Attempted murder charge was recently dismissed by DA for lack of evidence

A local man who recently had an attempted murder charge dismissed against him was arrested this week after allegedly pulling a box cutter on Walmart employees.

Joseph A. Fletcher, 48, was confronted by Walmart staff Tuesday who suspected he was stealing merchandise,  said sheriff’s Commander Tim Athey. Fletcher pulled out a box cutter and threatened to cut them if they didn’t “back off,” Athey said.

Fletcher fled the store heading east into nearby brush as responding deputies yelled for him to stop, but he kept running, Athey said.

They caught up to him in a swampy area and arrested him on suspicion of assault, robbery, criminal threats, exhibiting a deadly weapon and resisting law enforcement.

Deputies also located a backpack filled with gloves, memory cards, women’s jeans, and other items Fletcher is suspected of stealing from the store, Athey said.

An attempted murder charge was dismissed against Fletcher in December after the District Attorney’s Office decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him, court documents state.

The charge stemmed from a disagreement about motorcycle repairs Fletcher was expected to perform for Tye Barker in August, according to court documents.

Here are excerpts from the Crescent City Police Department call logs for Jan. 23–Jan. 31. 

Wednesday, Jan. 23

• At 7:45 a.m. a report of a disturbance on the 1200 block of 9th Street.

Thursday, Jan. 24

• At 9:55 p.m. a report of a burglary on the 100 block of King Street.

Friday, Jan. 25

• At 12:55 p.m. a report of a theft on the 400 block of U.S. Highway 101.

• At 11:10 p.m. a report of a burglary on the 200 block of I Street.

Saturday, Jan. 26

• At 8:25 p.m. a person arrested for public intoxication on the 1000 block of Front Street.

Sunday, Jan. 27

• At 7:00 p.m. a person arrested for public intoxiction on the 1100 block of 3rd Street.

• At 7:14 p.m. a report of a burglary on the 400 block of C Street.

St. George Reef Lighthouse will dedicate a night to each Newton, Conn., massacre victim. Del Norte Triplicate / Bryant Anderson

The Lighthouse Preservation Society will dedicate one night during February to each of the 26 victims of the recent school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

The lighthouse is six miles off the Del Norte coastline. It was re-lit last March with an automated device that shines from dusk to dawn.

“In addition to preserving the lighthouse and its history, we feel that the light is also important as a symbol, offering hope in the darkness,” said society president Guy Towers.

The society website, stgeorgereeflighthouse.us, will  feature the name of the victim being memorialized each night.

— Richard Wiens

Smith River video

A short video providing an overview of the Smith River National Recreation Area can now be viewed online.

The film represents many of the recreational interests of the NRA including fishing and whitewater boating, but some of the most striking footage includes  aerial shots of the mountainous headwaters of the Smith River watershed and close-up, underwater shots of salmon and steelhead in the Smith.

 Recent salmon habitat restoration work in the watershed, including the construction of large log jams with heavy equipment is also featured in the film.

The video was produced by Thomas Dunklin for the U.S. Forest Service, in collaboration with the Smith River Alliance. It was funded by the Del Norte Resource Advisory Council.It can be viewed in the Gasquet Ranger Station visitor center and at vimeo.com/57657021 .

— Adam Spencer

Audience members listen to Dr. Greg Duncan during a public forum Tuesday night. Del Norte Triplicate / Adam Spencer

City attorney raises ‘condemnation’ as a possible option

During a Tuesday night meeting focused on retaining local control of Sutter Coast Hospital in Crescent City, a potentially dramatic legal maneuver was proposed by the city attorney and passions flared over the local hospital board’s commitment to “regionalization.”

There were 115 people at the presentation given by Dr. Gregory Duncan, chief of medical staff for Sutter Coast Hospital and a  vocal opponent of the hospital board’s move to regionalize, which would replace the local board with a Bay Area-based board of directors.

Duncan’s presentation, hosted by the Del Norte Tea Party Patriots, was billed to include “impacts of Obamacare,” but Duncan stuck to the potential threats and impacts of Sutter Coast being regionalized while recapping perceived transgressions of Sutter Health since the local board initially voted to dissolve itself in November 2011.

Duncan referenced a dispute over the profitability of Sutter Coast. Although Sutter Health executives have said that Crescent City’s hospital could go broke without regionalizing, the hospital was profitable as recently as 2010 with $1 million in profits.

Duncan, who as chief of medical staff also holds a seat on Sutter Coast’s board, said determining profitability has been tricky when everything beyond two weeks worth of operating expenses is transferred to Sutter Health’s treasury via “intercompany transfers.”

“I can’t sort it out, and I’ll tell you why I can’t.  Because they won’t let me see the books, even though it’s the unrestricted right  of any board member to inspect any document,” Duncan said.

Injunction sought to halt tribal vote on casino plan

A group of Yurok tribal members is seeking to block a special election that proposes allocating part of a $27.5 million legal settlement to the construction of a new casino in Klamath.

Tribal activist James Dunlap says Yurok officials violated the tribe’s election ordinance because they did not publish an official election notice 45 days prior to the special election. Officials also failed to post an election notice at established polling places, send public service announcements to local media outlets and mail sample ballots to tribal members, he said.

On Wednesday, Dunlap said he was in the process of filing a petition for injunctive relief with Yurok Tribal Court that seeks to declare the Tribal Council’s special election invalid. 

Tribal officials will withhold comment until the petition is officially filed, spokesman Matt Mais said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Dunlap is sponsoring a petition drive that proposes the disbursal of the entire settlement amount to tribal members, minus $500,000 for attorney fees. He and roughly 30 other tribal members said they gathered 648 signatures and delivered them in a sealed,
notarized envelope to the tribe’s election department on Monday. 

The petition needed 593 signatures to put the proposal on a ballot. The Election Board will meet on Friday to discuss the petition, according to Dunlap.

One of the national founders of the Tea Party Patriots organization visited Del Norte this week and was interviewed by Triplicate Editor Richard Wiens.

Jenny Beth Martin of Georgia chose Crescent City as the starting point for a statewide tour of California. Before heading south, she spoke about what she sees as the appeal of political conservatism in Del Norte, an area highly dependent on government jobs and social services that nevertheless consistently leans Republican at election time.

A local man was arrested after allegedly vandalizing an apartment at the Penny Saver Inn on Monday.

Officers responded to a call around 4:05 p.m. regarding a man brandishing a knife and yelling obscenities at the motel manager after breaking several items inside the apartment, said Crescent City Police Chief Doug Plack.

Officers entered the apartment where they encountered 26-year-old Troy Snook in a rear bedroom, Plack said. They began pointing their Tasers at him and gave him several verbal commands, Plack said.

They eventually handcuffed him, and as they were escorting him out he attempted to pull away and lunged forward into the hallway, where he began to strike his head against the walls, Plack said.

Officers picked Snook up and carried him to a patrol car as he continued resisting, Plack said.

Snook began banging his head against the divider glass of the car and the metal bars on a passenger window while being transported to the jail, prompting officers to place him in leg restraint, Plack said.

A female Crescent Elk Middle School student was arrested on suspicion of calling in a bomb threat to the school Tuesday.

The call proved to be a false alarm after authorities scoured school grounds.

The call was placed around 10 a.m., claiming a bomb was inside the school at 994 G St.

The school was placed on lockdown after Crescent City police officers determined the suspected identity of the caller didn’t warrant evacuation, according to a CCPD statement. Nearby Joe Hamilton Elementary School was also placed on lockdown.

Store manager Tom Boylan works in the produce section of the just-opened Wild Rivers Market on Monday afternoon. Del Norte Triplicate / Bryant Anderson

“There’s a term in the construction business if you remodel an old business,” he said. “It’s called putting lipstick on a pig. But we think we did better than that.”

Littlefield and his employees tore the interior of Crescent Lumber down to the studs, turning a spot with four units into one massive space. He then moved the merchandise from his old health foods store, Harvest Natural Foods, into the new space, adding new merchandise and departments. The result, Wild Rivers Market, opened at 450 M St. on Jan. 16. It will celebrate its grand opening and ribbon cutting with free samples, a bicycle raffle and other raffle prizes on Friday.

Littlefield, who also owns Eureka Natural Foods, took over Crescent City Health Foods in 1986 and changed its name to Crescent Health Foods. Located in the Y Shopping Center, it had been in danger of being closed, Littlefield said, before he took over the lease.

In 1992, Littlefield bought the building that had housed G & G Liquors at 265 L St. and reopened Crescent Health Foods as Harvest Natural Foods. Downtown Crescent City was bustling back then, he said. Littlefield’s employees remodeled the building, cleaned the apartments on the second floor and installed vinyl windows.

Littlefield said he got the itch to move and expand Harvest Natural Foods about five to six years ago when he sold the building.

“We had been looking for five years to try and find our permanent home,” he said. “We finally found it here in July.”

Monday morning training creates a loud distraction

With Del Norte’s relatively quiet skies, the deafening roar of a few fighter jets occupying our airspace can cause quite a distraction.

Late Monday morning, 11 fighters from the Oregon Air National Guard, mostly McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles, rehearsed aerial maneuvers along the coast of Northern California and Oregon, including over Del Norte County. 

The spectacle of loud fighters, sounding like  thunderous rocket engines preparing for liftoff,  prompted several curiosity calls to 911 emergency dispatch and the Triplicate. 

The training involved eight F-15 Eagles from the 173rd Fighter Wing unit of the Oregon Air National Guard, based in Klamath Falls, and three additional fighter jets from the 142nd Fighter Wing based in Portland, according to 173rd officials.

As a premier training ground for fighter jet combat, the 173rd’s  mission states: “Train the Best Air-to-Air Combat Pilots...”

And combat train they did.

Monday’s training was the first time that some pilots involved flew an F-15, transitioning from training in a Northrop T-38 Talon, according to the 173rd public affairs officer, Tech. Sgt. Jefferson Thompson.

Less experienced pilots (accompanied by instructor pilots) were asked to perform offensive and defensive maneuvers head-to-head against much more senior pilots as a way to practice dogfighting.