The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: vandalism

  • UPD BYTES

    UPD BYTES

    Monday, Feb 19, 2024

    1:06 p.m. Welfare Check – First Floor Library Computer Lab

    White male in his 40s with scruffy hair and tan baseball cap, red in the face and rocking back and forth, non-responsive to staff approaching him. He left on arrival of the officers. 

    8:04 p.m. – Investigation at JGC

    Subject believes someone placed an Apple Airtag on her vehicle and is requesting contact. 

    11:42 p.m. – Patrol Check Kinesiology Building

    4 skateboarders at the student recreation center advised of school policy on grinding and tricks. Subjects moved along. 

    Tuesday, Feb 20, 2024

    08:36 a.m. – Vandalism – Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center

    Rowing coach advised via email someone has been untying and tampering with the boats at night. 

    3:52 p.m. – Drug Activity- Alder Hall

    Officers requested to pick up a bong. No marijuana present or resident on scene. 

    11:01 p.m. – Investigation at Mendocino Residence Halls 

    Subject called to report a possible missing person. 

    Wednesday, Feb 21, 2024

    1:03 p.m. – Suspicious Circumstances – Kinesiology and Athletics Building 

    Subject’s car was tagged with #13 on the side mirror with a sharpie. She was able to remove it, but is concerned it may be a marking for someone targeting vehicles or people. She was parked off-campus on 16th and Spring St., but requested documentation in case there are other victims.

    5:42 p.m. – Alder Hall – Grand Theft 

    Subject reported their bike was taken from the bike rack between Alder and Chinquapin.

    7:41 p.m. – Vandalism – 2nd Floor Library

    Custodial staff reported vandalism in the women’s handicap stall.

    Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024

    10:16 p.m. – Drug Activity – Chinquapin Residence Halls

    RA requested the officer for drug paraphernalia.

    Friday, February 23, 2024

    11:09 a.m. – Vandalism – Kinesiology and Athletics Building

    Eternal Heart graffiti found on the stairwell in the Kinesiology building.

    2:53 p.m. – Suspicious Circumstances – 14th Street and Union

    Subject reported male is on top of a moving vehicle. APD was contacted as vehicle was located off-campus.

    5:15 p.m. – Misc. Parking Problem – Sunset Residence Hall 

    The Residence Life Coordinator requested the officer to respond to the garden area for a motorcycle and small jug of gasoline locked to the bike rack. Handled by housing.

    Monday, Feb 26, 2024

    2:45 p.m. – Fire Alarm – Mendocino Residence Hall

    Fire Alarm [went off] as a result of burnt food. False Alarm.

    5:03 p.m. – Welfare Check – Trinity Residence Hall 

    Mother of a student received a call at [3 p.m.] stating her daughter had been kidnapped and they were threatening to kill her if the mother didn’t send money. The daughter was contacted and the call appears to be fraudulent. Subject contacted her mother. 

    8:19 p.m. – Welfare Check – Plaza Circle 

    Subject called to report a 30-year-old white male in a bright blue sweatshirt acting erratically. 

  • El Jardin Santuario faces a series of hateful attacks

    El Jardin Santuario faces a series of hateful attacks

    by Carlos Pedraza

    Editor’s note: In print El Jardin Santuario was only referred to as “Centro del Pueblo’s community garden,” and “Arcata community garden.”  This article and headline have been edited to address the garden by its name.

     A community safety meeting was held on Saturday Aug. 27, where organizers from Centro del Pueblo and Cooperation Humboldt discussed the recent attacks. The first one was hate speech written on the garden stop sign, the second a week later when anti-Semitic flyers were left in the garden. The most recent attack was when someone cut down corn stalks growing in the garden, grown from seeds brought from Mexico by Adan Cervantes, an immigrant and the head gardener.   

    The organizers have spoken to Arcata police, who told them of a person of interest with connection to neo-Nazi groups in the area. According to Centro del Pueblo organizers, the police have also promised to send an extra patrol to check the garden during the night. 

    The police offered a donation of surveillance cameras for the garden but were refused. 

    “We wanted to have control over the surveillance, not the police to have control over the surveillance,” said Jasmine Segura, the Volunteer Coordinator of Centro del Pueblo. “Also, we don’t want surveillance during the day.” 

    Segura believes the police do have good intentions but she describes working with them as a double edged sword, since the garden is considered a safe space and is used by the unhoused. 

    The majority of the meeting was discussing fundraising $5,000 to fund the cost of setting up cameras. Humboldt students and locals came together to pitch ideas: from a silent auction, to food trucks, and legal concerns like food permits. There was a general sense of cooperation with students and locals all volunteering to look into food permits and to speak to artists and businesses asking for donations. 

    Photo by Carlos Pedraza | Cal Poly Humboldt student Hannah Deshais speaks on up coming community events.

    Humboldt resident and member of the Peace and Freedom party Hannah Deshais decided to volunteer after hearing about the attacks.

    ”I feel hopeful this has started something beautiful from something hateful,” Deshais said.

    Deshais stated she would continue to support the garden through volunteering and pushing her party to be more involved.

    After the meeting, a few people, including children, stayed behind to do work in the plots, digging out weeds and attending to the vegetation. 

    “This attack, it’s like a reminder to us that our work here is not done,” said Xochitl Cabra Sanchez, the Community Outreach Coordinator with Centro del Pueblo.

    El Jardin Santuario will be holding a fundraiser on Sep. 24 and a free jiu-jitsu self-defense class on Sep. 11, with people of color being offered the class first.

  • Give Me More Than Vague Emails on Campus Crime

    Give Me More Than Vague Emails on Campus Crime

    HSU notifications lack conviction or specific plans of action

    If you’ve checked your email at all within the past couple of months, you’ve most likely read one of the several notices Humboldt State University sent to the campus in regards to incidents of vandalism, racist messages or off-campus crimes.

    Just this semester, HSU notified students via email of numerous instances including racist graffiti on Dec. 7, racist vandalism in a residence hall restroom on Nov. 13, anti-Semitic flyers put up around the campus on Oct. 25 as well as on Sept. 17 with an email notification of a stabbing that happened off campus.

    • An HSU notification sent out Dec. 7 regarding racist graffiti found on campus.

    The emails for the first three incidents listed came a day or less after the occurrence and after the police department had found and cleaned up the perpetrators’ messes. However, the notice about the off-campus crime was sent out a month after the crime itself, which was the stabbing of a student on Aug. 26. HSU seemingly weighed in to clarify because, “recent media accounts and headlines about the incident were filled with many different narratives.”

    Each message HSU sends follows a general formula.

    One paragraph is what the University allots for all of these incidents of crime on or near campus. They follow it up with multiple paragraphs about how the University has no place for racism or violence, and provide the usual list of resources students can take advantage of if they need support.

    But aside from erasing the evidence of the crimes and repeating where students can go ad nauseam, they have never taken any direct action to combat the trend that is clearly going on.

    The messages claim that the University Police Department is investigating these issues, but they have not given any further information as to what they actually plan to do to prevent any further instances of hate speech or vandalism in the future.

    Students have a right to get their education at a school that strives for active protection, not just passive written defense.

    Benjamin Zawilski

    El Leñador reported that “the NAACP penned a letter in April of 2018 condemning HSU’s administration for failing to take an active role in addressing racism and safety concerns in the City of Arcata and Humboldt County, thus endangering the lives to whom it extends acceptance letters.”

    HSU students ought to be able to trust the administration of their school to communicate with them in these situations. But the administration’s lack of vigilance and initiative extends even to direct threats to the safety of students. Last April, they took almost a full 24 hours to send a message that a student had committed assault on campus.

    The administration will not show any sign of actually protecting the safety of the students like they claim to until they take real steps to improve their transparency.

    Students have a right to get their education at a school that strives for active protection, not just passive written defense. The first step might be for administration to disclose crimes that have happened before they have absolutely no choice but to do so.

  • MCC vandalized twice

    MCC vandalized twice

    By | Iridian Casarez

    As Joselin Dorado was walking up to the MulitiCultural Center (MCC) on Sunday afternoon, she started to notice that the “Justice for Josiah” posters as well as “Our Culture is Not a Costume” campaign posters had been torn and left in front of the MCC.

    “This makes me upset,” Dorado said. “We try our best to include everyone at the MCC and this vandalism makes it seem like we’re failing.”

    Dorado also found a note that read “It’s okay to be white.”

    Dorado said she was heading to the MCC to work on a Día de los Muertos altar with a couple of her coworkers when she found the ripped up posters. She sent a photo to her coworkers in a group chat to tell them what happened. Dorado picked up the ripped posters and told her coordinator about the incident.

    “This incident was racist,” Dorado said. “They targeted posters with people of color and culture.”

    They contacted UPD and filed a police report. Dorado said that UPD dismissed the incident and said it was because of the Halloween weekend.

    “UPD kind of dismissed it and made it seem like we weren’t going to be able to catch the person,” Dorado said. “They didn’t even offer more patrol.”

    Ana Maria Diaz also works at the MultiCultural Center as the Campus and Community Dialogue on Race Coordinator. When Diaz heard about the incident, she said she was upset.

    “We thought it was a prank until it happened again,” Diaz said.

    The Wednesday after the vandalism occurred, more posters were found torn in front of the MCC. UPD was contacted again, and Dorado said that a different UPD officer was more upset that the incident occurred than the first UPD officer.

    “It’s frustrating, someone targeted a safe house,” Diaz said. “Once is enough.”

    Luz Espinoza, the intercultural intersectional specialist at the MCC said she found the vandalism as a personal attack against the MultiCultural Center and Josiah Lawson’s passing.

    “We have heard complaints about white people not feeling welcomed at the MCC, but that’s not true,” Espinoza said.

    Diaz and Espinoza, with the help of their coworkers Deema Hindawi and Teadja Owings, decided to take matters into their own hands. They decided to stake out the Multicultural Center on Halloween night.

    “We tried our best to make it look like we left,” Espinoza said. “We spent the night hoping to find and confront the person who vandalized the MCC.”

    On the night of their stakeout, the MCC stakeout team didn’t hear or see anything suspicious. They were unable to confront and catch the person who vandalized the MultiCultural Center.

    “If someone has a problem with the MCC, come talk to us,” Diaz said. “We’re open to dialogue.”