a woman’s pregnancy led the jibbered-up buffoon to enter her apartment without permission, like he lived in a Seinfeld episode, and offer an ill-timed, unappreciated chest bump. He’s chosen this particular period of her life to become overly aggressive and confrontational, like a wacky TV neighbor but with real-world annoyance.
12:09 p.m. An over-the-fence argument led to advisement of restraining order under which both parties must contain their snittiness on their own side of the fence.
4:45 p.m. A dog continued its thankless role as man’s best friend as its owner threw up and passed out on sidewalk beside him.
7:23 p.m. Some hostile baby-grabbing between an estranged hsband and wife resulted in a call to police.
9:57 p.m. A goateed bald man in a green sweater was reported carrying a cash register around in Northtown.
• Saturday, April 27 7:24 a.m. A man reported his crutches stolen by something named “Aaron,” then an assault near Mad River Bridge.
1:23 p.m. Travelers slaumber at a bus stop near a skeezewad motel in Valley West, sometimes spelunking in its fragrant dumpster.
2:46 p.m. Items reported stolen in Brooking, Oregon turned up in a Plaza shop.
• Sunday, April 28 12:39 a.m. An exchange of bottles took place between a group of passersby on the sidewalk and a couple inside a second story window. Police provided a receipt for this transaction.
2:41 p.m. A lad said someone had threatened him with being “concussed” with a bottle were he to get too close.
3 p.m. A shirtless man benippled a Valley West supermarket, and was banished.
7:52 p.m. After a dog bite, a Valley West man was reported bleeding from his armpit.
9:51 p.m. Neighborly relations between two Samoa Boulevard residents reportedly include dogshit on the porch, a laser beam shone into a girl’s bedroom and a pepper spray encounter.
• Monday, April 29 1o a.m. A nondescript “young man” was reported knocking on doors in Janes Court looking for someone. Hampering his search was that he wouldn’t say who he was trying to find, leave a message or give his name. He may have been the world’s most ineffectual detective, or, suspected a caller, was casing the ’hood with this flimsily prepared ruse.
10:23 a.m. The video shows someone stealing a “GT Chucker” mountain bike from the main equipment bay at the Fire Department, and also “touching various things.”
11:27 a.m. At first, a guest at a not-entirely-sleazy Valley West motel didn’t want to pay $100 for the hole he had burned in a bedspread, and an argument ensued. This gave way to his acquiescence to the charge, and (we’re guessing huffy) departure.
12:10 p.m. In the nine minutes it took an officer to arrive at a Valley West credit union where a baby had been left unattended in a vehicle, someone got in and drove the car and babe away.
5:47 p.m. A man was panhandled in the Community Center parking, with the baggar asking for money to pay the “motel tax.”
• Tuesday, April 30 9:26 a.m. For two years someone has been harassing a woman about religious beliefs – theirs or hers isn’t clear – and now she is feeling threatened.
11:17 a.m. A raccoon ran behind a 10th Street building.
12:32 p.m. A shaggy-bearded man stole a miniature electric guitar from an I Street music store, then pedaled away southbound on a gray bike.
4:59 p.m. More honking and yelling action, this time on Villa Way.
11:42 p.m. A store employee reported a man coming in several times and making “suggestive remarks” to him.
• Wednesday, May 1 5:48 p.m. The Weed With Roots In Hell, that is, a specimen thereof, was reported planted in the ground at an Alliance Road apartment building, The property manager said some people had just been evicted and disposed of the hell-herb via the very precise and scientific method of throwing it in the ground. It was disposed of properly.
• Thursday, May 2 9:28 a.m. A man left his wallet and tool bag in an unlocked car on Stromberg Avenue overnight, with entirely predictable results.
1:15 p.m. A man on the sidewalk at the transit center told a parks employee he couldn’t move because he was dehydrated and had a foot injury. The foothurt was because on his release from jail the night before, he had walked from Eureka to Arcata in flip-flops.
2:26 p.m. A woman reported her vehicle registration sticker stolen off her car’s license plate. A small fragment of the sticker was left behind, and when she looked at her boyfriend’s truck – which hasn’t been registered since October, 2012, “his” registration sticker matched that piece perfectly.
5:17 p.m. A man kicking a car in a Valley West parking lot was advised to go to his motel room and stay there for a while.
5:24 p.m. A man pounded on a Hallen Drive apartment door to negligible effect.
8:11 p.m. A man was reported walking down Ninth Street, hitting cars.
• Friday, May 3 2:45 a.m. A bicycle stolen from an L Street address was quickly located in the possession of some nighttime wanderers at an Alliance Road stop ’n’ rob.
8:12 a.m. Crowbar marks were found on the door of a Bayside Road business.
11:10 a.m. A woman came home to her Samoa Boulevard apartment to find her deadbolt locks having been unlocked and some bizarre items inside – rocks and a metal bolt with a rope tied around it.
3:54 p.m. An Alliance Road resident noticed neighbors cleaning bongs at an outdoor spigot.
• Saturday, May 4 9:41 a.m. A woman’s handbag was gutted of its valuable contents – iPhone, wallet, cards – the night previous at a Portuguese Hall event.
8:59 p.m. Women at a Valley West motel were beckoned by two men on the balcony of an upstairs room. One of the gents repeatedly invited the women to “party” with them, the festivities to include such irresistible enticements as the smoking of methamphetamine.
• Sunday, May 5 9:57 a.m. The high school auto shop was burgled of tools and equipment valued at $8,000 to $10,000.
4:30 p.m. A McMahan Street resident reported her car “padded and egged” overnight.
7:44 p.m. A caller reported a man in a tye-dye shirt and overalls and a woman in a hoodie beating on a person in the meadow. She beat the victim with a stick until it broke, then the man kicked him several times. Medical aid was summoned for the victim, while someone involved was arrested for public drunkenness.
10:12 p.m. A couple of hours after he walked out on his $5.68 restaurant check, a man described as wearing a Carhart jacket was reported to police.
• Monday, May 6 10:43 a.m. Someone went to the trouble of breaking a Spring Street vehicle’s window in order to steal an empty bag.
• Monday, May 6 12:11 p.m. A concerned mother reported that her daughter had sent her several text messages of an increasingly troubling nature. The daughter threatened to shoot the president and some people she knows. Contacted by police, she said that the president is dealing marijuana and is conspiring to kill her. She was deemed mentally disturbed, but no danger to anyone, including herself.
1:05 p.m. A drunk rode a bike up to a former Ericson Court meadery, fell over, got up and wandered away, leaving the bike. Days later, it was still there.
3:23 p.m. Travelers were reported burning trash in a Redwood Park barbecue pit.
4:16 p.m. “I’m going to kill you (expletive),” said a man reportedly at a G Street bank. “You’re all conspiring against me.” After threatening to “blow up the bank,” he was located on the southwest corner of the Plaza and warned not to return to the business or face trespassing charges.
5:05 p.m. A woman reported her ex-husband having spit in her face on Frederick Avenue.
6:58 p.m. An unlocked car on Chester Avenue, a blue backpack with $300 in goodies inside inevitably went poof!
7:07 p.m. As did the unsecured Cannondale bike at the Community Park.
• Tuesday, May 7 6:55 a.m. A truck window was broken and some $1,500 in techy tools were taken on Stromberg Avenue.
9:04 a.m. A South G Street businessperson was reported threatening employees with guns and bombs.
10:27 a.m. People encountered in Sunny Brae Park said they were just in from Virginia and were looking for a man in a skirt. Whether a specific one or just any randomly passing beskirted dude isn’t known.
11:24 a.m. The same Bayside Road business that had noticed a door jimmying attempt now discovered a window duct taped, as though someone had been fixing to smash it.
2:15 p.m. A small bird with an injured leg briefly cowered under a chair in the police station lobby.
2:47 p.m. A man in a leopard print leotard strolled up H Street.
3:34 p.m. There not being enough yelling in the world, the yak-based mobile argument service helped raise voices at 15th Street and Alliance Road.
6:03 p.m. As a J Street man took a nap on his couch, the landlady strolled in without notice like she owned the place, which she did, but still.
8:09 p.m. Another porch, this one at a Samoa Boulevard apartment, was graced with the gift of dogshit per the usual neighborly feud routine.
8:12 p.m. After spending much of the evening in a Uniontown pizza restaurant’s bathroom, a man was asked to leave. “No,” he said. “Call police.” Officers arrested the intransigent interloper on a public drunkenness charge.
• Wednesday, May 8 12:38 a.m. A funny noise on Larry Street sounded like “sticks dropping.”
4:59 p.m. An erratic-acting employee was to be fired from a Plaza business at 5 p.m., and the manager wanted police there when that happened.
11:59 a.m. A 16-year-old girl said she has been finding needles around the house, and suspected her mother of using heroin.
12:23 p.m. A property owner reported his Wyatt Lane tenants making hashish in the backyard. He called the residents – three men and two women – and was assured that they were processing the substance safely.
3:29 p.m. A D Street resident reported all four of her vehicle tires slashed, possibly by her landlord.
3:41 p.m. A South G Street resident’s driveway was blocked by a gold pickup truck, which was cited.
8:31 p.m. A female person of unknown age reported that while walking in Bayside, she was head-butted by a man she didn’t know, who also kicked her in the stomach and stepped on her hand. She then went to a friend’s house “just to say hi,” then home to mom’s house. Her mother brought her to the hospital, but she had no visible injuries.
8:39 p.m. A man with dark, bushy hair, stained cargo pants held together with duct tape and a spiky metal thing in his nose threatened people at a J Street coffee house, then left.
• Thursday, May 9 1:46 a.m. A Plaza liquor store took a call from someone asking for a “crystal champagne” delivery. On being told that credit card approval was needed, the person hung up. A call back reached a pager.
4:30 p.m. Children played basketball using portable hoops in the street amid the speeding traffic at Stromberg Avenue and Acheson Way.
• Sunday, May 19 4:42 p.m. A 13th Street shoplifter was so cooperative upon arrest you might wonder why he did it to begin with.
8:51 p.m. A thin man dressed all in black outside Everett’s screamed at confused and innocent pedestrians and potential customers passing by.
10:16 p.m. Called in by a skeptical neighbor, a man in his late twenties loitering near a blue van, a white bike and a pile of beer cans received attention from the Arcata Police Department for potential late morning, van-riding alcoholic activity.
• Monday, May 20 3:32 A group of people broke a Garden Apartment resident’s window with an airborne rock, challenging the caller to a fight. In a pro-peace gesture, the caller contacted the cops instead.
• Tuesday, May 21 2:33 p.m. At the end of his patience, an 11th Street resident visited the Arcata Police Department office with photographs of a white dog left free to run the streets around his neighborhood. Concerned for the dog’s safety, the man blamed his neighbor for putting the dog at risk. Upon arrival, officers were unable to locate the dog or its owner.
6:58 a.m. An irritated Lofts Apartment resident responded to her doorbell and opened up to find a woman asking to borrow a lighter.
8:28 a.m. During an unknown time the previous night at the Greenwood Cemetery several headstones were knocked over, and a backpack full of what the police described as “weapons” was left at the scene.
2:52 p.m. Poor driving skills were exhibited in a hit and run near Fifth and K streets, as reported by a woman passing by the scene. A green Chevy, driven into a telephone pole, had been ditched by the driver. (Possibly out of sheer embarrassment.)
• Wednesday, May 22 4:28 a.m. A sleeping-bagged man slept in the bushes outside Arcata Chiropractic on Sixth Street, choosing an appropriate setting for a night of urban camping should he wake with a stiff neck.
1:55 a.m. A statement about our carbon footprint or inattention to detail? A red Prius parked in the bus zone on Ninth and H street was cited either way.
3:49 p.m. A Valley West man and woman caught burying a suspicious object in the dirt outside Carl Jr.’s Restaurant mimicked modern-day land pirates.
5:18 p.m. A tenant of Fairview Regency refused to climb down off of the roof and angrily challenged the manager, “What do you want me to do, jump?”
5:59 p.m. Although quiet on arrival, a pet dog on 12th Street was on thin ice with a history of ongoing barking.
11 p.m. A true Humboldt traveler with an abundant beard and blue jeans wanted a cart of beer from a Valley West home of honest goodness, but didn’t want to pay.
