Archives April 2008
Local Transient Wants Free Ride
From yesterday's Times-Standard:
"I've been homeless here in Eureka going on seven weeks. In that time I have been attacked by countless people of all sorts. What is the deal with people around here? As a community, where do you get off treating people in poverty without dignity?
You won't let them wash their clothes, you won't let them shower, you won't let them work, and the homeless food mysteriously puts me to sleep every time I eat it.
This community suffers from bad leaders. Bad leaders create bad followers, and there are a bunch of bad followers around here. Don't go to church this weekend and tell me on Monday you've done your part for this community.
I see a bunch of criminals around here, growing pot and spending the money -- not on the community, but on themselves, and harder drugs. Grow up, NorCal.
Michael Neeley
Eureka
Let's see, you're upset because you can't find free laundry service, free showers, free food that you like, or a job you want. Gee, please hang on while we invite you in to wash your hobo clothes, shower in our homes, and have some food on the house. Never mind that we work very hard, every day, many long hours, at skilled jobs that we went to school for, only to use the money we earn to pay the thousands of dollars it costs each month for rent, electricity, water, food, clothes, gas, student loans, and yes, even the washing machines you think you should have free access to.
Oh but it gets better. Michael Neely is a convicted sex offender! Specifically, he was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape. So why should we give you free food, free shower, free laundry, or anything else that we worked hard for? Humboldt County has some of the best social benefits for homeless people in the country. Go wait in line at the Social Security office on Washington Street like every other transient to get your handouts.
You know what we're tired of? People coming to Humboldt County looking for handouts and free rides, while the cost of living increases on a weekly basis and wages stay the same. So please, make use of our tax-sponsored free money and food stamps, but for society's sake do it wisely and save up your spare change to clean yourself up enough to find a job.
EPD Seizes 50 Pounds of Marijuana
Eureka police officers somehow got a search warrant for a home near C Street and Harris Street the other day and found 50 pounds of "high quality" marijuana inside during the raid.
According to the article, three people were home when the cops busted in, and those people didn't cause any problems for the officers who found the weed, scales, and a handgun during their search.
Although they did have $150,000 worth of pot, none of the residents were arrested or charged with any crimes yet, evidently because the DA's office wouldn't allow it without reviewing the details. We are in Humboldt County, after all, and the DA doesn't have time to be clogging the court system up with harmless pot growers. Sure, someone at the house with 50 pounds of bud drying owned a gun, but it was legally registered to him, which definitely indicates he is a somewhat-legitimate law-abiding citizen. If it was criminal activity, the gun would have been stolen for sure, and the residents would not have been so calm and cooperative when the coppers showed up.
So anyway, the cops managed to get a warrant to raid this pot house on the west side of Harris Street (that's where the projects are), but it turned out to be harmless pot growers and they didn't even make any arrests. Once again, EPD, it seems like you could be doing other things to better our community, like maybe busting some real criminals, you know, burglars and rapists and the like. All you have accomplished with this pot bust is taking $150,000 out of the local economy and causing a giant setback for those poor Eureka growers.
*sigh* When will we learn that pot isn't crime here?
Traffic Stop Ends in Drowning
A Redway man is dead after a crazy traffic stop incident yesterday just north of Weott on the Avenue of the Giants.
The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office press release says a deputy conducted a traffic stop of the man's vehicle just after noon yesterday. Once the vehicle pulled over the driver immediately got out of the car and jumped off a steep 60 foot embankment.
Obviously the deputy didn't chase the guy down to the river, not only because it would be suicidal, but also because the passenger from the suspect vehicle, Kelly Stradinger, got out of the car and became "belligerent". She was later arrested for obstructing a police officer after kicking the deputy many times. The deputy was also bitten in the leg by Stradinger's dog. She also had some pot and was cited for that.
In the meantime, a search was launched for the man who jumped down the embankment, and just about an hour later his body was located in the Eel River.
420 Idiocy in Arcata
Total ridiculousness in Arcata's Redwood Park yesterday where thousands of marijuana smokers gathered to get stoned for the traditional "4/20" pot celebration.
The whole 420 thing supposedly started with a group of high schoolers in the SF Bay Area back in the 70s. According to the legend, the stoners would routinely meet at 4:20 p.m. after school and smoke pot together.
Leave it to pot smoking hippies to take that one step further and celebrate April 20th, with a giant group smoke-out at 4:20 p.m. on 4/20.
We always thought it was kind of dumb for so many people to be celebrating such a pointless date. Don't they realize 4/20 is the birthday of Adolf Hitler? Of course they don't. I mean, come on, this is Humboldt County, land of the under-informed, kingdom of mediocrity, county of marijuana. So hippies, smoke your pot, enjoy your haze, and don't forget that you're celebrating the same day the leader of Nazi Germany was birthed.
Local Blogger Claims Hobos Can Fight Camping Tickets
A local Humboldt blogger wants the 18 hobos who were cited for illegal camping in Eureka Wednesday to come see him about a possible legal defense.
Eureka Police officers did a sweep of the wildlife reserve area near the Humboldt Bay behind the mall a few days ago after receiving many complaints of "aggressive loose dogs, aggressive behavior by illegal campers, an abundance of garbage and human waste on the trails and hypodermic needles on the trails" according to the Eureka Reporter.
Tad, an Arcata resident who has been described as "a spokesman for the homeless", seems to think those bums actually have a right to set up camp, do drugs, and defecate on the trails in the greenbelt area which has been legally declared wetlands and reserved for wildlife use and public hiking.
This is the sort of thing that we don't understand about too many Arcata hippies. They are supposedly all about protecting the earth and its people and freedoms, yet we have a county full of disgusting hobos who trash the land, crap in our wetlands, and think they have the right to set up camp in public areas. And why is Humboldt County a mecca for beggars and bottom feeders? Because some people have spent major portions of their lives doling out spare change to street hippies and defending them from the evils of organized society.
Yes, the evils of law and order, the evils of having clean trails for citizens to walk on, and yes, the evils of taxes! And why shouldn't anyone and everyone be able to just give up, never work again, live in the streets, and beg for change and food, leeching off members of society who actually work, pay taxes, and contribute something to the world?
To be fair, there will always be disabled citizens, injured war vets, and people in need who cannot actually take care of themselves. But here in Humboldt County we see too many otherwise normal people who have taken to begging in the streets out of sheer laziness, and we believe that it is those abusers who do the most damage to our land and our society.
SoHum Pot Grower Looking For Love
Hey ladies, looking for a real Southern Humboldt grower boyfriend? You're in luck! Dennis wants to meet you!
We found this post on 420magazine.com and thought it was too good to pass up, so we're sharing it with our readers here.
Dennis plans to grow some "Northern Lights" cannabis in his closet, and decided to share that fact with the internet yesterday. He's also looking for a girlfriend, but he's only attracted to "larger ladies".
137 Pounds of Weed Headed to Illinois
It was a big one down in Honeydew Tuesday when more than a dozen drug agents both local and from afar served a warrant on Christopher Cramer's Applewood Road residence.
Agents arrested Cramer and Leland Bauer at the scene without any hassles. Cramer is charged federally with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, and Bauer was booked on various warrants and will also be charged with conspiracy.
According to the article, this bust was made possible thanks to information provided to the local authorities by the Illinois State Drug Task Force, but there are no further details on that piece of the story. We can only guess that Cramer's business partner in Illinois ratted him out recently. Not a surprise, seeing as how they give you 4 years in prison for less than 1.5 pounds of pot out there.
In any case, Cramer had like 90 pounds of bud in his house and another 40 or so packed up in his Toyota Tundra, the pickup truck of choice among pot farmers. Semi-legal or not, 137 pounds of pot is way beyond legitimate use, so we're guessing he'll be doing some time in a federal lockup. But hey, they are trying to legalize medical marijuana in Illinois, so maybe it wasn't just drug trafficking after all?
Home Invasion in Garberville
Burglars forced their way into a home on the Fir Ln in Garberville just around 3:00 a.m. yesterday morning.
According to the press release at least two men broke into the home, demanded money, and threatened the lives of the occupants.
One occupant of the home managed to escape through a bedroom window and call the police, but during that time one of the occupants who remained inside was bound with duct tape and beaten mildly.
From the press release: "Eventually the suspects took a small, unknown amount of concentrated cannabis and loose marijuana and they fled on foot. Sheriff's Deputies and CHP Officers searched the area but were unable to locate the suspects."
The suspects were described as black males, one with a "skinny face" and the other wearing new white tennis shoes. If you have any information, please call the Sheriff's Office at 445-7251.
Arcata 'Raging Grannies' Hold Tax Day Protest
Never heard of the Raging Grannies? If you happened to go to the Arcata Post Office today you probably ran into a group of them holding a peaceful protest on the corner of 8th & H Street.
The real story here, however, is that the Raging Grannies are awesome! First off, just look at this photo. Ok, yes, that was excellent, right? Now check out some of their official photo galleries. And wait, there's more! The official Raging Grannies website is also awesome, and it's even hosted at Geocities!
We'll be looking out for these activists in the future, and hopefully we'll have our camera so we can further document these eccentric grannies.
Holy Crap! Heavily Armed Meth Dealers Busted
Both local papers are reporting on the giant meth and weapons bust in Ferndale over the weekend. The Humboldt County Drug Task Force served a warrant on Grizzly Bluff Road where they found four people, more than a quarter pound of meth, and 56 firearms stashed, as well as all the goodies you would expect a meth dealer to have, like scales, packaging materials, and incriminating paperwork.
Jack McCanless, the 60 year old kingpin of this particular meth ring, is being charged with all sorts of crimes, including maintaining a residence where drugs was being sold and lots of weapons charges.
Officers also arrested three other people during the raid, putting this meth house out of business.
Many of McCanless's guns were hidden beneath a false floor in his attic. Makes us wonder why a 60 year old meth dealer in Ferndale would have so many guns if they're just stashed away under planks in an attic. Stolen? Probably. Meth addicts love to steal stuff, especially here in Humboldt County where burglaries are ever so common, and almost always performed by addicts.
Cops Search for Hobo Hunter
Someone has been going around beating down homeless people in the Eureka area. The first assault was on March 23 at the Eureka boardwalk, and since then another assault near the Bayshore Mall sent a homeless man to the UC Davis Medical Center with serious face and head injuries.
From the Times-Standard: "A homeless man, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared retribution, said he believes the reported assaults, and others, are the result of people targeting the homeless."
Eureka Police Department has a man on it, Sgt. Patrick O'Neill, who has been working the case religiously for weeks now, even walking up and down the train tracks looking for witnesses, but he has yet to find any good leads.
This makes us wonder, are we sure that EPD should be prioritizing some relatively minor assaults on bums in the area? Has anyone else noticed that when the weather starts getting nice, the bums and hobos get thick at busy intersections and the street begging becomes a real nuisance? Not to mention that these people are homeless and jobless, which means they do not pay taxes, which means us taxpaying Eureka citizens are footing the bill for ol' Sgt. O'Neill to be out there walking the damn train tracks looking for other hobos that might have seen the attacker.
Come on EPD, go bust some heroin dealers please. We have way too much crime and way too little law enforcement around here to be spending our valuable police hours on a couple bum fights.
And We Are Back!
We were offline for a few months. Something about a story we published from one of our many anonymous contributors made a local business owner upset, and that led to threats of legal action for slander or defamation. What we have since learned, however, is that Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act states that the owner of a web site cannot be held responsible for the content posted by anonymous parties. And since this entire blog is made up of anonymous contributions which are not created by the site's owners, all we can do is merely remove any offensive content upon verbal or written request from an offended party.
So, if you don't like something that has been posted to this site, please contact us and we will promptly consider removing the content. We are here to blog and to serve our readers, not to make enemies. Also, if you have a tip or a story, send it our way to get the word out.
Anyway, blogward ho!
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