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November 10, 2005
EUREKA MURDER: Police are investigating the murder of 24-year-old
Shawn Cameron Garfield of Eureka. Garfield was shot Monday night
in an apartment in the 100 block of West Del Norte Street in
Eureka. The shooting suspect is 20-year-old Richard Lyle Sanderson
Jr., of Hoopa. Eureka Police Detective Curt Honeycutt, who was
the initial investigator of the case, could not release many
details about the homicide but said that other people were in
the apartment at the time of the murder, and that Sanderson had
a previous warrant out for his arrest. The motive of the shooting
is still unclear, Honeycutt said. According to police, Sanderson
is likely still in the area and is considered armed and dangerous.
Anyone with information should contact EPD Det. Ron Harpham at
441-4315.
HOLD UP: Another day, another bank robbery. This time it
was US Bank on F Street in Henderson Center in Eureka, where
on Nov. 3 police allege that 18-year-old Jacob "Jake"
Webber Gabriel told a teller that he was strapped with a bomb
and demanded money. He fled with an undisclosed amount of cash
and is still at large. Before the Eureka teen was identified
through surveillance photos, he was described as 28 - 34 years
old, between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 foot 8 inches in height, with
a crew cut, brown eyes and no facial hair. This is the third
Eureka bank heist in a little over a month. In October, 23-year-old
Jared Lloyd Wiley Shaff of Brookings, Ore, robbed Bank of America
in downtown Eureka and North Valley Bank on 4th and F streets.
He was later apprehended after holding up another bank in Oregon.
Anyone with information on Jacob Gabriel's whereabouts should
call 441-4307.
A CONTRACT IS A CONTRACT:
The latest court ruling on two
issues in the County of Humboldt vs. Robert C. McKee, et al.
Tooby Ranch land-transfer case has defendants jubilantly whispering
that the wicked witch is dead, and the whole case melted. The
plaintiff is taking a more measured approach. The county sued
McKee over his subdivision and sale of patent parcels on the
13,000-acre Tooby Ranch in Southern Humboldt County, saying that
Williamson Act guideline changes made in 1978 and 2000 allow
only parcels of 600 acres or more to be transferred. (The Williamson
Act is a state program that allows landowners to enter contracts
with the county to preserve agricultural lands, in exchange for
significant tax breaks.) McKee, who bought the ranch in 2000
from the Arthur Tooby estate, argued that since the ranch was
under a 1977 Williamson Act contract (which allowed the transfer
of parcels of 160 acres or more), the county's subsequent updates
didn't apply to it. The patent parcels McKee sold averaged 300
acres, said one of McKee's attorneys, Bill Bertain.
On Nov. 2, Humboldt County Superior
Court Judge W. Bruce Watson ruled that the county does not have
the power to void McKee's subdivision because "each transfer
from McKee to third party buyers exceeds the 160-acre minimum
as agreed upon in the 1977 contract." Watson further ruled
that the county's 1978 amendments to its Williamson Act guidelines
"may not be applied to McKee's 1977 contract." The
county code enforcement unit issued a news release two days later
expressing disagreement with the judge's decision, and on Tuesday
the county forwarded a statement from the California Department
of Conservation, which oversees the overall Williamson Act program,
also disagreeing with the court's ruling. "The Legislature
expects counties to update their Williamson Act regulations as
new legislation is adopted and as local circumstances change,"
wrote the state. "Legislation and the decisions of higher
courts have served as the basis for our advice to local governments
that any duly enacted rule modifications apply to existing contracts
as well as prospective contracts." But Bertain says the
county's been getting some bad advice from the state. He says
the case "clears up a number of things, and the county needs
to step back and reassess their whole approach. Because what
they have been doing is going to lead to the destruction of the
Williamson Act program. Since 2000, they've been tramping on
people's property rights and ignoring the rule of law they've
developed a new and erroneous concept of what a contract is,
and Judge Watson has set them straight." Bertain says it
"remains to be seen whether there is anything left of the
county's case." The main trial in the case is set for Feb.
6, and a number of issues remain, says Deputy County Counsel
Richard Hendry. "The judge's ruling doesn't really dispose
of the rest of the case," he said. One of the remaining
issues is whether the transfers violated the Subdivision Map
Act, the state law that governs subdivisions of real property.
Bertain, meanwhile, says the property buyers are pursuing a cross-complaint
against the county to try to get the county assessor to finally
register the transferred properties -- something the county has
resisted while seeking to prove the land sales invalid. Hendry
said it was premature to say what precedent-setting impact the
ruling might have, if any, on other Williamson Act contracts.
COX PULLS OUT: Cox Communications is leaving the boondocks, the
company reported last week. The cable television provider decided
to pull out of its rural markets in Humboldt County, Bakersfield
and other Midwest and southern states. The operations have been
sold to Cebridge Connections Inc. a smaller cable company that
serves 940,000 customers. After the sale is complete sometime
in the second quarter of 2006, Cebridge will become the eighth
largest carrier in the country, with 1.3 million consumers. Cox's
customer base will drop to 5.4 million. The Wall Street Journal
reported last week that the deal was worth $2.5 billion to
$3 billion. In March, Cox Communications announced that it was
looking to sell four of its cable systems in order to reduce
corporate debt and become more competitive.
HATFIELDS WIN?: Ernie and Lisa Hatfield thought they'd finally
prevailed in their nearly two-year feud with the City of Arcata
over a shared dirt road off Old Arcata Road. On Oct. 20, Humboldt
County Superior Court Judge John T. Feeney ruled in favor of
the Hatfields and co-plaintiffs Robert and Dongna Kearns, who
sought a preliminary injunction against the city over use of
the road by its tenant, the Arcata Educational Farm. The Hatfields,
who live at the end of the dead-end skinny road that passes by
the educational farm, complain that activities and events at
the farm often clog the road, create hazards at the entrance
to Old Arcata Road and lead too many cars down to the Hatfields
place, where there's space to turn around. Judge Feeney found
"that great or irreparable injury would result to plaintiffs
in the absence of injunctive relief," and so granted the
preliminary injunction. The injunction orders the City of Arcata
to "halt all public events" on the farm "until
such time as safe public access is created," or to provide
off-site parking and post notification of it at the road's entrance.
It defines public events as "any event or activity wherein
four [people or more] are asked, encouraged or invited to meet"
at any date and time at the farm. The order also directs the
city to notify the tenants of the rules, and evict them if they
fail to comply. So, they won, right? Not really, says Ernie Hatfield,
who on Tuesday sounded like a guy who'd reached the end of his
rope. "The tenants have pretty much disregarded the order,"
he said. "It's business as usual for them. They're running
traffic through as normal, with 30 people on Tuesdays and 30
people on Fridays." Those are "farm-share days,"
when people come to the farm to pick up the produce they paid
for in advance. The Hatfields get their farm share on Fridays
-- 'course, they just amble down the road on foot for it. "I
don't really know what's going on," said Hatfield. "I'm
a citizen of Arcata, right? I'm a taxpayer. And I'm a neighbor.
Gosh, that's three things that ought to be heard. And then I
have a judge who rules in my favor! So, what's a guy supposed
to do?" One thing the plaintiffs are considering is filing
a contempt of court against the city. Meanwhile, Judge Feeney
has set a case management conference for Dec. 12.
DASTARDLY DEEDS DEPARTMENT : On Nov. 7, Rio Dell resident John David Hughes
pled guilty to allowing his motor home, back in March, to leak
raw sewage onto the ground, where it was observed by a police
officer to be running under a fence and pooling in the neighbor's
yard, according to a news release from the Humboldt County District
Attorney's office. Humboldt County Superior Court Judge W. Bruce
Watson fined Hughes $660, suspended $210 of it and gave him a
year's probation. While Hughes owned up to the leaky motor home,
he said he hadn't been aware of it until it was pointed out to
him. He has since cleaned up the mess and bleached the ground,
and the public works department determined that the city's water
had not been affected. Also on Nov. 7, Ted Ronald Blair (of Shelter
Cove) and Christopher Columbus King (of Whitethorn) were sentenced
for poaching 232 illegal fish: 183 rockfish, 20 lingcod, two
canary rockfish and 57 Dungeness crab while sport fishing in
Shelter Cove. Co-defendant Samuel Dakota Stafslien (of Whitethorn)
was sentenced for the same crimes on Oct. 17. Their most unsportsmanly
behavior has netted them a total of $8,400 in fines -- $2,800
each -- and two years of probation, according to a news release
from the county district attorney's office. They also have had
their sports and commercial fishing privileges yanked for the
first year of probation. Stafslien got 30 days of jail time.
Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos called the illegal
takes "an outrage." Finally, the California Department
of Fish and Game is looking for the culprit(s) who illegally
shot a blacktail buck in the throat and left it to die alongside
Fickle Hill Road last Thursday. This isn't deer hunting season
-- it's deer breeding season -- and the DFG is keen on finding
the poacher(s). Tipsters can call 822-6771 or 822-8360.
TOP
Controversial arrests
at Critical Mass
Police actions questioned
in wake of rally
by HANK SIMS
Over a week after the California
Highway Patrol and the Eureka Police Department arrested four
protestors and issued numerous tickets during events held in
conjunction with a nationwide anti-war protest last Wednesday,
the appropriateness of the police response to the event is still
being contested.
The arrests took place during
a bicycle ride organized by the group Critical Mass down Highway
101. Critical Mass activists charged that that they were physically
mistreated by both the CHP and Eureka Police. Video footage taken
by one of the activists shows that at least one EPD officer seemed
to handle one of the suspects in a physically aggressive manner.
Before the end of the ride was
over, HSU student Kat Zimmerman, one of the organizers, was charged
with five counts of unlawful conduct, including assaulting a
police officer, evading arrest and drivin g
on the highway at an unsafe speed. Three other students -- Elise
Castle, Amanda Barker and Sierra Barnes -- were charged lesser
crimes, including resisting arrest
Right: Police
chase bicyclists at Target near the end of the Critical Mass
ride. Photo by Ella Docherty.
"This is in my estimation
a clear example of an excessive display of police presence, but
also a clear example of excessive force by the individual police
officers," said Eureka resident David Cobb, who said he
has been working to find attorneys and raise money for the women
arrested during the ride.
The protest, like similar ones
around the country, was intended to mark the anniversary of President
George Bush's second inauguration last year.
Nearly 40 bicyclists joined
the Critical Mass ride Wednesday morning, following a small anti-war
rally on the HSU campus. They were traveling to Eureka to join
a larger protest just getting underway at the Old Post Office,
which houses the local offices of many federal agencies.
Along the route, as they rode
on the highway's shoulder and in the slow lane of southbound
traffic, they were attended by a CHP helicopter and several squad
cars. At three points, at least, the riders came into direct
confrontation with the police.
The CHP erected a small barricade
at the Bracut Industrial Park, with a police car parked straddling
the slow lane and the shoulder. The department's Sgt. Hal Rosendahl
later said that the intent was to get the bikers out of traffic
and onto the shoulder.
 According
to accounts offered by both activists and the police, Zimmerman
did not stop when she came to the parked CHP car -- rather, she
swerved around to the right with the intention of continuing.
Left: Eureka Police
and protestors near the old post office. Photo by Bob Doran
At that point, she collided
with Sgt. Randy Price, falling from her bike and causing other
bicyclists to crash behind her. Activists said later that Price
had lunged out at Zimmerman as she passed by. According to the
CHP's version of events, Zimmerman appeared to be aiming her
bike directly at Price.
At that point, Sierra Barnes
went around the car into the left lane of traffic, stopping there
to protest the treatment of Zimmerman she said. The officers
at the scene took Barnes into custody, allowing Zimmerman to
ride on, despite injuries.
When the bicyclists reached
the outskirts of Eureka, they paused to gaze across the bridge
at the Target store, where several police cars were parked. At
that point, another CHP officer exited his car near the group
and chased Zimmerman, who had started riding again, on foot.
According to both the police and several of the activists present,
Zimmerman rode across southbound 101 and onto the median in order
to elude the officer. The other bicyclists proceeded across the
bridge.
The CHP, aided by the Eureka
Police Department, had set up a presence at Target. There, they
grabbed Zimmerman and took her into custody. The two other women
-- Elise Castle and Amanda Barnes -- were also arrested there
and charged with failing to obey an officer and resisting arrest.
Footage of the event taken by
Arcata bicycle advocate Bill Burton shows two officers from the
Eureka Police Department grab Castle and roughly force her down
to a landscaped area outside the Target store, grabbing her hair
to control her head. Moments later, one of the officers pointed
a non-lethal machine gun-style weapon at Castle's mother, Stella
Robbins, who was asking the officers to release her daughter.
Robbins, who is visiting the
area from North Carolina, said that her daughter did not stop
when the officer told her to, but believed that it was only because
her attention had been distracted for a moment when she came
over the bridge.
"He did tell her to stop,
but she was looking at us and she headed toward us. That's when
she dodged around him, and that's when he grabbed hold of her
bicycle," Robbins said.
Rosendahl later said that from
the department's point of view, all the confrontations could
have been avoided if the riders had followed their instructions
to get off the highway.
"Had they just complied
with our lawful orders, none of the arrests, none of the traffic
congestion would have occurred," he said.
Many of the activists later
questioned why a police helicopter would have been ordered to
shadow the ride. Officer Paul Dahlen, spokesperson for the local
CHP office, said that Monday that the helicopter, which is based
at the CHP's Redding office, is sent to Humboldt County on a
semi-regular schedule a couple of times a month -- and just happened
to be present on the day of the rally.
On Friday afternoon, Zimmerman
was arraigned in the courtroom of Humboldt County Superior Court
Judge Christopher Wilson after spending two days in jail. After
Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Schwartz said that he had no
objections to Zimmerman's release from jail while charges were
pending, Wilson allowed her to be discharged from jail without
having to post a bond.
Eureka attorney Stephen Davies,
a member of the board of directors of the local chapter of the
ACLU who had visited Zimmerman in jail, later confirmed that
he would be representing her in any civil action she might choose
to bring against the CHP.
"She is definitely considering
filing a government Tort Claims Act form in the near future,"
he said, referring to the initial step required in a certain
lawsuits against state agencies.
After Zimmerman's arraignment,
Davies showed reporters pictures he had taken of her in jail
Wednesday evening. They showed that she had suffered fairly severe
bruising to her head and back, as well as a nasty abrasion on
her elbow.
Things went off much more smoothly
at the downtown rally, despite the fact that a large contingency
of Eureka police officers -- as well as agents of the U.S. Marshal
Service, whose offices are in the Old Post Office -- were on
hand. They were supported by the CHP helicopter and one of the
department's airplanes, which was sent over from Redding while
the Critical Mass event was underway, according to Dahlen.
EPD spokesperson Suzie Owsley
later said that her department issued at least 11 tickets to
the approximately 60 protestors at the rally, the majority of
them handed out for crossing the street against the pedestrian
walk/do-not-walk signal.
"When you look at how many
people took part in it, and when you have those people coming
into town on bicycles, you want to make sure everyone's safe,"
Owsley said Tuesday. "And that's why we had the officers
we did out there."
But one of the downtown protestors,
Petrolia resident Ellen Taylor, said Tuesday that people at the
demonstration were not impeding the movement of vehicles, and
that people were mostly ticketed for being in the crosswalk after
the pedestrian do-not-walk signals turned from blinking to solid
and before the traffic lights had changed.
Taylor said that the pattern
of ticketing, in addition to the large police presence around
the post office, was excessive, given the relatively small size
and non-confrontational nature of the protest.
"It was certainly an effort
to intimidate, and they may have been looking for some sort of
pretense to be more aggressive," she said.
The four Critical Mass riders
arrested during the event will appear in court for a pre-trial
hearing on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 2 p.m., in Courtroom 8 of the
Humboldt County Courthouse.
Staff writers Helen Sanderson
and Bob Doran contributed to this report.
TOP
8 Questions for
Simona Keat
by HELEN
SANDERSON
 For its second annual fundraiser, Girls Inc. of
the Redwood Coast, a nonprofit whose mission is to empower underprivileged
adolescent girls, will honor three area women for their achievements
this weekend, Nov. 12, at the Bayside Grange. Sylvia Jutila,
former director of the Eureka American Cancer Society, Mary Keehn,
founder of Cypress Grove Chevre, and Simona Keat [left], coordinator
for the Humboldt County Office of Education Gang Risk Intervention
Program (GRIP) will be recognized at the "Feast of Inspiration:
Celebrating Strong, Smart and Bold Women." (See the Calendar
listing for details.)
Simona Keat, 46, began working
with at-risk youth at 18 years old, when she interned with the
Riverside County Probation Department, managing a caseload whose
numbers fluctuated regularly as gang members were either killed
or overdosed on drugs. In 1994 she moved to the North Coast and
began working with at-risk youth at local schools. In 1998 she
was named California's Latina Woman of the Year. Keat talked
with the Journal about what inspires her and the state
of gang activity in Humboldt County.
1. Around age 6 you came
from Mexico to Southern California, where you worked in farm
labor camps. How did your early experiences shape your adulthood,
education, career?
I think it shaped the whole
thing, because growing up I was part of a migrant family of farm
workers and we moved from place to place for work. The one thing
that I think helped our family and myself was that even though
we moved a lot, following the crops, my father always left us
at the same school from September to the end. Other people who
worked the same way went from school to school. But we did experience
bad housing in farm labor camps. The families there dealt with
their lives through alcohol and drugs. So we saw a lot of domestic
violence. There were nine girls in my family, and my dad was
always on guard for us, but he was an alcoholic, too.
I think all of what I saw was
what got me to say, it could be better. As I got older I thought,
how can I stop the kind of stuff that's been going on with these
families? Then it clicked in high school, when I was picked to
be in a peer counseling program. We had a speaker come who was
an African American probation officer. He spoke about the things
he was doing, and I thought, that's what I want to do with the
kids. From then on that was my goal.
2. You lived in Indio before
coming here in 1994. How did you wind up in Humboldt County?
My husband [Wes Keat] got a
job with the District Attorney's office.
3. You probably get this
question a lot, but is there really a gang problem in Humboldt
County?
There is a problem. All these
years it's been in the beginning stages, and that's because we've
been able to work with the kids and get them to see a different
view. But we are starting to have people move in who are very
hardcore and are starting to recruit our kids, like the skinheads
are, and prison gangs. It's starting. And if we don't pay attention
we are going to have a bigger problem. Maybe right now it is
manageable, but it can become unmanageable. That's how my community
started down in Indio. When I was growing up it was just starting
and then it exploded and they've had an issue ever since. It
goes in waves; it goes up and down.
I don't want to see that happen
here. That's why I work with kids. I don't want to see this community
become like Santa Rosa, Ukiah, Willits. All those communities
have had it explode on them already and we're not too far from
that.
4. What problems related
to gang activity are specific to Humboldt County?
The more I work with kids, the
more I see that the kids here get involved over racism, socio-economics,
bullying. The kids experience racism not just in the school but
in the community. That's why we have the multicultural club,
to educate people about everyone else. Now we're doing Challenge
Day -- you challenge yourself to be respectful, to include everyone.
You acknowledge the problems around you and challenge yourself
to do something about it. We have to look at different ways of
dealing with [gangs].
5. GRIP began as a way to
reduce violence between different cultural groups. Are there
fewer gangs or less violence than when the program started? Is
GRIP working?
We've been able to make a difference
with the kids that we work with, which are students at the high
schools. We're not able to reach out to adults that are moving
in -- law enforcement needs to do that. It's up to us, law enforcement,
the DAs office; everyone needs to work together. I can only do
one piece of it, which is by intervention and prevention. Law
enforcement needs to do the cessation part and the DAs need to
do the incarceration part. The community needs to give their
support as well, by letting people know what they are seeing,
what's going on.
6. In particular, how do
gangs affect girls and young women?
Girls need to know that they
are not the guys' little puppets. That is how they get introduced,
by being sexual objects, and they wind up controlled and abused.
They need to learn to respect themselves and their bodies, that
they are somebody and that they can have goals and achieve those
goals. A lot of them are looking for love and they end up thinking
they're getting love, but they're not. Now, girls have their
own gangs and they are very violent because they are competing
with the guys. It's not happening here yet and I don't want it
to happen.
7. Who was your role model
as a kid -- or as an adult, for that matter?
I had a supervisor in my internship
and when I started working at Juvenile Hall and the Probation
Department in Riverside who guided me a lot. He was like my dad.
He was a very compassionate person. He was my role model. As
I learned more, I think I looked at Gandhi and Martin Luther
King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. I grew up with Cesar Chavez, I followed
him a lot in the marches for equality for farm workers. Those
were the people I was learning from. When I was younger, I had
a schoolteacher who was a Cuban refugee who took me on. She was
the first one who told me I could go to college -- the first
one that said, you can do it.
8. Now you're a role model
for young women. How does it feel?
I have a hard time accepting
it. I am only a person trying to do the best I can. I'm just
doing what I'm supposed to do. The girls and the boys both say,
I want to do what you're doing. I hope they do.
TOP
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