Adam Laird’s career ended in less than three seconds. You can watch it happen in real time in the grainy video footage captured by the dash-mounted camera of a Eureka Police Department patrol car. You can see the 14-year-old suspect splayed out on the street near the curb on California Street, his baggy white sweatshirt […]
Adam Laird
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Journal News Editor Wins Freedom of Information Award
The Society of Professional Journalists Northern California officially announced yesterday that Thadeus Greenson, the Journal‘s news editor, won a James Madison Freedom of Information Award. It’s an award Caroline Titus of the Ferndale Enterprise took home in 2016, and the Journal‘s then staff writer and editor Hank Sims and Emily Gurnon won in 2005. Greenson […]
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Is This Criminal Assault?
It’s been almost four years since the Eureka Police Department and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office held a rare joint press conference on April 17, 2013 to announce they’d arrest an EPD sergeant on suspicion of assaulting a 14-year-old during an arrest. Four months earlier, shortly before midnight on Dec. 6, 2012, EPD received […]
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Mills: Suspect Pointed Gun at Officer Before Being Shot
The 26-year-old Garberville man wounded in a Dec. 6 officer-involved shooting pointed his handgun at an officer before police opened fire, Eureka Police Chief Andrew Mills said at a press conference today. Mills spent about 35 minutes walking media through the traffic stop, foot pursuit and ensuing shooting that transpired over 12 tense minutes shortly […]
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Supreme Court Denies Eureka’s Request in Police Video Case
The California Supreme Court has decided not to reconsider a recent appellate ruling establishing a statewide precedent that police arrest videos cannot be considered confidential officer personnel records and shielded from public view. The court’s decision may put an end to a more than two-year battle between the city of Eureka and the North Coast Journal […]
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Eureka Takes Police Video Fight to the Supreme Court
The city of Eureka is trying to keep its recent appellate court loss from setting a statewide precedent. In July, the First District Court of Appeals rebuffed the city’s effort to block release of a video depicting the arrest of a 14-year-old suspect, ruling that the video — and others like it — could not […]
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Arrest Video Can’t be Kept Confidential, Appellate Court Rules
A Eureka police video depicting the arrest of a 14-year-old suspect can’t be considered a confidential personnel record and must be released to the public, an appellate court has ruled. The court’s unanimous decision upholds a May 21, 2015 ruling by Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Christopher Wilson, who granted a Journal petition seeking release […]
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Appellate Court Hears Police Video Arguments
Can police videos recorded on body-worn and patrol car dash cameras by considered confidential police officer personnel records and hidden from public view? That’s the question three justices with the California First Appellate District spent about a half an hour wrestling with in a San Francisco courtroom Thursday. It was clear from their questions that […]
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Appellate Court Wants to See EPD Video, Sets Oral Argument Date
Justices in California’s First Appellate District have decided they want to look at the police dash camera video Eureka is trying to keep the public from seeing. In an unusual order, the justices asked the Humboldt County Superior Court file a copy of the video under seal with the appellate court. But the superior court […]
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Journal Files Response in Police Dash Cam Case
The North Coast Journal filed a reply Monday to the city of Eureka’s appeal of a Humboldt County judge’s order to release video footage of a police officer arresting a juvenile in 2012. In its reply brief, the Journal argues the city has provided the California First District Court of Appeals with no evidence supporting […]
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EPD Assault Case Dismissed
The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office dropped its nine-month case against Eureka Police Sgt. Adam Laird Friday after prosecutors decided they couldn’t prove the officer used excessive force in a 2012 arrest and attempted to cover it up. “Based on new evidence the people have discovered, we don’t believe we can prove this case beyond […]