Boy Scouts’ clubhouse vandalized
Crime stats vary in different areas of county
On Sunday, Dan Gale got a call about a break-in at the Scout Hut in Arcata’s Redwood Park, the headquarters of Boy Scout Troop 15. Once inside, Gale discovered the scouts’ flat screen TV had been stolen, the specialty popcorn for their fundraiser had been eaten and the walls had been covered in graffiti.
“It’s sad to see something like this happen,” Gale said, particularly in the midst of everyone trying to figure out how to adapt to the new shelter-in-place order intended to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Because of that order, Gale said he worried a similar fate could befall the businesses and homes that are vacant as the Scout Hut had been for the past two or three weeks.
However, local law enforcement is reporting a decrease in crime overall since the shelter-inplace order went into effect. Arcata Police Chief Brian Ahearn said his department’s call volume is down 33%, alarm calls are down 50% and theft reports are down 60% since the shelter-inorder
place went into effect compared with the same time period, March 19 to April 6, last year.
“The one area where we have seen an increase in calls for service are in disagreements over restraining order and child custody conditions,” Ahearn wrote in an email.
In Eureka, burglary reports are up compared with last month
and last year, going from 13 residential and commercial burglary reports in February to 24 in March, Eureka Police Department spokesperson Brittany Powell wrote in an email. There were 14 burglaries in March 2019.
“In 2019, we had seen a large reduction in burglaries,” Powell wrote. “March 2020 spiked backed up to number trends we
were seeing in 2017 and 2018.”
There were 27 burglary reports in March 2017 and 22 in March 2018, Powell wrote.
In terms of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office’s jurisdiction, which encompasses the unincorporated portions of the county, burglary reports decreased from 68 in February