It was just days before the July Fourth weekend when Humboldt County Chief Probation Officer Shaun Brenneman got the official word: A handful of state inmates were being released early as COVID-19 continued to tear through state facilities. The released inmates would arrive in a couple days, Brenneman was told, including one who’d tested positive […]
prison
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Village Down and Holding in Prison
Make sure and pour a little bong water out this week for Reggae on the River and its Cannabis Village. We hardly even knew ye, Cannabis Village! For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, High Times unceremoniously pulled the plug on the 35-year-old festival June 17, posting a brief message on the concert’s website saying it […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Liking the Cage
When I was 23 I arrived at the same correctional facility that my father was sent to a week before his high school graduation in 1972. This would be a recurring theme in my life, repeating the timeline of my father’s experiences. Rehabs, jails, overdoses, best friends dying young, drug psychosis, dysfunctional family split-ups and […]
Posted inNews
Dunaway Paroled 25 Years After Amber Slaughter Murder
Thomas Jerome Dunaway is a free man, released from prison some 25 years after participating in the execution-style murder of a 14-year-old Eureka girl. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Dunaway was paroled last month to the San Francisco area. While Dunaway had faced life in prison for the 1994 murder of […]
Posted inNews
‘Catch Me If You Can!!’
It was shortly after noon on April 7, 2010 and Eureka’s Problem Oriented Policing team was staking out room 103 at the Comfort Inn, a mustard-colored hotel on South Broadway with rooms that go for about $80 a night. The officers had been part of a task force that spent the prior afternoon canvassing Eureka […]
Posted inNews
Suspect Eureka Shooter Had Extensive Criminal Record
The man suspected of fatally shooting a woman in Eureka on May 6 before turning the gun on himself hours later in a Fortuna trailer park had an extensive criminal record that included several stints in prison, according to state corrections officials and local law enforcement. Ronald Allen Crossland, 52, is believed to have shot […]
Posted inNews
TL;DR: Arts in Corrections at Pelican Bay
Crazy week? No time to read our long form cover story about the arts program at Pelican Bay State Prison? No problem, we got you covered. Here are five things we learned from our visit. And you can always check out the full cover story right here. 1. Several Humboldt residents and programs bring classes […]
Posted inNews
Mills Mulls Prison Reform With Gov. Brown, Other Chiefs
Eureka Police Department Chief Andy Mills and police chiefs from around the state met with Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday, March 17 at the 2016 California Police Chiefs Association Symposium to discuss Brown’s November ballot initiative, which would ostensibly streamline the early release of nonviolent offenders from prison. The proposal — allowing corrections officials to […]
Posted inNews
The Early Bird: LeValley home from prison ‘sabbatical’
About nine and a half months after surrendering to federal prison, embattled local biologist Ron LeValley recently announced his return home with a grinning selfie taken somewhere on the North Coast and a plea for help paying down the debts incurred from his “sabbatical.” Since LeValley’s incarceration for conspiring to embezzle almost $1 million from […]
Posted inNews
The Revolving Door
If you just got out of prison, chances are you’re going back — and soon — according to a recent study by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. The study — which analyzed recidivism rates of prisoners released in 30 states between 2005 and 2010 — found that about two-thirds of people released from state prisons are […]
Posted inNews
A Capital Question
As the race to become Humboldt County’s next district attorney hits full stride, a trial quietly looms in the background — the first local death penalty case in decades — with the potential to bring the issue of capital punishment front and center in the campaign. With little attention or fanfare, Humboldt County District Attorney […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Pot POWs
When a mega-grow gets busted in Humboldt County, it makes a splash in local media — photos of lush greenhouses, irrigation pipes and bricks of processed weed, plus names and numbers (money, pounds, plants) that read like sports stats. What we don’t see are the repercussions of those busts, what becomes of the growers after […]