Santa Cruz Judge Delays Trial of Woman Accused of Murder
This Wednesday, a Santa Cruz judge suspended all future court dates and ordered a mental competency evaluation for a 24 year old woman who basically ran over and murdered a 23 year old woman with her SUV while she was walking in her neighborhood on Modesto Avenue in July 2018. She was scheduled to have her trial date set but the judge instead punted that decision. The woman faces a number of felony charges that include murder for killing the woman on Modesto, and attempted murder charges in a separate case that involved trying to run over a bicyclist. I covered the original story here. More than a year later and Santa Cruz judges are still dicking around on this, and a family lacks closure or punishment for the suspected murderer.
Sexual Predator Arrested in Santa Cruz
This past week, Santa Cruz Sheriff’s deputies arrested a 59 year old man from Soquel on more than a dozen counts of sexual assault and lewd acts with a child. According to their investigation, the crimes occurred over at least a 10 year period at different social occasions involving family and friends. At least 3 victims have come forward to report abuse, and the suspect is being held in Santa Cruz County Main Jail on $1,000,000 bail. Jail has a way of dealing with child rapists in ways that our local courts just aren’t capable of dispensing. His karmic payback is coming. Ask James Kohut. Oh wait. You can’t. He’s dead.
Junkie With a Gun at Denny’s Evades SCPD
I’m sorry but that headline was just too good to pass up. Saturday night around 7:30PM, I heard reports about a man shooting up in the bathroom of the Denny’s on Ocean Street. I know, so what right? Happens daily. Except this one reportedly may have had a gun. After he was kicked out, but before SCPD arrived apparently, he left the restaurant and fled towards Felker Street. Maybe he was trying to get to the homeless storage place before they closed. Do they store guns? I’m sure all the tourists in Denny’s at the time (because nobody local would dare eat there) have a great story to take home with them.
Bumming Around on Cowell’s Beach
Last Friday morning around 1:30AM, SCPD responded to the Cowell’s beach area where they arrested a 34 year old male for domestic violence, resisting arrest, and battery on a peace officer. The suspect also reportedly spit on the arresting officer. I think he’s new in town. He’s got three mugshots in the past week and nothing earlier. Like flies on mierda. Welcome to Santa Cruz dude. Now GTFO.
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Sunday around midnight, SCPD responded to the 400 block of Washington Street where they arrested a 49 year old woman for being drunk in public, resisting arrest, and a probation violation (of course!). She’s got 3 mugshots in the last 2 days. I’m just going to start calling this out as “turnstiling”.
Turnstiler of the Week
Last Friday around 6PM, SCPD responded to the area near Mission Street and Shaffer Road where they arrested a 39 year old man on a variety of charges including assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats, drug possession, and violating the terms of his bail bond agreement. He’s been arrested six times in the past year. Turnstiling.
Flinging Hens
Monday morning around 2AM, Santa Cruz Sheriff’s deputies responded to Henflings Tavern out on the 9400 block of Highway 9 where they arrested a woman for being under the influence of drugs and resisting arrest. She’s been arrested 6 times in the last year. Turnstiling. And based on the looks of her 6 mugshots, I’m guessing the “under the influence” part involved meth. It’s basically ruined her life. And the county response is the equivalent of a turnstile.
Flash in the Can
Last Saturday around 6PM, reports came in about some guy who was flashing a gun near the basketball courts at the end of Chestnut Street in Santa Cruz. Apparently he was even posing for selfies with it and flashing gang signs. SCPD got wind of it and staged around the area and on the other side of Neary Lagoon on California. Witnesses reported hearing police ordering them out of their vehicle at gunpoint. At least one juvenile was arrested on a number of charges, including a probation violation, giving a false ID to a peace officer and bringing a controlled substance into jail.
Man Dies After Riding His Bike Off Cliff
Friday night around 7:30PM, SCPD responded to the area of West Cliff Drive and David Way for reports that a bicyclist had gone over the cliff and into the ocean. Police and emergency crews responded and found an injured man below the cliff’s edge. Fire crews administered medical aid but the cyclist died at the scene. Police are investigating the incident as a fatal solo-bicyclist collision, and foul play is not suspected at this time.
Did Cartman Get an Anal Probe?
Early Saturday morning, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies responded to Seascape Resort in Aptos for a report of a man stealing a golf cart. The suspected thief crashed the cart and then stole a bicycle from a nearby home and fled. He was found a few blocks away and staff identified the 19 year old man from Aptos as the thief. He was arrested for grand theft and booked into county jail.
Justin Cummings Wants to Decriminalize “Magic Mushrooms”
I was watching the Thursday night news on KSBW and up pops a news story about how Santa Cruz city council member Justin Cummings wants to talk “magic mushrooms” at the next city council meeting. Seriously. You can’t make this kind of stupid up. Like we have nothing else to talk about, no more pressing problems. Public safety, housing, homelessness, business development, city department budgets, pending litigation, and this dope wants to talk mushrooms. We voted for this! So at the next city council meeting, Cummings wants to basically decriminalize possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms and make enforcing laws against them the lowest priority for SCPD. Because let face it, what we really need is more self medicated people wandering around in traffic hallucinating. Is there room for one more on the recall ballot?
Move It or Lose It
Vehicles with registrations that have been expired for months will now be towed in the city of Santa Cruz. The police department said it can now tow vehicles that have had expired registration for more than 6 months or have more than 5 unpaid parking tickets. Police said three vehicles were towed Wednesday night and 13 were asked to move in the area around Natural Bridges and Delaware. So why now? I think they’ve always been able to do this. They’ve just chosen not too. I think I heard the Chief say something about an inability to tow oversize vehicles (I’m calling BS on that excuse) and an inability to store them (likely the real reason). I think the issue was (and has been) no local tow company was willing to do the tow, not because they couldn’t but because they wouldn’t likely get paid, and they’d have to store some shitpile RV with expired registration, lots of unpaid tickets, and not worth the cost of the tow, let alone the storage fees. Until now! I guess SCPD is storing them somewhere, and likely has a contract with one of the local tow operators to tow them to an offsite location while still getting paid.
Thefts Rise on UCSC Campus
UCSC Police announced last week a rise in the number of thefts on campus last month, including three reports of burglaries, seven reports of grand theft and 10 reports of petty theft. Many of the thefts happened in residence halls or parking lots. Let’s see. What large public greenbelt lies adjacent to the UCSC campus? The Pogonip. What large public greenbelt is full of homeless “campers”? The Pogonip. Make your own correlations here.
A Fairly Benign Halloween Downtown
During last Thursday’s annual Halloween celebration along Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, police reported receiving more than 200 calls for service between 5PM on Thursday night and 8AM on Friday morning. Crowd estimates ranged from 8,000 to 10,000 people, while about 100 members of law enforcement patrolled the area. There were no significant acts of violence. Police arrested 23 people: 19 for public intoxication, two for DUI, one for battery and one for felony possession of a billy club. The number of arrests and citations during the event was up from last year. Officers also issued 59 citations, with 44 for “Triple Fine” violations, and most of those were for open alcohol containers.
Not in Their Back Yard
Tuesday morning around 5:30AM, SCPD arrested a man trying to steal a bike from their back yard. The 41 year old man was arrested after being caught trying to steal a bike from the locked and secure parking lot of the SCPD main station on Center Street. He was charged with grand theft, drug possession, and being drunk in public.
Get Wyze
I got a message from one of SCPD’s finest this past week who highly recommends this particular security camera (and asked me to pass this info along):
“I thought I would throw this product out there for your readers. I have several around my house including one of the pans and really like them. They each come with 2 weeks of free cloud storage, yes forever free storage. Much cheaper and in my opinion much better then all of the other systems. They are not water tight but mounting them under the eves takes care of that. You can also get them at Home Depot for about $35 each. https://wyze.com/
Full disclosure: Neither one of us is getting paid for endorsing this.
I will say this. If SCPD is using this for their own personal use at home, that’s a pretty good endorsement by itself for me. Check them out if you’re thinking about getting a security camera setup for your home or business.
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18 Responses
Thanks for the real news Ben! Ya Denny’s food isn’t that great anyway, unless your drunk and or high. I feel so bad for the tourists that come here AND THE EMPLOYEES AT DENNYS they should wear bio hazard suits with body armor major scum hang there 24/7. But the tourists are NOT coming back. I hate this kindergarten court processes. Do a crime freakn do the time- you gotta be a lil wacko in the melon to kill people in any way shape of form. I hope this hand-basket has A/C :).
Ya TURNSTILE punishment- take your picture,say hi to your buddy’s locked up or passing thru as you are maybe get a bite to eat, take a nap or just go crazy and get put in the “chair” for time out-then back to Downtown SC. Like I’ve said get a scanner app you can hear some of what SCPD and med and fire are up to hotels and motels are always having problems and the crap that happens on Pacific Ave- mostly drunk SC scum bags and or regular folk who can’t hold there liquor.
The cliffs are dangerous. Waiting to hear more.
Had to call PD on a guy who I’m always finding sleeping in his car on propertys after hours. He usually speeds off before I get close to his car or he will be dead asleep then fire up his car and take off thank god for EFI if he had a carburetor he’d have to let his car warm up :). I had an incident with him so I called PD. And what the cop told me after dealing with this “ guy” is that ya the guy was seriously “off” but in a different way then the cop is used to and this creep is from up north NOT A SC LOCAL! More then a few times this guy has faced his vehicle at me in a aggressive manner. He will just go else where and be a weirdo creep scum bag- Black Jeep and G-shepherd.
WHY IS THIS A DRUG TOWN?? not just on the street but considering legalizing “Shrooms”. I don’t care what people do in there own HOMES OR Property, cause hey if you can pay your bills ,taxes,keep a job and if your married with kids and you take care of them-Freakn party on when you can. But just legalizing something like Shrooms-Like Ben or anyone else with more then half a brain cell in there head can realize WHAT PRIORITIES DO THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE AUTHORITY HERE IN SC ARE THEY CATERING TO- high school dropouts and the scum bags on the street-seems the only groups of people who’d ever think “ hey let’s do magic mushrooms cause we have our priorities backwards.
Im actually seeing some change thanks to Ben I know why I’m seeing more tow trucks around. Little diligence at a constant pace can make real progress I believe. A cop gave me some advice to start looking at SC Mug shots.com and see who I can match up to pics on my phone cause I’m trying to get the guy who has on 3 different occasions threatened my life in great detail and just the other night was going to jump me along with another SC scum bag luckily I have them on film/phone.
For such a small town police response time isn’t great. I’m sure if the regular folk, students knew that they wouldn’t get into trouble defending or preventing these scum from doing what they do I’m sure more people would take action but I know first hand it not how it happens in this place- so many human rights that could be violated and other fine print crap. It wasn’t to long ago that if you saw someone’s kid doing wrong you could grasp that kid by ear and take him to his house and let the parents take over punishing the kid. Nowadays scum hold firm and usually get a minimum punishment or nothing at all where a regular person gets caught up in a scuffle or incident with a typical scum bag and both people are treated the same. I believe that’s why in places like SC SF Seattle the majority of decent people just give up keep there heads down and jut try to live there lives and probably planning on moving elsewhere
My Gaurd care is up for renewal soon….. few weeks I’ll let y’all know if I’m going to stay apart of the Circus. I like working alone grave shift don’t bother me and until I get physically assaulted I know these scum bags addictions are so bad they rarely do things that will guarantee jail time, but they always mess up eventually and end up back in jail.
If the powers that run this town want to do something real CRAZY. HOW ABOU LOWERING RENT and punishing those who truly need to be punished. What a concept are out 2 huge major problems. I’m barley a high school grad- maybe that over-qualifies me for a seat in the council:) or whatever you call the people that run this Circus/ looney bin/drug utopia-Santa Mierda!!
Word on the street is that the Louden Nelson front lawn and sign areas will be enforced with hourly limits just like the back fenced-in portion. Yes kids, that’s part of the park as well. I hope SCPD and all those rangers they removed from the Parks Dept. can keep up on the enforcement, since they are right across the intersection. Kudos as well to the Parks Commission for realizing that barking dogs and dog poop (at least it’s canine) at the Frederick St. DOG PARK is the most pressing issue we face. Ignore the crime, vandalism, gun-waving gang members and all the other issues making our parks and ope spaces unsafe for use! I’m going to have to have a heart-felt discussion with my dog and get him back on the straight and narrow. Or is that marrow? (sorry)
From what I understand unless these Scum- shoot,stab or hit another person, steal a car set a building or person on fire- to the Turnstiles they go get a pic taken maybe get fed get a nap then it’s back to where they were 6-12 hours later. So enforcing 1 hour “ hanging out” ordnance. And from what you said there are much bigger problems in that area I guess the grass is brown everywhere in SC. Or SM 🙂
Thank you Ben. Your Santa Mierda is a gem and I look forward to reading it each week 🙂 Perhaps modify your excellent idea of labeling local law enforcement practices as “TurnStyling”, which you can copyright (lol) and also has a longer lasting brain imprint than “turnstiling”, imho. Onward, and thanks again 🙂
First off, just want to say I enjoy reading Dave’s posts. Secondly, in the one step forward, two steps back category, SCPD is finally towing nuisance vehicles. However the sidewalk along the post office is again becoming a burgeoning tent city, complete with all the resplendent odors that were there before, which can be enjoyed from great distances, depending on which way the wind blows.
Someone needs to plunge the toilet so the turds go away, ya I’m all to familiar with the stench these “ people “ create. Pd wants them gone as much as everyone else up the ladder lies the problem
I have an outside-the-box idea for the dilapidated “Bums on Wheels” RV’s that are being towed. Since our judicial system does not accept drugs or stolen bicycles as payment for towing and associated fines, the bums won’t be able to retrieve their RV’s. Why don’t we put these shitholes on wheels to good use helping the environment. Lets get some non-profit like Save Our Shores to collect the vehicles, purge them of hydrocarbons and other toxic material. Then they can pay to have the RV’s towed offshore, sinking them to create artificial reefs, thereby benefiting our local ocean ecosystem.
wow. there is a national crisis from both big pharma, AND street drugs, and the vice mayor prioritizes making magic mushrooms blablablabla. yeah, enable all these drug addicts destroying their own lives and everyone around them. im sure they will follow all the rules whrn shrooming to make sure they have a safe “trip” and access some type of spiritual journey. and if they dont, and have a bad trip, and assault some passerby, well some local judge will just declare them mentally disabled!!!
i remember reading one book about ayuhuasca (sp) otherwise known as the vine of the dead. it said some people are in tune enough, or have balanced karma enough to be able to be in touch with ancestors or spirits without the help of a plant or drug. it said for other people they can use this drug as a crutch to help them.
are we supposed to believe that the drug addicted behavior we see all over this town is a spiritual journey??? these are not enlightened ascetics. the average person on the street here hasnt given up materialistic posessions in search of some higher truth.
the drug use here isnt spiritual. the assault, burglary, murder, violence, none of it is spiritual. this isnt a hippie haven. this place is one big violation of megans law. totally disgusted by the priorities of the city council. you are encouraging people to trash themselves and santa cruz.
its an insult to anyone who actually believes in spirituality! its an insult to anyone who actually guides people on shamanic journeys! this place is one big creeper fest. the people promoting this shit show are just like creeper pastors or priests who hide behind the church. its one big domestic violence fest hiding behind some undead version of the 60s. gross.
Thank you Ben for all you do!
About the post office… couldnt we post street cleaning times 2x per week and have SCFD spray thearea.down to get rid of the feces etc? It seems like the heath and hygiene problems there are escalating again… stitch in time and all that….
Good idea, Bern. Doubt the SCFD/PD would be interested though. SCruz has so many problems re: homeless/bums/druggies, it’s hard to know where to start.
Of interest is this shroom drug “Progressive” legalization agenda for Tuesday was actually a word for word almost copy from a Berkeley resolution that was authored there by the youngest ever ultra progressive city council member (22 yr old) Rigel Robinson UCB graduate city council member of Berkeley. It was offered there on the (wait for it) CONSENT AGENDA. He is also responsible for the gender neutral language now adopted by Berkeley making “manhole cover” illegal to use in government documents (I think). His district 7 is the UC Berkeley campus. That was on their July 13 meeting (drug legalization). However, the Oakland city council passed the same ordinance almost word for word earlier in June, so I think our council is plagiarizing a young Berkeley radical plagiarist of a leftist radical Oakland city council (who knows who they plagiarized that from.. probably some Globalist foreign 3’rd world country). Various findings include obscure religious sects and testimonials of “transformative experiences”. Plaragizing without giving credit despite dozens of citations of flowering drug papers no one here ever read is real lazy if not on the face of it moral decay. Although there is an argument to be made a “supply side” only war on drugs doesn’t work, there is no “demand side” to this, and is Leftist copy-cat bobble-head politic. OK, I’ll just stop here.
I read on another blog site that the transient tents are reappearing at the Ross encampment. Talk about turnstiles! I went through that intersection this morning before sunlight and didn’t look. Does anyone have better information on this?
Unfortunately, and unbelievably, it is true. Ross camp is returning. Being that I work in the gateway plaza, i dont even know where to begin. One step forward, 1000 steps back. What the hell is going on here. I know pot is big here, but are we really that quick to forget?
Since the closing of the last camp Bernal, things have been relatively quiet (as they can be for that area). Here we go again…
I encourage anyone who can attend to fo to this tues city council meeting to stand up and speak. Please!
I don’t live within Santa Cruz City limits, but I go past the River Street intersection every week. You have my utmost sympathy. I would guess that more than half the tourists who come to Santa Cruz go through that intersection. What a disgraceful message that shithole sends to tourists. Recall the enablers on the city council and elect adults to replace them. Then push for district elections and bring Santa Cruz back to decency.
Thank you greenie! Every day I think to myself, “just how much worse can it get?” And every day that question is answered. I believe the way things are going, this town will be divided between people of wealth and poverty. Everyone in between will have no choice but to leave if they want any kind if decent town to live, work and raise children in. All the while the government is just blind leading the blind, with any voices of reason falling upon their deaf ears.
I hate to sound so hopeless but without major overhaul and change… is that not the reality?
I thanks for the support- why does this have to happen all the time in SC- is this what SC is supposed to be?!?!?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Breed-supes-reach-deal-on-SF-mental-health-14827472.php
way to go london breed. she acknowledges the drug crisis
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/mental-health-care-in-san-francisco-compromise-reached/ar-BBWFf6M
here is another article on the drug addiction solution. they are going to pay for this by creating an office of insurance accountability or something. basically making sure these people who are addicted are actually signed up for health insurance- and that way they can get treatment through that.
santa cruz could really benefit from something like that. there is a middle ground between the 50s mental hospital nightmare like one flew over the cuckoos nest, and the madness we see in this city, sf and la- it looks like san francisco is aiming for that middle ground.
who knows what will happen but something has to change. one of my best friends got addicted to meth in high school. she got treatment and got well. it wrecked about 2 years of her life. people can get their lives back. and for people with other mental health problems this will get them better treatment.