A body found buried near Jewitt Ranch Road in late November has been identified as Garret Rodriguez, a San Diego man who was reported missing in April. Rodriguez told his father he was coming to Humboldt County to work on a marijuana farm in the SoHum area known as “Murder Mountain.” The identification confirms rumors that […]
sheriff’s office
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Land of Oz
It’s marijuana harvesting season in Humboldt County, which means, among other things, that would-be trimmers are loitering in Garberville, sticky bills are flowing into local cash registers and law enforcement is making ginormous drug busts every day or two. A couple weeks ago, for example, local sheriff’s deputies and the DEA-funded Cannabis Eradication and Reclamation […]
Posted inNews
How Much Did EPD’s Free Truck Cost?
Humboldt County’s beefiest new truck was given to the Eureka Police Department gratis by the Defense Department last week. The catch? EPD had to pay to haul the 25-ton truck down here from Fort Lewis in Washington. How much does that cost, you might wonder? $5,500, total said EPD Chief Murl Harpham. The department paid […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Green-eyed Cops
We get a lot of press releases here at the Journal, a steady drip of emails announcing everything from ribbon-cuttings to dance recitals to (let’s see what’s at top of my inbox here) a Holiday Gift Guide pitch for German-made electric irons. (Eat your heart out, Clark Kent.) Our favorites by far are law enforcement […]
Posted inNews
$21 Million Worth of Pot Busted in the Last Three Days
A series of massive busts on timber and public lands in SoHum brought down more than 20,000 marijuana plants and 600 pounds of pot — a value of $21 million, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies found a house being used for drying an processing by following a trail of marijuana leaves from one of […]
Posted inNews
2,000 Plants Nabbed in SoHum Bust
Another week, another stream-threatening, tree-razing, trash-burning grow busted. This one, a couple miles east of South Fork High School, yielded more than 2,000 plants and no arrests. The Sheriff’s Office — joined by Cal Fire, Fish and Wildlife and the Drug Task Force — found unpermitted structures, filled in water courses, grading, illegal burn piles […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The View from the Chopper
Congressman Jared Huffman came to town this week, along with veteran news anchor Dan Rather and his crew, to get briefed on the unholy clusterfuck that is our rogue marijuana industry. It’s an industry subsidized and metastasized thanks to the artificial price constraints resulting from the War on Drugs. On Tuesday morning, Sheriff Mike Downey […]
Posted inNews
Stream-sucking Grows Busted
Two busts east of Garberville yesterday turned up just the kind of ecological havoc that’s been infuriating environmentalists and getting the attention of our Congressman. Along with the usual guns, greenhouses and greenbacks ($198,000 at one property) Fish and Wildlife say they found pumps draining Mattole Canyon Creek, sucking up salmon and steelhead smolt, and […]