The Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office has released body-worn camera footage that shows police officers fatally shooting Robert Anderson on Aug. 25 after he lunged at an officer with a kitchen knife and sprinted toward a woman at the scene. Police who responded to the 911 call on Parkway Drive and Sherwood Lane at about […]
use of force
Posted inNews
Video: California’s Police Use-of-Force Law Explained
In the culmination of one of the fiercest political battles in recent years, California in 2020 put in place a new legal standard tightening the rules around when police can use deadly force. The new standard was a compromise between police and civil rights groups. It legally permits police to use deadly force only when “necessary […]
Posted inNews
Masterpiece
It was an atypical meeting, with the police chief sitting across from the defendant in the chief’s office. The captain in charge of patrol sat nearby as the two, in kind, measured tones, discussed the matter at hand. Six days earlier, the chief’s officers had arrested the 57-year-old defendant — Christopher “Blaze” Boyle — shortly […]
Posted inNews
Under the Color of Authority
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 […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Roll the Tapes. All of Them.
It really shouldn’t be this hard. This week’s cover story examining the prosecution of Adam Laird is the culmination of years of work. But that’s not to say the story took particularly long to write or even to research. No, instead, the more than two years of work invested in this story were spent fighting […]
Posted inNews
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 […]
Posted inNews
Judge Allows Hearing, Intoxication Evidence in EPD Shooting Trial
Reversing course from his tentative ruling in the case, a federal judge has decided he will allow jurors to hear evidence that 22-year-old Thomas McClain had a hearing impairment and had been drinking when he was shot dead by a Eureka police officer in 2014. A trio of Eureka police officers had McClain at gunpoint […]
Posted inNews
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 […]