Back in late June, gasoline prices were soaring near $5 per gallon when a big fuel tanker was topping off the underground tanks at the Redwood gas station in the middle of Covelo. A young man named Jordan Luna sauntered up and pulled a blue Bic lighter out of his pocket. “What would happen if I lit this lighter right now?”
The tanker driver, a Mr. McDermott, was standing amid the highly volatile fumes that came with his job. He calmly replied, “The whole place will go Boom! Big time!”
“Okay,” Luna said, “I’m gonna make you an honorary Indian and we’ll both go Boom! together.”
Before Luna could flick his Bic, McDermott, in the adrenalin panic of what he perceived as imminent immolation, pushed the young man away.
This was the testimony of Deputy Calhoun Stolfi, who was on duty that hot June day in Covelo where Sheriff Tom Allman tends to break in his new deputies — or breaks them down, depending on the resilience of the rookie cop.
Covelo's a tough place to police. You've got a high concentration of people over there with bad attitudes. It's the one place in Mendocino County that actually needs more yuppies.
Deputy Stolfi said, “Luna moved away and spoke with some friends after this initial attempt, and McDermott went in the station and told the manager to call 911. Then McDermott went back out to put his hose away and Luna attacked him again.”
Deputy DA Scott McMenomey said, “Wait a minute. Let’s back up, here. Did Mr. McDermott say how this all started?”
Deputy Stolfi: “He said he was pumping the fuel when the subject approached and complimented him on his mustache. The subject then asked McDermott if he was a tribal member, and McDermott answered no, he wasn’t. It was at this point in the conversation that Mr. Luna pulled out the lighter and made the threat about making McDermott an honorary Indian.”
McMenomey: “And Mr. McDermott shoved the subject away?”
Deputy Stolfi: “Correct. And the subject wandered off. Then McDermott went in to have someone call 911, and when he came back out to drain the hose, the subject returned and tried to light the lighter again.”
McMenomey: “What happened this time?”
Stolfi: “There was a tussle for the lighter and the subject finally got away.”
McMenomey: “Did you arrest the subject?”
Stolfi: “Yes. I knew him from the description given me by McDermott and others at the gas station, having contacted Mr. Luna the day before concerning a fight he had with his family.”
McMenomey: “Did you search the subject, Jordan Luna?”
Stolfi: “Yes.”
McMenomey: “What, if anything, did you find on him?”
Stolfi: “He had a pocket knife and a blue Bic lighter.”
McMenomey: “That’s all I have at this time, your honor.”
Judge Ann Moorman asked Andrew Higgins of the Public Defender’s office if he had any cross examination, and Mr. Higgins, after a moment of indecision common to those who are regularly asked to defend the indefensible, said yes, he supposed he did have some questions.
Higgins: “So, Mr. McDermott was putting fuel in the tanks at the gas station?”
Stolfi: “Correct.”
Higgins: “And my client approached him?”
Stolfi: “Correct.”
Higgins: “Now, was he able to turn this fuel off?”
Stolfi: “I don’t know.”
Higgins: “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”
Stolfi: “I couldn’t really say…”
McMenomey: “Objection. Calls for speculation on the part of the witness.”
Moorman: “Sustained.”
Higgins: “Now, Deputy Stolfi, you watched the video from the surveillance camera at the Redwood gas station, did you not?”
When a lawyer closes off his interrogatory with the pompous “Did you not?” it usually means he's winging it.
Stolfi: “I did, correct.”
Higgins; “And isn’t it true that you were unable to identify my client from the video?”
Stolfi: “Correct. But other witnesses were able to identify him as the subject.”
Higgins: “You spoke to other witnesses at the gas station?”
Stolfi: “Yes, that’s correct.”
Higgins: “Do you recall speaking with a female witness?”
Stolfi: “Yes.”
Higgins: “And she told you, did she not, that she had no idea at all whether the conversation between my client and Mr. McDermott was negative or otherwise?”
Stolfi” “Correct. She said she was too far away to hear what was being said.”
Higgins (abruptly): “That’s all I have at this time.”
I wondered if the kid was just monkeying around in a way that could get everyone killed, that he and his friends thought it was funny to scare the fuel man. Kids do dumb stuff all the time without realizing the dangers.
Moorman, looking first at one table, then the other, “Argument, counsel?”
McMenomey: “I’ll submit it on the evidence, your honor.”
Higgins came alive: “I believe this case was over-charged. Count One, attempted murder was uncalled for. This was just a young kid fooling around and we have conflicting stories [no conflicting stories were presented, and this was certainly the time to bring them forward if there were]. There’s no evidence for attempted murder, your honor. My client will plead to Counts Two and Three, but this was not attempted murder.”
McMenomey: “Your honor, I have overwhelming evidence to hold him on the attempted murder charge — on two separate occasions he tried to ignite the fuel! The People are not willing to drop Count One.”
Attempted murder? If the kid had flicked his Bic we'd have attempted murder, or maybe even murder, but did he?
Moorman: “I think you’ve met your burden, Mr. McMenomey, to provide sufficient evidence to hold the defendant on the charges in Count One. (!) Also, I find sufficient evidence in support of Count Two, attempted arson; (!) and Count Three, making a criminal threat. Madam Clerk, may we have a date to arraign the defendant on the information.”
McMenomey: “The People would ask that the bail be increased to reflect the seriousness of the charges. It’s $125,000 now, and we would ask that it be increased to $250,000.”
Moorman: “I’ll revisit the bail issue on August 29th after the arraignment on the information.”
For the sake of argument, let's say the Covelo kid was a Westside Ukiah kid, maybe even a judge's kid. And he does the same thing with a Bic that the Covelo kid did. Does anybody think he'd be charged with attempted murder?
Covelo’s a crazy town, and a heck of a place to start a career as a Mendocino County Deputy Sheriff. Those who can’t hack it get weeded out right away. When the Sheriff wants to get rid of what he considers a bad hat, he assigns said hat to Covelo permanently, then sits back and waits for the resignation to come in. This was the fate of the recently departed Tim Goss, a cop I liked because he was more human than the teetotalers currently on the Sheriff’s payroll.
In response to last week’s piece on lawyers and their legendary taste for nose candy, the youngest member of the DA’s Office approached me to swear up and down that he had never used cocaine, and was an exception to the rule.
Professionally trained to either minimize the facts or exaggerate them as the circumstances require, I challenged him to prove his innocence.
“You can’t prove a negative,” he responded.
“I rest my case,” I said.
Then, on Friday, I was summoned to the DA’s office and Mr. C. David Eyster himself said he was also innocent of the charge, offering a hair follicle for analysis.
After seven years, so scientists say, every cell in the body has changed. So all this would prove is that the subject hadn’t used coke recently. But I didn’t really doubt either one of these guys. In the first case, young Mr. Rosencrantz had just got out of Pampers and missed the drug craze, and the DA’s confessed drug of choice is Pinot Noir.
Covelo’s crazy, sure, but the lunatic violence is spreading, and with Prison Realignment those of us who don’t live on the West Side of Ukiah where all sober and saintly cops are on patrol these days, down on State Street, life is like a prison yard with no guards.
As I was coming back from lunch along the shady side of the library, a roving gang of thugs in their late teens and early twenties came down the sidewalk to beat the daylights out of a kid who was sitting there. I was coming the other way, and they headed straight for me. I veered off the sidewalk and put some parked cars between me and them, as one of the stooges yelled back at their victim, “You better not tell anybody, either!”
The threat was aimed at the kid they left bleeding on the ground, but they were looking right at me as I crossed the street to get out of their way, wishing Tim Goss was still around.
Why didn’t I help?
Sure, I could have beat those three guys up — in my wildest fantasies.
What about the kid?
“Hey, are you all right, man?”
“The fuck do you think? Get away from me, old man, before they think I’m ratting them out.”
“They’re gone.”
“Get the fuck away from me!”
“I’ll go get a cop.”
“Are you fucking crazy?! They’ll kill me if I talk to a cop. Get away from me!”
Judge Moorman had just released another kid that morning, warning him if he ever got caught with a knife again, “I’ll put you in jail so fast it’ll make your head swim.”
The kid just smirked at her. He knows the situation at the jail, and by the time they catch him — if they catch him — some poor sucker will already be gutted and lying in the frying pan.
But we are safe in our houses, aren’t we?
Don’t be too sure. On Friday a man was arraigned for breaking into some nice lady’s house, and finding her at home, did a lot more than merely burgle the place. In Count I it was alleged that the defendant, Jesus Torres, aka Jesus Guerra-Torres, assaulted the victim (name confidential) with intent to commit a sex crime during a first degree burglary. Count Two alleges the defendant then kidnapped the victim with the intent to commit further sex crimes; Count Three alleges defendant did commit sex crimes including penetration with a foreign object; Count Four alleges this happened again after the kidnapping; and Count Five alleges a violent rape by main force.
Justin Petersen is handling the case for Mr. Torres who posted bail in the amount of $100,000, meaning he's a fairly well to do scumbag, er, defendant. Prosecutor Heidi Larson wanted the bail increased to $700,000, but settled for an extradition waiver, so Mr. Torres could be brought to justice if he decided to skip bail.
Then there’s the story of Dutch, the local police dog legend, who retired recently.
This is the dog who, at 11 (110 in human years), chased down Anthony Want, the slippery old eel who had stripped off his clothes so the cops couldn’t hold onto his sweaty skin, slipped out of the deputies’ grasp and slid on the wet grass down into a deep creek bed. Limping along on his worn out old hips, Stolid Old Dutch ran Want down and laid hold of him. When the deputies finally arrived, suspect Want had had time to get his second wind, and thus it happened that he got away again. But this time old Dutch was too pooped to go after him, but as he tried to climb out of the hole he was in he finally slid into a deputy's cuffs.
Marching Want back to the patrol car the deputy asked about an injury to the suspect’s person. Mr. Want had been read his Miranda rights and refused to answer. “C’mon,” the deputy coaxed, the tape recorder’s turned off, you can tell me — Did Dutch do that?” Want was mute.
Dutch was granted a retirement, no medals, but that dog goes down in legend with the patrol deputies. Please post comments on the up-coming Dutch Commemorative Library Page at the AVA’s on-line version. Tell us your Dutch stories, whatever side of his famous teeth you were on.
Does anyone remember the time Dutch treed a perp, then climbed the tree and pulled the guy down?
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