The Fortuna Police Department is investigating an apparent murder-suicide that left two men dead in a residence on the 2300 block of Newburg Road yesterday afternoon. Police were called to the scene after a “suspected homicide,” with an adult male suspect reportedly armed and barricaded inside the residence, according to a press release. Officers responded […]
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National 988 Mental Health Crisis Line Up and Running
The national 988 hotline launched over the weekend, giving those experiencing or witnessing a mental health crisis just three numbers to dial to be connected with intervention services without being routed through a police dispatcher. The new number, which takes the place of the suicide prevention hotline, is part of a national effort to overhaul […]
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Mental Health ‘Tsunami’ Looms: Can California Prevent a Surge in Suicides?
Celinda Gonzales has a long list of worries: She worries about COVID-19, which recently spiked near the Yurok reservation where she lives in Humboldt County. She worries about the wildfires threatening her remote, forested town, Weitchpec. She worries about gill rot and algae blooms in the Klamath and Trinity rivers, which join together just over […]
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Triggers and Lifelines
The news is depressing. Not all of it but enough. Scrolling through Twitter, Facebook and news websites can be overwhelming, one awful headline after another. Hell, our staff can get worn down writing those stories. Gallows humor is common enough in newsrooms — sometimes the ping of a text message prompts a sigh and a […]
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Humboldt County Man Commits Suicide in Federal Prison
Mikal Xylon Wilde, the Humboldt County man serving a life sentence for murdering a migrant worker at his Kneeland marijuana farm, committed suicide in federal prison on Sept. 22, according to the Associated Press. He was 35. Wilde was convicted on a total of six charges in 2015, including murder in the commission of a […]
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Fortuna Police Investigating Apparent Murder-Suicide
UPDATE: The Fortuna Police Department has identified the deceased as 50-year-old Steve Sisson and 81-year-old Jerry Sisson. No motive has yet been identified in the case. PREVIOUSLY: The Fortuna Police Department is investigating what it believes to be a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of a father and his son. Police were called to a […]
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Local Veteran Rolls Through Humboldt to Raise Awareness for Suicide Prevention
Two veterans are riding 2,200 miles on specialized four-wheel drive mobility chairs, from the Canadian border to Mexico, then back to Fresno, to bring attention to the 22 veterans said t0 commit suicide in the United States every day. (The most recent analysis from the Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs actually puts the number at 20.) […]
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Jail Adds Suicide Netting to Budget
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will discuss tomorrow whether to add a provision for suicide netting to the Humboldt County jail’s budget. The item comes after a rash of suicide attempts — 12 in 2015 — in the facility, one of which proved fatal. Two of the 12 attempts involved inmates jumping from the […]
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Yurok Tribe Declares Emergency After Rash of Suicides
The Yurok Tribe has declared a state of emergency after seven young tribal members took their own lives over an 18-month span. The tribe is working with tribal, state and federal agencies and developing a “broad, collaborative plan to identify the root causes of this epidemic,” according to a press release. All of the suicides […]
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Humboldt Hits Grim Mark: Suicides at Five Year Peak
The recent death of a 30-year-old man from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head brings the county to 40 suicides in 2015, its highest mark in five years, surpassing its 2012 total of 37, according to numbers from the Humboldt County Coroner’s Office. It also places Humboldt County at nearly three times the California […]
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UPDATE: New National Report on Suicide Rates in Jails
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a report on mortality in jails and state prisons. Its findings offer some perspective on the recent spike in suicide attempts at the Humboldt County jail, which saw 12 attempts in the last year, three times the amount of the previous two years.The statistics in the report do […]
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Shooting Suspect Identified as Local Healthcare Worker
The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office has identified the man who allegedly shot a woman in Fortuna Wednesday morning before turning the gun on himself as Russell Alan Kellim, 47, of Eureka. The 39-year-old woman, whose identity hasn’t been released, was flown to an out-of-area hospital, where she remains in critical condition. Fortuna police believe the […]