10:10 p.m. $100 cash left in an oxymoronically unlocked locker at a health club was sticky-fingered.

• Tuesday, January 3 10:34 a.m. Someone walked on and left recyclables atop a car in the 1500 block of F Street.

11:03 a.m. A 17-year-old boy was reportedly spirited away to Fort Bragg by his 19-year-old girlfriend. The father called en route to retrieve him, demanding that the girlfriend be charged with kidnapping.

1:45 p.m. A charming gent in a downtown business “got in the face” of a female worker, asking her, “Hey baby, want to suck on this?” This highly appealing proposition being unrequited, he then wandered off, looking agitated.

4:57 p.m. A Community Forest hiker went off-trail and stumbled upon a campsite which had “teen” clothes, makeup, underwear and blankets. The hiker theorized that is was being used by a runaway.

5:53 p.m. Hobos in the night, exchanging bottles often use a business’s balcony with its panoramic view of Arcata and Humboldt Bay beyond. Since they predictably pollute this paradisical promontory place with trash and spent beverage husks, the business has to shoo away up to a half dozen of the grog-sodden slumpabouts every morning.

• Wednesday, January 4 7:21 a.m. A wrong-way driver was killed on U.S. Highway 101, injuring another motorist.

10:55 a.m. While a duck hunter was off blasting them out of the sky, someone kicked his truck, which was parked back at the wildlife sanctuary.

1:05 p.m. Another woman at work downtown got an “odd” phone call, then a while later a man came in and said he had been watching her through the window. She wondered if the two incidents were related.

3:01 p.m. A he-she argument included her whapping him with a frying pan.

4:41 p.m. So many people are bitter and grudgy these days, or just lashy-outy and hissy-snitty. For whatever reason, car tires were found slashed in the Community Park lot.

6:53 p.m. A woman who smoked marihuana had a “bad trip” and “freaked out” to some degree. She said her heart was racing, she was scared and paranoid and that she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to care for her four-year-old. Then she said she meant to call her mother but had called police instead. An officer checked in on the woman and she said she was feeling much better.

• Thursday, January 5 7:41 a.m. A caller from the Skate park said that he was drinking with a friend at a nearby residence when the friend used a racial slur. This enraged a woman there, who attacked the friend, scratched his face and threw a cell phone against the wall, breaking it. The caller said he was staying at a Northtown motel until he could buy a new phone and go home to Miranda.

1:18 p.m. A Sunny Brae shop reported the theft of a hoodie. An employee saw a woman wearing it on Christmas Eve, but was just now reporting it.

2:23 p.m. A “giant lifted monster truck” was reported parked against traffic and on the sidewalk on Janes Road between 11th Street and Haeger Avenue. You can’t miss it, assured the caller, due to its “huge” size and “giant” tires.

7:40 p.m. A caller from a cannabis center asked police to document that his wife had stated several years ago that she stole medication from her former employer seven years ago. He said he was calling now to get back at his ex in their ongoing child custody battle. The dispatcher dutifully recorded his assertions.

10:27 p.m. 

There’s a car in a trailer park

And it swerves, driving in the dark

The lonely driver passes night away

Cruising past mobile homes

The caller said Brandy,

You’re no fine girl

Drawing neighbors to the street

With your tires, you’re making them squeal, also screech

Brandy drives an SUV

Made of finest steel, painted green

Like a rocket, but with Oregon plates

Blazing past mobile homes

The caller said Brandy’s a DUI girl

In her big-time SUV

But my night, my home and my craving is for sleep

• Friday, January 6 2:31 a.m. A woman reported that a man in a dirty white shirt had tried to set fire to a pile of clothes in the Carport of Destiny, Adventure and Romance, Not Necessarily In That Order. But police couldn’t find anything burned there, and a cruise along the arsonist’s supposed route turned up no sign of him. The woman who had reported the fire wasn’t able to show any officer where this had taken place and changed her story. Someone else had told her of the laundry inferno, she now said. The heroic dud-dousing seems to have been similarly imaginary.

2:59 a.m. Youths reportedly tagging an abandoned A Street house of worship and mildew also turned out to be chimeras.

3:21 a.m. The church vandalism witness doubled down on the report, stating the elusive kids were still there and on top of that, a neighbor’s dog had chosen this moment to enter his yard and commence pooping. Argumentative and agitated, he said he would be making a citizen’s arrest of the neighbor. Police found no poopy pooches or punks.

3:51 p.m. An anonymous male said people were vandalizing the Church of Mold, and climbing its lichen-encrusted steeple.

4 p.m. Not far away, at Seventh and Union, a drunk was arrested and taken to jail.

9:16 p.m. A woman said she awoke with a man’s clothing next to her, which wasn’t her husband’s, and brusing possibly indicating a sexual assault. This angered the husband, who took the children and left. Extremely emotional and frightened, she sais she knew who the male was, and needed to talk to an officer.

9:44 p.m. A woman returned from out of town to find that someone unknown had stacked her wheelbarrows on top of each other and wrapped her garden hose around the fenc ein the backyard in such a way as to make tenant egress difficult. Hate it when that happens.

2:37 p.m. With an iPod locked in a car on 13th Street, a mere window wasn’t going to deprive a slithy tove  of the techno-nugget.

4:31 p.m. A mentally distressed woman went missing for a bit, and was described as carrying a large bag containing a photo of a spiritual leader, which she views constantly.

11:01 p.m. A citizen noticed “young-looking” females buying what  he believed to be CO2 cartridges at a Fourth Street market. He followed the carbonized chicks to a big party on south D Street, and was concerned about their safety.

• Saturday, January 7 3:05 p.m. A man suffered a liquor-exacerbated hypothermia and a heart attack, and died on a bench overlooking the wetland-pasture on Samoa Boulevard.

• Sunday, January 8 12:53 a.m. 

A drummer decided to practice

On 12th Street, where some

were exasperous

At the midnighty thunder

Cops called out his blunder

Which ended up somewhat disastrous

9:53 a.m. A man at the front door of the police station reported that he had taken a radioactive bomb away from a terrorist at the transit center, and that he had it in his pocket. Somehow the man was deemed un-crazy, though his report was unfounded. and he was sent on his way.

3:22 p.m. It doesn’t matter if you have a 215, you can’t smoke anything on the Plaza, not even the high holy herb.

7:56 p.m. An unwell woman reported her daughter stealing her jewelry from her. She alleged that the daughter kept her stolen jewelry buried in the backyard, but an oficer found her confused and forgetful. After interviewing both daughters, it seemed clear that the mother had gifted several of the baubles, bangles and beads to the daughter over the years but forgotten she had done so, and her claim was considered unfounded.

• Monday, January 9 10:37 a.m. A pharmacy employee was reported having stolen 150 pills since September, with the thefts recorded on video.

1:48 p.m. A man with a backpack and a knife on his hip wasn’t the ideal laundromat patron, threatening to pepper spray one customer and displaying the big knife to another. Police found him nearby, detained him at gunpoint and then took him to the crazy house.

• Tuesday, January 10 9:36 a.m. A man was seen digging in the dirt on the side of Giuntoli Lane, wearing only underwear. He too went to a mental health facility.

10:17 a.m. A Samoa Boulevard reported someone having taken his $2,5000 saxophone and refusing to give it back.

10:57 a.m. Motel officials brought a left-behind iPad to the police station. They weren’t comfortable with the owner returning to the motel to pick it up.

5:49 p.m. Four men in “army clothing” mustered in front of H Street businesses, their duties consisting mainly of  smoking and drinking. They were asked to come back later when the bizzes were closed, but refused. Police came and arrested one on a warrant.

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• Friday, December 23 4:14 p.m. What started out as a vehicle theft report in Valley West involved someone held at gunpoint, arrests and narcotics charges.

1:57 p.m. Cars crashed near 11th and F, ruining a couple peoples’ days but leaving them uninjured.

• Saturday, December 24 1:12 p.m. A cat climbed inside a car’s engine compartment and things did not go well when the car was started. Following treatment, it was taken to the shelter.

• Christmas 2:13 p.m. One traveler pleasured another in a Samoa Boulevard parking lot as a man walked by with his two-year-old and a camera. Yes, we have the pictures and no, they don’t contribute anything to human enlightenment. The torrid travs were arrested on drunkenness charges.

3:58 p.m. An unattended car rolled downhill on Union Street, coming to rest in unstable fashion between 13th and 14th streets. Police had it towed, then entered the vehicle and found a bag of pot and a pipe. A woman came to the station to claim the car, but police told her to come back the next day when staff was there to release it to her.

6:52 p.m. A berserk scrounge lizard attacked what’s left of the battered foliage on the Plaza, shaking the plants, pulling them out and of course, yelling. He boogied before police arrived.

• Monday, December 26 2:14 p.m. Two motorcycles and a quadrunner were seen entering the Community Forest from Fickle Hill Road. This was followed by further reports of motor vehicles invading the trails.

• Tuesday, December 27 2:04 p.m. A woman came home to her upper H Street residence and found a traveler asleep on her couch. She let him out and he padded away in an unknown direction.

• Thursday, December 29 10:36 a.m. A man who saw something suspicious in Southern Humboldt on Monday waited until he randomly encountered an APD officer three days later to tell the story. At the pullout where the soil from the slide is being placed 10 miles north of Garberville, he said he saw a tent, two bikes and two backbacks rummaged through and scattered down an embankment. His dog alerted on the area and he was worried that people might be dead or injured there. The report was passed to HCSO.

• December 30 1:02 p.m. Some keys stolen in a burglary were recovered in a stolen car. A school official called to see if the keys belong to her school before she had the whole school re-keyed.

2:59 p.m. A car plummeted into a creek on Samoa Boulevard.

4:45 p.m. After a teen shoplifter failed to steal poppy seeds from an I Street store, a parent was called for the sad ride home.

6:30 p.m. A car struck a pedestrian on Samoa Boulevard, causing a head injury.

• Friday, December 30 11:54 a.m. A scruffy-bearded man graced City Hall’s lobby with talk of taking a dump there. He was arrested on a public drunkenness charge.

2:06 a.m. Someone who had actually lodged for a month at a Valley West motel whose rooms are frequently used for sleazebag soirées suddenly disappeared, leaving behind expensive medical texts. Management there was told that the guest hadn’t been arrested by APD. The books were put in storage.

• New Year’s Eve 11:22 a.m. A skateboarder fussed and swore at himself in front of the Community Center. He was advised of the complaint.

• New Year’s Day 12:02 a.m. Two minutes into the New Year, the first drunk was scraped off Tavern Row. With a small army of cops crawling the Plaza proper, almost all the hot ’n’ stupid activity was concentrated on Ninth Street, from which officers plucked the more lugubriously pickled.

12:09 a.m. ’Nother one.

12:11 a.m. Yep.

12:23 a.m. After a 12-minute mini-epoch of arrest-free jollity, another soused soul was clapped in cuffs in front of a bar.

1:14 a.m. Fireworks fired off in the road at 11th and K ended in an arrest, one which the arrestee wasn’t especially happy about.

1:16–1:37 a.m. Drunk drivers arrested in Valley West and the Plaza.

1:58 a.m. Yet another drunk in front of the bars.

2:18 a.m.–2:25 a.m. Noise complaints drew police to F Street and Northtown.

2:36 a.m. Drunk, Ninth and F streets.

2:44 a.m. Drunk, 11th and J streets.

3:32 a.m. DUI, 17th and Q streets.

4:13 a.m. Someone heralded 2012 with a 45-minute bout of buzzing an H Street apartment dweller’s door intercom.

9:47 a.m. A vehicle in Benjamin Court was slithy toved, the rummagings yielding registration and insurance paperwork.

10:40 a.m. A stop sign at 11th and D streets was turned facing the wrong way. An officer reversed it.

7:13 p.m. Youths attempted to steal three bottles of Smirnoff Ice from an 11th Street store, but dropped the boozy loot and scampered. The whole thing was videotaped.

11:21 p.m. Three teens boozed their way through the drive-thru lane of a Valley West burgery, asking the employee in the take-out if she “wanted a shot.”

• Monday, January 2 2:02 p.m. A youth who had chugged a “Monster” energy drink on Heather Lane was left over-amped, his heart racing. His mom took care of him.

3:07 p.m. A citizen complained of a perceived inequity in enforcement. Her boyfriend’s truck had been towed for expired registration and because it couldn’t pass a smog test, but then she saw an officer cite and release another driver for expired registration and not take the car.

3:56 p.m. A man in a gray beanie and sweat pants visited his woeful financial fortunes on a Valley West laundromat, repeatedly defrauding it of chump change by unspecified micro-diabolical means.

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• Thursday, December 15 9:15 a.m. A dog discovered abandoned in a crate on I Street was transported to the county shelter.

10:33 a.m. As fate would have it, another dog was reported left in a crate during the day all the way across town on Weott Way while the owner works in a nearby office. The caller said the dog was neglected during the day, but the owner denied this, saying she took care of it during her breaks.

12:51 p.m. A man was reported toting garbage bags full of marijuana on Seventh Street. He was found and arrested.

4:16 p.m. A 10th Street resident came home to find a table smashed and computer stolen from his home. The windows had been left open, allowing free access for a malicious opportunivore.

4:42 p.m. As a man exited the Post Office, he noticed a vehicle backing into his car. he “made the suspect aware of the situation,” at which point the driver went all Rock ’Em-Sock ’Em Robots on him, started cursing and intentionally backed into his car with even more force. This left minor damage on a bumper.

7:14 p.m. A coat and wallet left in a car at 10th and J streets were smash-and-grabbed.

10:34 p.m. A woman was found deceased on Greenbriar Lane.

• Friday, December 16 10:39 a.m. Someone was reported throwing fish guts down a drain in Sunny Brae, but police couldn’t find the gut-dumper.

11:25 a.m. A Valley West motel manager reported suspicious activity in a room where two men were staying. Ladies in inappropriate dress were seen coming and going from the room.

3:02 p.m. When a man “charged” his sister and her husband, she spritzed him with pepper spray. Police advised them go their separate ways and cool down.

6:10 p.m. An argument over a pack of cigarettes led a lad to strike his dad with a brick and punch a hole in the wall.

• Saturday, December 17 12:17 a.m. A divorce is difficult enough, but add an epilepsy diagnosis and one’s stress level might become intolerable.

• Sunday, December 18 6:31 a.m. A left-behind cable modem was the ostensible reason a man kept trying to enter a woman’s home, audaciously inserting his insolent foot in the door when she tried to close it.

• Monday, December 19 10:22 a.m. A Sixth Street resident left her purse in the car overnight. Well, for most of the night, as by morning it had been removed, processed by a slithy tove and left lying in the street, its wallet missing.

10:53 a.m. A purse containing $180, a wallet and more was left in an unlocked car in Valley West, with predictably slithy tove-influenced results.

3:54 p.m. A motorhome parked on South I Street reportedly disgorged numerous off-leash dogs and chickens, these joining multiple other off-leash dogs in the area which is supposedly a wildlife sanctuary.

• Tuesday, December 20 1:25 a.m. A woman in a white fur coat and gray spandex pants whipped out a “blade” and started cutting down Plaza Christmas ornaments. Police found her tipsy but weaponless and posing no menace to the Season of Wonder and Light.

11:43 a.m. A woman wrapping packages at the table in the Post Office lobby set her wallet down on top of a wreath next to her, at which point Scruffy McSociopath strolled by, plucked the wallet and strode out the door. The woman and her boyfriend fully observed this and went after the thief. He threw the wallet at the woman and hopped in a waiting truck, which only made it two blocks down H Street before being pulled over by Scotland Yard APD. Alas, no officer had observed the theft and charges would be feeble, so the near-victim chose not to prosecute.

5:27 p.m. Sexual comments made to a woman at a burrito truck didn’t go over so well, and the roadside seducer was told to GTFO.

11:41 p.m. A dreadlocked man set up a “temple” complete with burning candle in the recessed doorway of an H Street shop. He was advised to move along.

• Wednesday, December 21 12:05 a.m. A man hung his jacket on a hook in a Plaza bar, and it and the iPhone in its pocket were stolen. Using the Find My iPhone app, the owner located it at a residence in county jurisdiction.

9:13 a.m. The supremely good judgment it took to leave cameras and other items in a car on the 14th Street freeway bridge was rewarded with window breakage and disappearance of the same items.

3:48 p.m. Even if the items in a car look like they kinda might sorta possibly be something of value, they are as good as gone. A woman came out to her car parked behind an historic Plaza storehouse to find her car window smashed and a flowered purple bag containing clothes, shoes and makeup taken.

7:29 p.m. Roommate relations on Chester Avenue took a slight dip when someone pulled a knife during an argument over broken computer equipment. A router and “coffee hopper” were further damaged during the squabble.

11:14 p.m. A woman left her backpack in her car at a Fourth Street market.

• Thursday, December 22 9:50 a.m. A person came to the police station to provide information “of no significant importance.”

11:10 a.m. Someone using a hospital bathroom took the opportunity to write vulgar things about her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend on the wall, including her phone number.

12:39 p.m. Paranoid, manic, confused and angry – not a good combination.

1:17 p.m. Someone left a “big metal wheel” in front of a J Street resident’s front door, making it all but impossible to enter or exit.

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10:25 p.m. A man was reported pulling screens off of windows at a different Valley West motel.

• Friday, December 2 8:46 a.m. A Bayside Road resident opened her front door to go to work and found a pile of what looked like a heap o’ dog waste with a note stuck in it stating, “It is suggested that you don’t shit where you live.” The note was addressed to a neighbor, the poop-planter having deployed the turd-based admonition at the wrong location.

11:12 a.m. A former employee keeps returning to the workplace from which he had been suspended due to his volatile personality. Police called him and he threatened to call the chief of police and FBI, getting very close to 5150 status.

1:02 p.m. Someone stole a MacBook Pro and $68 from an unlocked bedroom on H Street between 1 and 6 a.m. None of the victim’s roommates knew who dunnit.

1:09 p.m. The way it looked to police, an employee was just protecting himself from an agitated and threatening customer when he drew, but didn’t fire, his pepper spray.

3:36 p.m. A Haeger Avenue residence stinks like growing pot and there’s a lot of coming and going from there. The previous night PG&E came and turned off the electricity because of a huge outstanding power bill.

5:34 p.m. A home invasion robbery in an HSU residence hall set off a search for suspects, which are graually being tracked down and arrested as of this writing.

7:22 p.m. Something named “Louie” at a Valley West gas station became argumentative when told that it’s not legal to fill a glass container with gasoline.

11:57 p.m. Three people huffing some sort of gas out of a balloon at 17th and H streets threw an empty container at someone who walked by.

• Saturday, December 3 2:36 a.m. A drinker in a Samoa Boulevard parking lot was arrested along with a cohort. In some, this would provoke a bout of introspection. But there’s no situation so dismal that it can’t be made abysmal by acting out. En route to jail, he head-butted the screen inside the police car and even his fellow prisoner, earning an assault charge.

9:42 a.m. A rape case was initiated.

• Sunday, December 4 12:04 a.m. A bitchin’ kegger on Stewart Avenue was given a disturbance warning.

• Monday, December 5 5:47 p.m. After a woman texted her mother stating that “This is the worst day of my life,” police checked on her. Firefighters were called to help gain entry to her home, and she was then sent by ambulance to the hospital. Police had to call fire personnel back to the scene to return parts of her door that they had taken.

3:02 p.m. A “scruffy” man was wrongly accused of stealing a backpack at a Valley West motel, suffering unfair profiling because of the skeezy activities committed by his scruffy forebears.

8:58 p.m. Four men and a woman reportedly threw “food” around at a Valley West burger joint, left, came back and threatened the staff, then scampered again.

8:58 p.m. A man asked for police help because after using mouthwash, his alcohol-detecting car ignition interlock wouldn’t let the car start. An officer administered a PAS alcohol test, which came back negative.

• Tuesday, December 6 3:09 p.m. The cell phone connection was sketchy, but a Community Forest bicyclist called to report a mountain lion on Trail 16. He called back later to report that he had made it out OK.

3:30 p.m. A loose goat visited a yard on Old Arcata Road on goat business.

• Wednesday, December 7 3:17 p.m. A vehicle was reported sitting at Foster avenue and Wisteria Way, its doors open and a baby inside. The owner said that he had accidentally flushed the car keys down the toilet of a nearby home, and was working on retrieving a spare set of keys from Eureka.

• Thursday, December 8 9:43 p.m. Police were asked to review a Samoa Boulevard business’s security video to help confirm an embezzlement.

• Friday, December 10 5:55 p.m. A mountain lion was spotted in the 3400 block of Buttermilk Lane.

• Saturday, December 11 12:48 p.m. Two hobos and their flaming shopping cart parted ways at the Spear Avenue/St. Louis Road roundabout. One was arrested on an arson charge.

8:32 p.m. Three men of adventure on the Plaza announced bold plans to pee on the McKinley statue for unfathomable purpose. Police poured out their liquor, told them to stop smoking and head on out, leaving McKinley non-moisturized.

• Sunday, December 12 6:40 p.m. When Tom and Sam returned to the Vanciel Homestead on K Street, so did their goats. Police asked them to get the goats off the sidewalk, and this, like most other encounters with officialdom, this became a tension-filled interaction.

• Monday, December 13 8:34 a.m. When a 60-year-old woman threatened to kill a store manager with a cigarette, it seemed like the onset of a manic episode. Her family took her away for treatment.

4:25 p.m. In the gray gloom of a drizzly winter’s afternoon, an unkempt woman outside a Ninth Street service center screamed about her hunger, demanding food, as the ludicrous giant colorful lollipop she was clutching obviously wasn’t providing any helpful nutrition. “I’m hungry!” she screeched as a couple of other street people tried to calm her. As a man walked past her, she turned and spat on the side of his face for no obvious reason. “Why’d you spit on me?” he asked. “Because I’m hungry,” she said, the cause and effect remaining elusive. Wiping the spittle from his face, the passerby called police, who arrived to detain the disturbed woman and her sucker outside the fire station. The victim declined prosecution of the unwell woman, but was concerned that she might extend her saliva bombardment to the families out Christmas shopping on the Plaza. She was deemed 5150 and taken to a Eureka mental health facility.

• Tuesday, December 14 12:56 a.m. An I Street resident reported two men out front of her house, talking loudly about her Christmas lights. They were asked to move along.

9:09 a.m. The Fire Department’s State of California flag was stolen overnight.

1:15 p.m. A loose goat briefly ruminated at Margaret Lane and Chester Avenue.

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7:42 a.m. A mountain lion was spotted across from the Bayside Post Office.

3:27 p.m. A woman at the student health center said she had been assaulted at a party on South G Street early Saturday morning.

9:01 p.m. A man in a black hoodie threw a bag with something heavy in it at a car on upper G Street and broke the windshield.

11:37 p.m. A woman at an Alliance Road apartment complex was reported using her mom’s handicapped placard for more convenient parking.

• Tuesday, November 15 1:18 a.m. One man’s airs and graces fell short of the standards expected at Plaza bars after midnight. His first social splash involved trying to buy drugs in the bathroom, gaining only the attention of management, which asked him to leave. Pridefully maintaining his untenable position, he then went all uber-aggro-annoyo and was physically restrained until officers arrived to arrest him on charges of public drunkenness and trespassing.

11:35 a.m. A caller complained that the people upstairs in a Samoa Boulevard apartment complex were being noisy and dragging things across the floor. But the GPS locator said the call was coming in from another location elsewhere in town.

• Wednesday, November 16 3:17 a.m. Tour buses parked outside a Plaza club were egged.

5:41 p.m. An F Street resident kicked her roommate, injuring her own foot. She went to the ER.

11:08 p.m. An officer had a couple of encounters with an increasingly drunk carouser on the Plaza, the second one involving him trying to pick a fight. He finally got one, claiming that three bouncers from a bar had kicked and stomped him while he was on the ground. But only his hands were bleeding.

• Wednesday, November 17 6:21 a.m. A caller reported “dope” at a Hallen Drive bus stop and was worried that kids might get hold of it. An officer found something described as a “molded marijuana leaf,” and took it into custody.

2:37 p.m. A citizen came to the station to ask about “European-style” motorized scooters, and what laws applied to riding and parking them.

10:22 p.m. Roommates on Alliance Road squabbled over $40 one allegedly stole out of the other’s pants.

• Thursday, November 17 3:14 a.m. A patient admitted to the ER bristled with contraband. Personnel stripped the patient of his weapons, knives and drugs and had police come and pick them up.

8:13 a.m. A citizen responded to a Craigslist ad placed, supposedly, by a woman moving to the area from Canada. She needed a driver, the ad said, and was to send an initial $400 payment. Instead she sent a $2,800 check and told her new driver to cash it and send the balance to her travel agent. And at that point the now-familiar scam unraveled.

10:10 a.m. When a woman parked her car at Bayside Road and Buttermilk Lane, she noticed something unusual in the grass there – that would be a hunk of flesh that contained a chest cavity. An officer determined that someone had discarded the gutted husk of a deer carcass there.

2:31 p.m. Two women toting a twelver and a large garbage bag trudged into a popular camping area at the end of Lorelei Lane.

2:41 p.m. A stumbly bumbler carrying a trash bag wandered in traffic on H Street, his pants not faring well in their battle with gravity.

• Friday, November 18 1:53 p.m. A cluster of male hangabouts in the Ball Park’s entrance hooted and gibbered at passing women as they walked to the transit center. They denied this to police, saying that they had been singing. And really, what kind of person would disapprove of music?

4:34 p.m. A man known only as “Space” reportedly entered a bar through its back entrance, flashed a knife at someone and was infused with sufficient escape velocity to chart a trajectory back to Planet Nimrod.

• Sunday, November 20 12:12 a.m. A man offering free, mobile argument services tailed a man and his girlfriend around downtown until she whipped out the cell phone, at which point he explored marketing opportunities in the opposite direction.

8:39 a.m. A loose dog in a jaunty scarf wandered the aisles of a 13th Street marketplace, searching for its human overlord in a seemingly endless maze of pooch-bedazzling food scents and sights. The canine sensory overload ended when master was found.

11:44 a.m. A citizen felt the grunch of crumbling plastic underfoot at 11th and F streets, then called police to come pick up a discarded syringe.

2:13 p.m. A shaven-headed, camo-panted, backpack-burdened man settled down on the corner of 10th and J streets to enjoy a tall, cool adult beverage. He guzzled enough of it to be deemed drunk in public by the time police arrived.

• Monday, November 21 12:06 p.m. A business owner said that a friend had been eating dinner at a chain sandwich shop the previous night when an employee told her that she’d heard two men say they were going to rob her business a week ago. Police likened the week-old, multiple word-of-mouth threat to a game of “telephone” and not particularly credible.

4:45 p.m. The boards on the windows of a crumbling, disused Valley West motel hardly block they who are driven to bust in and use the place as a giant dope-smoking sanctuary.

9:15 p.m. College students were going about their evening business in their Shirley Boulevard rental home when a redwood tree dropped in for a visit, puncturing the ceiling with branches.

• Tuesday, November 22 12:54 p.m. A deranged rollerblading enthusiast rolled around on the Plaza, vandalizing the landscaping and throwing things. He then headed northbound on H Street, rolling against traffic.

1:12 p.m. A Ninth Street restaurant reported a man on inline skates punching signs, throwing marshmallows and cookies, starting arguments and almost getting hit by a car. An officer advised the wheeled terror to put shoes on and stop going against traffic.

6:53 p.m. A person somehow lost a cellphone and wallet at Sunset Avenue and Baldwin, and of course whatever caring, principled person found them immediately started running up charges on the debit card and phone.

10:26 p.m. A traveler sitting in front of a bar was seen picking his doomed puppy up by the leash which he had fashioned out of shoelaces, strangling it. An officer found the pup still respirating, and told the trav to move along.

• Wednesday, November 23 9:07 a.m. He said he reacted when she pushed him and spit in his face, pushing her back and slapping her. She said he slapped and pushed her down after a verbal altercation. Neither wanted prosecution and both said it had been a misunderstanding.

9:20 a.m. A self-serve car wash’s lock and bar was cut off with a blowtorch, but whoever did it didn’t get to the coin box.

11:55 a.m. A man in a knit cap was reported walking with his hands down his pants and making “ape-like” noises near Ninth and G streets.

9:11 p.m. A man who had been enjoying cocktails at two Plaza bars reported losing his wallet at one of them; he couldn’t ’member which. The missing wallet had ID and $450 in it, and he wanted police to call him if it was turned in. Police called both bars asking about the wallet, but they said the man had been in and out several times and probably lost it.

• Thursday, November 24 12:21 p.m. A property owner on Mack Road found an empty case of butane cylinders with green flakes on top, which he took to be the remnants of someone’s hashish-making project.

4:17 p.m. A gas station employee asked a man not to smoke near some propane tanks, sensible advice which he took rather badly. By way of stinging riposte, the propane proximity puffer (for want of a better term) threatened to pee on the person who had been trying to keep him from exploding, and this seemed well within his capabilities given the abundant evidence that he had been drinking. Told to move on, the man who could be identified only as “John Doe” made a low-effort feint at reforming his ways by whiling away the afternoon near a supermarket entrance. But after a while, pining for more gas station drama, he drifted back and got into pointless arguments with customers. And there his liquorific, languorous sojourn ended, with a public drunkenness arrest.

9:51 p.m. A man at the transit center said he had been robbed of his tent and medical marijuana, and was headed to the Occupy Humboldt camp at HSU, where he could be around people he knows.

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12:27 a.m. A man and woman on Union Street battled, to complexion-degrading effect.

1:32 a.m. Drunks fought it out on G Street in Arcata Heights, with two arrested.

1:36 a.m. Just for variety, a man was deemed drunk at Eighth and G streets.

1:48 a.m. Two drunks on the Plaza’s south side fought and fought until arrested.

1:38 a.m. Occupy Arcata protesters joined forces with some guest occupiers from the Eureka protest and vanquished financial inequity in annoying fashion on a Plaza storehouse’s ground floor.

2:29 p.m. Occupy Arcata/Eureka protesters migrated north to an Arcata Heights bank, where they clumped up on the sidewalk outside for a brief sit-in.

3:20 p.m. More high-volume, low-consequence brouhaha at the Occupy Arcata camp.

3:49 p.m. Injected with fresh, short-lived fervor by the Eureka hardcores, some of the somnolent stoners of Occupy Arcata again left the comfort of their cozy tents and enteric disease-hazard kitchen to bother customers at the bank across the street.

• Wednesday, November 9 8:52 a.m. A kitty cat was reported stuck way high in a tree on 10th Street, but no public safety resources were available to rescue it.

10:24 a.m. The gradual and entirely predictable decline of an abandoned Valley West motel is proceeding apace, with nocturnal scrounge lizards peeling off the protective plywood, entering and enjoying destructo-frolics.

10:28 a.m. At a recently-robbed Valley West credit union, in walked a slumpy subject clad in baggies and baseball cap. Apart from his humble habiliments, the mid-20s male began his visit with a lengthy loiter in the lobby, then wandered around looking at things and showed no signs of having any legitimate business there. When an employee came out of the break room and said “Hello,” the man’s response only compounded suspicions: he said nothing, was mute and unresponsive. During his inspection of the business, the baggy-panted bozo eventually “caught on” that the manager was watching him, skedaddled out the door and hopped in a silver four-door Toyota pickup truck. The sketchy slouchabout, suddenly energized, revved the engine and attempted to prevent a witness from getting his license plate number, which started with 8U5. Anyway, his menacing meanderings were videotaped and shared with authorities.

12:52 p.m. A man reported seeing three traveler-types peeing upon a table used by a food truck at the Old Creamery a few days previous. He asked them to leave, but this day they were back and damaging the truck in some unspecified way. When he told them he was calling the cops, they ran off. But now he reported that he just saw the truckbusting trio on the Plaza.

“FIND US IN TOWN” reads a sign in the window of the leaky van, its operator no doubt researching oil containment options. KLH | Eye

2:37 p.m. The annals of sleazery gained another chapter when a man knocked on the door of an Ernest Way residence. The woman there said she wasn’t interested in whatever he had to offer and he left. But when she left her house a bit later, the man and two other guys were still there in a bluish older van that didn’t have license plates, just a dealer insert. After she drove away, she became suspicious, turned around and went back home to find the man who had knocked on her door walking up to her house again. He said something about being there to clean her carpets, which may be a modern euphemism for ripping off her treasured possessions. He was about five feet, seven inches tall, black hair, brown eyes, wore a red shirt and black pants and had a mole on his chin with hair growing out of it, ick.

3:31 p.m. A woman walking her leashed Walker hound at the Marsh came upon a man with two pit bulls, one of which he let off its leash. It attacked her dog, severely injuring it. He apologized, and as she left for a Sunny Brae veterinary clinic, she told him to meet her there but after a while, he still hadn’t shown up.

3:36 p.m. A man was reported walking toward the Plaza carrying a knife with a six-inch blade. He was located and told that this was inadvisable.

7:27 p.m. A one-man evangelical conniption stood outside a Uniontown variety store in a yellow ski jacket and black beanie, his voice raised to the skies over matters godly. He further inflicted his religio-rantage on people in cars outside, then wandered away.

• Thursday. November 10 10:44 a.m. A Lewis Avenue resident reported problems with a neighbor over drug busts on the neighborhood. Now the guy was flipping him off.

1:45 p.m. A man called a crisis line five times in 30 minutes demanding medication. Told he had a therapy appointment next week, he flew into a rage and said he was going to go kill some hippies on the Plaza. At this point co-workers provided support, and when police interviewed him, he had been medicated.

2:21 p.m. A high school student reportedly held a bottle of Axe Cologne up in someone’s face and lit it on fire. This resulted in burns to the other student’s face.

3:25 p.m. A caller said a truck dropped a four-year-old and a 10-year-old off in front of a Plaza bank and then drove eastward on Seventh Street at a high rate of speed. The kids seemed to have “puzzled” looks on their faces. Police couldn’t locate them.

• Friday, November 11 1:47 p.m. An officer interviewed someone who had left a baby unattended in a car with the doors left open in Valley West.

9:11 p.m. A white bicycle – not the early Steve Howe song of the same name, but an actual white bicycle – was left rusted out and abandoned behind an Arcata Heights bank. It was disposed of at the Corp Yard.

11:16 p.m. People were heard screaming in the Community Forest, their possibly anguished cries reaching Fickle Hill Road. An officer found four people leaving the park who had erupted into yelping at the sight of a raccoon.

11:59 p.m. A 10th Street parking lot owner complained of freewheeling peeing, the urine donors becoming feisty when confronted over their hydrological promiscuity.

• Saturday, November 12 2:54 a.m. A drunk in a black hat was not to be meddled with outside a Uniontown variety store which attracts all manner of nocturnal wildlife. This particular specimen didn’t take well to suggestions that he depart, pelting employees with a fusillade of verbal abuse, spittle and the abundant litter that is perpetually strewn about the outside of the ill-maintained emporium. He was arrested on a public drunkenness charge.

7:17 a.m. An old, collarless German shepherd had apparently served its purpose and was let loose on its own at the Farmers’ Market. It was taken to the shelter.

10 a.m. Urban travelers parked their broken-down, oil-leaking POS green VW van on 11th Street about 15 feet from a storm drain that empties into Jolly Giant Creek. Asked to move it by an Environmental Services worker, the travs responded with the usual self-serving hippie-dippy reasoning, to the effect that a nearby business (which isn’t open Saturdays) had granted them “permission” to squat there. The ES guy and in short order, a police officer told them that the business doesn’t own the public street nor have any authority to position environment-degrading vehicles there and that they would have to move the Wrecks-on Van-sleaze away from the creek.

10:04 a.m. A dogwood tree behind a Plaza business was torn asunder.

9:35–10:49 p.m. Police took various drunk drivers off the streets.

• Sunday, November 13 2:10 a.m. Another drunk driver, this one packing bonus drugs of some sort, was so very arrested at Samoa Boulevard and H Street.

12:38 a.m. A freestyling urinator didn’t take the news very well that he shouldn’t oughtta whiz upon a taco truck’s 10th Street parking lot, with a verbal form of excreta erupting from still another one of his foul orifices.

1:20 a.m. Occupy Arcata protesters chugged the holy herb in the designated Sacrament Tent (yes, that’s what it was called), unencumbered by Prop 215 pot-smoking licenses.

3:50 a.m. There being not much else for a drunk to do in the 900 block of 11th Street, a man started hitting his head on some “plastic glass” with sufficient ferocity to rouse area residents. When an officer found the hammer-headed drunk, he didn’t take kindly to intervention and was arrested on charges of public drunkenness and resisting arrest.

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8:48 p.m. It took a week for a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship to evolve from sweetness and light to hysteria and police involvement. Called to a Valley West motel where they were staying so as to stand by as the man collected his possessions, an officer found that he had already done so and the woman had been banned from the premises.

11:22 p.m. The conflicted couple was reported arguing in a Valley West parking lot, but within minutes had migrated to another nearby motel to continue negotiations.

• Thursday, November 3 2:42 a.m. The same motel called about guests making a lot of noise in Room 133. They were evicted.

10:03 a.m. Police were called to a Valley West motel where an aggressive man in Room 122 had been acting violent and threatening the staff. He had to go, but the woman was allowed to stay.

1:41 p.m. A Hallen Drive resident was reported raving inside his apartment. He said he was arguing with the demons inside, asked to be voluntarily committed, and it was done.

2:04 p.m. Three computers were reported stolen from Arcata Elementary School.

7:16 p.m. A man sporting the classic backpack-and-beanie combo reportedly shoplifted at an I Street supermarket, then made his way down to Seventh Street, where he headed west. By the time he got to the parking lot behind an historic Plaza storehouse, he was in a fist fight with another guy. Police arrested both and found that one had a warrant out of Chico. Extradition issues were to be handled the next day.

8:08 p.m. A woman called 911 to report imaginary “bombs in the sky” over Giuntoli Lane, and became vulgar and argumentative on the phone. She was arrested on a drunkenness charge.

• Friday, November 4 6:36 a.m. Occupy Arcata activists were reportedly placing flyers in a newspaper rack outside City Hall, but police couldn’t confirm this.

10:18 a.m. A citizen complained that the occupiers had spread straw all over the front lawn and were now smoking cigarettes there, causing a fire hazard. The protesters told an officer that another police officer had told them the hay layer was “a good idea.”

10:54 a.m. A collarless brown pit bull roved alone on G Street, bleeding from the mouth and eyes. The unwell animal was last seen wandering toward Samoa Boulevard.

11:31 a.m. A 10th Street taco truck operator complained about people loitering and smoking pot in his parking lot, plus multiple other concerns.

9:04 p.m. A drunk danced in the street and bothered passersby with vulgarian antics outside a downtown donut shop, then melded into the general loonscape.

• Saturday, November 5 12:55 a.m. A woman’s ex-boyfriend reportedly entered a woman’s apartment through the window, then assaulted a man he found in her bedroom. The two-man brawl then migrated out to a parking lot, leaving the assault victim with a bloody lip and lacerated left knuckles. He didn’t want to prosecute.

1:08 a.m. A 12-pack was nicked from a Uniontown store, its new owner galumphing west on Sixth Street as fast as his larcenous feet could carry him.

3:32 a.m. A very public argument in a Uniontown parking lot resulted in a very public drunkenness arrest.

4:11 a.m. A man in a “box hat” with neon-green embroidery and matching shoelaces  called his girlfriend in Fortuna from the bars, asking for a ride home. She dutifully responded, but then lost contact with him and called police, worried that he was drunk, lost and not dressed for the weather. Police combed the town, found him at Samoa Boulevard and G Street and gave him a courtesy ride to the police station.

8:53 a.m. A 911 cell phone call sounded like a pocket-dial, with non-emergency noises heard in the background. Using GPS technology, police were able to determine the phone’s Stromberg Avenue location to within 14 meters. Though a subject has reportedly brandished a handgun and then tucked it into her waistband, the whole thing turned out to be a non-issue.

12:20 p.m. An Olympia Street resident got into an argument with the phone – not on the phone, but with the very telephone itself – and wrought stern vengeance on the offending device, breaking it.

5:16 p.m. Someone flew into a testy tizzy at the Occupy Arcata General Assembly and had to leave.

• Sunday, November 6  1:07 a.m. 

An apartment block out on Wisteria

Caused bongo-related hysteria

The thunderment factor

Was a great cop attractor

Soon dwindled the drummer deleria

1:55 a.m. The Carport of Adventure, Romance and Destiny (not always in that order) briefly hosted a gentleman wanted on a warrant.

11:30 a.m. An amorphous mass of travelers and dogs swarmed the front area of a Valley West dollar store, leaving its trash can dug through and the contents all over the sidewalk.

4:09 p.m. A man on H Street put on a disturbing display of mental unwellness, blurting unintelligibly, waving his arms, grabbing at his crotch and walking barefoot in a gutter flowing with rainwater, soaking his pants. Across the street, several young people seated in the donut shop’s front window munched pizza and watched the tragic spectacle with horrifying, amused-looking smiles, doing nothing to aid the reckless crazy person. Or maybe they knew something else was going on. Because just as a concerned passerby called police, a woman who he seemed to know came over to him and he immediately dropped the crazy act(?) and socially interacted with her just as any rational person might. When an officer arrived one minute and 20 seconds after the call, the man exhibited no signs of mental impairment, just severe but non-criminal dishevelment. In a stroke of luck, Kern County didn’t want him extradited for the warrant, just cited.

4:09 p.m. One block up, a man argued with himself, his guitar case or the alley (or some combination of the above) in which he mounted a solo hissysnit.

• Monday, November 7 12:15 a.m. A man on Ninth Street said his girlfriend had beaten him up. She said he had punched her in the leg and thrown her against a wall. He  was arrested for excessive boozery.

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11:21 a.m. A pit bull tried to bite a bicyclist at 11th and K streets, then, probably frightened, settled down and became friendly. It had no collar and was taken to the shelter.

11:57 a.m. A driver observed a small child unrestrained in the cargo area of a van on the freeway. Police found it parked with people in it in the parking lot of the place where everything’s worth a dollar. They had a child in the vehicle, but no child safety seat. They denied having driven that way; something about waiting for a bus.

4:27 p.m. A woman who isn’t allowed into a Plaza bar, reportedly attacked and bit someone there, then locked herself in the bathroom. The victim declined to press charges, and she was arrested on a public drunkenness charge.

10:58 p.m. A redheaded woman with freckles walked north on H Street towards Sunset avenue wearing a “sparkley” dress and “glittery” headband. An older man with long gray hair and a leather jacket ran up behind her and put his arm around her, and it didn’t look like they knew each other. Police searched the area for them without success.

• Saturday, October 30 1:49 a.m. After cars collided in front of a Uniontown supermarket, the drivers exchanged information at close enough proximity for one’s saliva to be propelled onto the other either intentionally or on the winds of his hortatory halitosis.

2:07 a.m. As a Samoa Boulevard store employee tried to close the place for the night, a belligerent customer wearing pink tie dye refused to leave, but then did.

2:21 a.m. A purported Plaza occupier/drunk was arrested for the non-political part.

4:42 a.m. After allegedly burgling a K Street gas station of its tobacco products, a man in a hoodie was arrested on burglary charges.

7:30 a.m. An illegal camper behind a 13th Street medical office awoke to the sight of a man standing over him, masturbating. The awankened victim got a good description, and police found the suspect in the alley by the donut shop, where he was arrested.

2:17 p.m. A dead rabbit was reported in the roadway at Valley East Boulevard and Giuntoli Lane. An officer found not a bunny, but a dead gull.

10:02 p.m. 

A drum circle formed up downtown

Where trance-fusion finds fertile ground

But patience is finite

In 28 minutes

The town-pounding sound was wound down

"The timeless eloquence of the Police Log has developed a following far from Arcata." – Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle

• Halloween 4:44 a.m. A downtown gas station employee saw two people in costume and pushing a baby stroller tag the business.

8:38 a.m. A zombie-head decoration was stolen on Ariel Way, finding new non-life elsewhere.

10:12 a.m. The alley north of City Hall became  occupied by human waste related to the encampment on the front lawn.

12:33 p.m. Two shoplifters at a 13th Street marketplace were initially cooperative but as they stewed in the office waiting for police, they became less so. The two had money and paid for the drinks they had abortively purloined.

12:41 p.m. A citizen wanted to know when the campers on City Hall’s front lawn were going to be ejected.

5:47 p.m. An opossum was reported wandering near a credit union across from City Hall. An expeditionary squad of occu-campers was dispatched to check it out, and the witness was concerned that they might harm the rotisserie-ready critter.

6:41 p.m. A woman said that as she drove past a milling mob of people in the 1000 block of F Street Sunday at about 1 a.m., some of the partyers opened the doors to her car and assaulted two of the passengers. But they drove away uninjured.

7:02 p.m. When a woman filled up her vehicle with $80.59 in gas and $4.84 in oil at a gas station, she promised to come back and pay. But here it was a half-hour later and she was nowhere to be seen.

9:27 p.m. Occupy Arcata was making a lot of clatter outside Silly Hall.

9:42 p.m. The first reports came in of people climbing McKinley.

9:54 p.m. The first drunk roundup took place at 10th and H streets, with three liquorific funtimers arrested.

10:33 p.m. Someone shoved a pregnant woman at Ninth and H streets, but maybe he had a good reason. She refused medical treatment.

11:17 p.m. 

With bongo artillery strong

The battle for City Hall’s lawn

Wore on, a late nighter

When loud freedom fighters

Want to bang the hand drums all night long

11:21 p.m. Police made a dent in the drunkenness on the Plaza with two more arrests.

• Tuesday, November 1 12:34 a.m. The Plaza and environs basically dissolved into a roiling sump of people getting drunker, fighting, throwing bottles, ripping each other off for small personal possessions, wearing beach blankets, puncturing strangers, lolling in the roadway, playing music entirely too loud, peeing on each other, attacking ambulance drivers, bleeding from the ear plus other Halloween hijinx.

2:36 a.m. A man ejected from Room 121 of a Plaza hotel showed back up at the front door, his issue apparently being that his possessions were still there. He alternately banged on that and battled some other guys, one of whom was bleeding from the neck.

2:44 a.m. The door gambit having failed, the ejected hotel guest did the only logical thing and tried to re-enter via a neighboring building’s roof. This tactic worked really well, if by really well we mean he plummeted to the pavement and sustained a compound leg break. Once stabilized, he again importuned the hotel for his stuff, which, given his abysmal standard of personal conduct, they would only give him under the watchful eye of police officers.

5:45 a.m. A man who had been dancing under McKinley sustained a puncture wound not commonly associated with merry prancing, and ER personnel called it in as suspicious.

8:55 a.m. A building near City Hall removed the handles from its external faucets because campers were helping themselves to the water supply.

10:10 a.m. A 50-something man with a ponytail first blew pot smoke in a woman’s face, then spat upon her near the transit center.

11:22 a.m. A man said someone entered his unlocked home during the night and stole his turtle, valued at $25.

11:30 a.m. Halloween Plazagoer Hanna Micks was jabbed by someone with with something that left two puncture wounds in her backside (see page 4).

11:30 a.m. A Valley West resident didn’t witness the alleged theft, but is “positive” that his roommate stole his VISA card and ran up $728.78 in charges at three local stores.

12:16 p.m. A Westwood Center supermarket reported its dumpster full of cannabis trimmings and buds, and asked police to come and pick it all up, which they did.

12:42 p.m. A citizen approached an officer to express his disgust for the Occupy Arcata campers at City Hall as well as the marijuana smoking there.

2:23 p.m. A citizen reported her small, portable safe missing from her home. It contained money, a key to a safe deposit box at a local bank, the deed to her home and a gold ring that had belonged to her grandfather.

2:28 p.m. A citizen reported a man in a Grateful Dead hat peeing on City Hall’s front door. Police didn’t find any urine on the door, though a shimmering pool of eye-watering splendor was being continually replenished just steps away behind the trash receptacle near the Parks & Rec door.

4:22 p.m. Someone dumped paint on a toilet inside a Plaza business.

• Wednesday, November 2 11:02 a.m. A man called asking to talk to a specific officer, who wasn’t at the station. He was cagey at first about what his issue was, but eventually said that he was under a doctor’s care for bi-polar disorder. He was told that the next available officer would be sent to see him, but he wanted a certain one. After being told he couldn’t choose the responding officer, he started calling the APD front office in search of his officer of choice. Argumentative and refusing to speak to others, he declared that he was headed to the Plaza to find his preferred officer.

11:27 a.m. Another officer called the business from which the man was calling, and asked him why he wanted to talk to the other officer. A co-worker then got on the phone and said that she would try to calm him and see what the problem is.

1:11 p.m. Someone shot into the Occupy Arcata tentville with a BB gun, striking Geronimo in the shoulder. The quixotic camper declined to press charges against the political pellet pelter.

1:51 p.m. Someone claiming to be from the “Windows Service Center” called a Charles Avenue resident claiming that a virus had been detected on her computer and she needed to log on to their website to expunge it. This, the rep added, would cost money. She hung up on the scammer.

4:45 p.m. 

An octet of drummers in motion

Was doing its daily devotions

Of bongo canoodling

The hand-drummy doodling

Came off as a caustic ear-potion

4:51 p.m. A panic alarm went off at a downtown financial institution, and Arcata and HSU police soon surrounded the business. With all exits covered, the manager stepped outside and explained that a technician, and apparently a careless one, was testing the alarms.

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A K Streeter, somewhat appalled

Heard bongos, then smelled alcohol

At a street-facing condo

Where folks were not fond o’

The fact that the cops had been called

8:46 a.m. Among the new features an unknown and apparently unskilled carpenter left behind in a Minor Alley stairwell were a hammer, holes in the walls and some blood.

8:15 p.m. A three-year-old pit bull mix named “Little Man” was reported shot in the foot by a driver-by while its owner camped off State Route 299 the previous night.

10:17 p.m. A man who said that he lived above a business on the Plaza complained that the noise from the Occupy Arcata camp on the Plaza was disturbing his peace. An officer checked the camp and found only protesters and campers talking amongst themselves, making less noise than nearby bar patrons.

• Wednesday, October 20 8:08 a.m. A two-week-old burglary at St. Mary’s School was reported. The thief likely entered through the old convent, and stole about $500 cash.

9:10 a.m. A man wearing a blue baseball cap with a shirt and tie exhibited financial expertise commensurate with his fashion sense by trying to fob a flinky check at a Plaza bank. When it brought up a warning message on a teller’s computer, the skinny-framed scammer beat a hasty retreat out the back door.

5:09 p.m. A disoriented man sat alone on the sidewalk by the transit center, his prosthetic leg resting on the pavement next to him.

• Thursday, October 21 4:14 a.m. A crazy person turned up at APD’s front door with a handful of “items,” one of which he claimed was Saddam Hussein’s handgun. It wasn’t, and he was deemed sufficiently scrambled to be taken to a mental health facility.

2:08 p.m. At 11th and K streets, the tires were slashed on a dilapidated horse trailer/off-site advertising kiosk for an unpermitted cannabis shop’s new location. Area residents and businesses in the old building thought they were rid of the carbuncular cannabis kingpin, but his legacy remains at the old location in the form of a succession of unsightly resentment-magnet ad trailers.

1:50 p.m. Some crusty old dude didn’t like the interest rates a bank offered, so he told two workers there that “You’ve got to be careful. You never know when your building will be burned down or bombed.” This genius quip earned him closure of his accounts and a call to police.

2:13 p.m. A man went into a gas station mini-mart for service and was refused. He noticed that his photo had been posted on the wall behind the counter for all the mini-mart-attending public to behold, stating that he had been “86’d” from the place. He wanted to know if that was legal, and to see if police could get the store to remove it.

6:28 p.m. A man stole some soup from a Uniontown supermarket deli and sequestered himself in front of a nearby shop to ingest it. He was arrested.

8:37 p.m. A car and deer collided on East 17th Street, the car sustaining damage but the deer getting the worst of it. It wasn’t quite dead, but wasn’t going to get any better so an officer dispatched the broken forager.

• Friday, October 22 10:16 a.m. A man in white shorts was reported shooting a pellet gun at birds atop a cannabis dispensary at Sixth and I streets. He turned out to be a casually attired security guard, and said he was trying to kill a raccoon with a BB gun. He was advised of the legal entanglements involved with discharging air weapons in town as well as killing animals.

12:33 p.m. Technically, a man and woman had been in love or a serviceable approximation thereof up until the previous night. Then they not only broke up, but fragmented into brittle shards of recrimination regarding minutia of cell phone ownership and unlovely statements like “Watch your back.”

1:42 p.m. 

Three drummers, when asked to please stop

Pressed on with their bloviant bop

The Plaza resounding

With trance-blasting pounding

Up till the arrival of cops

2:11 p.m. 

The drumming just couldn’t be quelled

And one listener’s mind didn’t meld

With bongo emblarement

The mental impairment

Left bongophobe-man living-helled

3:28 p.m. 

The bongo complainant, half-nutters

Called back with his ears again cluttered

By throbulent rhythms

No more could he listen

And closed up shop, leaving it shuttered

7:26 p.m. A fresh veteran of some punchy-punchy said he would rather mill around in front of the donut shop bleeding from the nose than receive medical attention.

8:41 p.m. An unlocked mountain bike on L street didn’t last an hour in the driveway, but the thief did leave an old bicycle in its place.

• Saturday, October 23 6:34 p.m. A man at the police station front door said that he had a buck knife that belonged to god and he wanted to return it. If he did so, it was via a Eureka mental health facility.

• Sunday, October 24 6:31 a.m. An Alliance Road resident’s alarm clock went off next to an open window, the sound echoing throughout the apartment complex. This drew a security guard who pounded on the resident’s door, which only added to the noise.

12:27 p.m. An argumentative sort of fellow was reported walking toward the center of the Plaza. He should have been easy to spot, given his distinguishing characteristics: a backpack and long hair.

1:06 p.m. Someone complained about an ugly horse trailer which was advertising marijuana at 11th and K streets.

1:20 p.m. A man locked his bike on the Plaza and forgot about it. When he went back a few weeks later, it was gone. Not surprising, as one night on the Plaza is like a year in any other place.

2:21 p.m. A woman observed a man in a truck pull up and stop at Alliance Road and Foster Avenue, take a dead cat out of his car, set it down on the curb and drive away.

4:52 p.m. A cell phone butt-dialed 911, transmitting pocket noises plus the sound of a woman singing in the background.

5:32 p.m. A woman called to say that a road construction worker had hit her car with a stick while she was en route to Samoa. She was asked to return so an officer could view the damage, but she wanted an officer to confront the construction crew, ask them which one had hit her car with a stick and then “fire them or something.” She was asked to return to identify the stick-man, but she would only do so if police would give her $25 for gas. She hung up, but a short time later Eureka Police called APD, saying she had called the police on the police, complaining about APD’s response.

5:33 p.m. After a woman’s methadone was stolen from her apartment, she resolved to implement two new polices: 1. Don’t let random people into her home. 2. Hide her meds better.

• Monday, October 25 3:40 a.m. A man briefly made off with deodorant from a Uniontown variety store. He was tracked down nearby, the anti-stink sauce confiscated and a trespassing warning offered.

9:51 a.m. A bar employee called, asking what was being done about the Occupy Arcata encampment on the Plaza.

9:51 a.m. Someone at the police station front door wanted to know when the City was going to “take care” of the smokers, dogs and people pooping upon the Plaza.

1:52 p.m. A Fickle Hill Road house near Redwood Park stinks of young, green plant life of some undetermined type.

4:48 p.m. A citizen reported people both smoking pot and cooking with pots, two of them, on a propane burner on the Plaza’s north side.

5:07 p.m. A woman said that her daughter lives in a cannabis grow house, and that her boyfriend ships a harvest “back east” via FedEx every three months.

8:27 p.m. A woman reported her possibly drugged-up nephew breaking into her house and “eating out of the refrigerator.” He was found lying on the grass and ambulanced to the hospital for treatment of a drug overdose.

9:12 p.m. Travelers had been coming into an Arcata Heights pizza shop over the course of the evening asking for free slices, which are sometimes sold at a discount when there is excess inventory at closing time. When one of the pizza chefs got off work, he took a couple of slices home with him to have for dinner. On leaving, he was followed by one of the guys who had been asking for freebies, a young man with buzz-cut hair and a red backpack. A few blocks up the street, the stalker caught up with and shoved the chef, knocking the pizza box out of his hand and spilling the prized slices on the ground. “What the fuck are you doing?” queried the stunned worker, but the hungry lurker hurriedly gathered up the liberated pizza segments from the pavement and headed north. The worker followed the pizza mugger, asking passersby along the way if he could use their cell phones to report the thief he was tailing, but no one would let him do so until he and his quarry were in the upper reaches of G Street. But by then, the famished slice-jacker had made good his escape. The victim’s backup dining plan wasn’t known. “It was his dinner,” said the robbed chef’s boss. “He had to work all day and someone stole it… Don’t steal people’s food.”

• Tuesday, October 26 8:35 a.m. A caller asked when the City was going to get occupying campers off the Plaza, as they yell at and harass passersby and she didn’t feel safe going near it.

9:18 a.m. An old, limping Golden Retriever wandered into an 11th Street market looking for food. The friendly male dog was fed and tied up out front for pickup and transport to the shelter.

9:30 a.m. A cannabis dispensary security guard complained that there were so many people with tents set up on the Plaza, he couldn’t walk through it to “retrieve his breakfast.”

10:31 a.m. A high school student battling depression met with a concerned counselor, police officer and parents to talk things over.

10:35 a.m. An ex-wife reportedly threatened to release compromising photos of a man unless he loaned her more money. “Buckle your seat belt,” she texted him.

11:17 a.m. Someone wanted to know why the protesters were allowed to camp and have dogs on the Plaza when normally a citizen is not allowed to do so.

11:51 a.m. A citizen complained about the protesters being confrontational with passersby and the amount of “stuff” they had all over the Plaza. He called back to advise that a man trying to sell marijuana and hash had been coming and going from the Plaza.

12:10 p.m. A woman said that her roommate had been acting strange. While he was away today, she found her laptop computer in his closet. He consented to a search of his room, and it wasn’t found. He said he never had it and didn’t know what she was talking about. He gathered up his belongings and left.

1:15 p.m. A 90-year-old woman lodged in a Eureka senior housing facility somehow got the keys to a pickup truck and drove to her former home in Arcata, but couldn’t get in without a housekey.

2:06 p.m. A woman said she drove by the Plaza with her window rolled down and her car filled with the stench of burning marijuana. She said there was a large cloud of pot smoke over the Plaza. She was upset because she is pregnant and couldn’t go near the Plaza because of all the smoke.

• Wednesday, October 27 12:19 p.m. About eight Occupy Arcata protesters briefly encumbered capitalism at the conveniently located east entrance to a Plaza bank. The back doors were locked for a time, but couldn’t stay that way because of fire codes.

4:19 p.m. The Redwood Park gate was smashed, dislodged from its moorings and heavily damaged by something that crashed into it with considerable force.

4:39 p.m. A dog jumped out of a truck and attacked another dog, leading to a big argument between humans. One woman cowered in an H Street shop, afraid to leave due to the intensity of the clash.

7:34 p.m. Occupy Arcata protesters were reported climbing all over the statue of McKinley and his head.

Thursday, October 28 8:13 a.m. A Farmers’ Market food vendor wondered whether the Occupy Arcata protest on the Plaza was going to be moved in time for the Saturday market. In fact, it was to leave that morning.

2:17 p.m. In the early hours of the encampment at City Hall, two of the hangers-on types that bedeviled the protest got into a fistfight. One man was arrested on a public drunkenness charge.

9:35 p.m. An F Street resident let his dog out in his backyard to pee when it surprised a traveler who had been hanging out there. The traveler yelled at the man and said he would kill his dog, then was chased out of the yard, last seen southbound on G Street.

10:40 p.m. A drunk lounged around the lobby of an historic Plaza storehouse, yelling at people and petting the pumpkins in the Halloween displays. He was arrested.

2:15 a.m. Two drunks at the occupation camp loudly  fight-partied, depriving peaceable protesters of their rest. The two were arrested.

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• Thursday, October 13 12:45 a.m. After being caught paint-handed by personnel at a downtown tavern, two suspects were arrested on suspicion of tagging a bathroom.

10:30 a.m. A business turned over $1,400 in counterfeit $100 bills to a local bank, but noted that the amount should have been $1,500, with $100 in funny money going missing somewhere along the way.

7:17 p.m. A drunken woman wearing Mardi Gras beads was reported peering into yards near Seventh and K streets, possibly looking for recyclables to steal.

• Thursday, October 14 7:52 a.m. A slithy tove variant busted into the coin machine in the laundry room at an H Street apartment complex.

9:45 a.m. A Westwood Court laundry room change machine was raided of coins and cash.

2:08 p.m. A man snuggled up with his skateboard and took a nap on a Ninth Street sidewalk, his head resting on a trash bag pillow.

4:08 p.m. A man with a bullhorn was reported annoying customers at a G Street bank while effecting a global shift in consciousness.

9:44 p.m. Two men, one withdreadlocks and the other an afro, ripped off three bottles of wine totaling $50 from a Uniontown variety store.

9:49 p.m. The dreadlocked one did some shopping at a neighboring store, where he was arrested.

• Friday, October 15 2:48 a.m. When one gentleman demanded a piece of pizza from another outside a Plaza hotel and was declined, there was little alternative but to enter into combat. The pizza-bearer got the pizza-demander into a headlock, but then three of the demander’s minions appeared, extracted their friend’s head from his mighty clench and punched pizzaman in the face a few times. All this desultory excitement presumably had a suppressing effect on everyone’s appetite.

2:56 a.m. A genius convention at Fifth and G streets included some cad prodding a woman, a gallant intervention and then a lacerating punch to the eye.

3:03 p.m. 

The clearing beneath the flagpole

Was like a percussive black hole

Whose accretion disc

Held bongos at risk

Of cops playing drum whack-a-mole

8:58 a.m. After attempting to take pictures at a traffic stop, a bike cabbie complained that an officer stopped him from doing so by shining a light at the camera and blinding it. The officer erroneously hampered the cabbie’s orderly acquisition of photons while attempting to honor the privacy request of the person he had stopped. The cabbie erroneously identified himself as working for the Arcata Eye and Times-Standard, and fired off a testy, misspelling-laden e-mail with a tendentious account of the crisis to everyone and his brother before talking to his supposed editors about it as an actual reporter would do. The mayor later sent him a calming letter.

• Saturday, October 16 11:53 a.m. Despite his camouflage jacket, a man peeing upon the Plaza and yelling at passersby was easily spotted. He and his rancid backpack were asked to move along.

• Monday, October 18 9:49 a.m. A man in a red hat demanded to use an I Street supermarket’s restroom, was declined and threatened to burn down the building. At this point an Occupy Arcata freedom fighter involved herself and was detained in handcuffs while the behatted blowhard was arrested on a warrant.

3:23 p.m. A man and woman had a loud conversation in a parked vehicle on H Street, discussing the drugs that they had dropped behind the dashboard console. The two toiled to locate the dropped dope for more than an hour, getting in and out of the car until giving up and walking away.

5:09 p.m. A tall, thin slithy tove wearing a trench coat worked his way west on 11th Street, trying car door handles.

8:40 p.m. A Sunny Brae grow house stinks to high heaven, the address numbers have been taken off the house and there’s a steady procession of cars and foot traffic coming to and from during the day.

• Tuesday, October 19 2:12 a.m. 

A K Streeter, somewhat appalled

Heard bongos, then smelled alcohol

At a street-facing condo

Where folks were not fond o’

The fact that the cops had been called

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