Sometime between Midnight and 1 A.M. today, Sunday, the 27th 28th, Daniel Stein, an EMT with the Briceland Volunteer Fire Dept., was leaving the Mateel Halloween Boogie in Redway. As he and a friend walked down the road towards Redway Drive, he saw someone running up towards him. The person, Stein says, “was shouting about an assault by the laundromat.” As Stein looked down the hill, he heard noises of “a tussle by the laundromat.”
Stein eventually learned that an “attacker had beaten someone bloody with a large mag light.” But at that point he just saw the person “walking south past the liquor store yelling.”
Stein described the witness who was looking for Mateel security pointing at the two men heading south and yelling “that guy… the guy with the flashlight and the guy with a bike.”
The alleged attacker was with another man on a bicycle. He was yelling things like “fucking n***ers go home!” and “I’m gonna fucking kill you all!”
“At that point,” Stein said, “another guy who was leaving the party started shouting ‘asshole’ and proceeded with his girlfriend across the street to confront the guy with the flashlight… .”
The alleged attacker, Stein said, then began attacking the couple. He explained,
…the guy with flashlight started hitting [the male half of the couple.] He hit him a couple times on the head with what looked like a four D flashlight, a big Mag light. He crumpled to the ground. The guy continued hitting him on his back while he was passed out on the ground. The girlfriend was screaming at the attacker and trying to pull him off her boyfriend. He swung at her.
We shouted at him. At that point we were crossing the street towards them. Then a friend of mine started approaching him trying to break it up. The attacker was kind of crouched down hitting the guy who had fallen. The attacker stood up and went at my friend.
Stein said that the alleged attacker hit the hand of Stein’s friend who was slightly injured. “The mag light was covered in blood at that point,” Stein said. “He got blood from the other guy transferred to him by the flashlight.”
In an effort to scare the alleged attacker, Stein began telling him that he was calling the police.
We were still shouting at the guy. I started shouting his description at him. “I see what shirt you’re wearing,” etc.
The alleged attacker and his friend who was wearing “a black hoodie and riding a BMX” escaped down between Redway Tire and the Mateel Cafe. They disappeared. ”
“None of us ran after him,” Stein explained. “[W]e tried to help the victim who had passed out on the ground in a puddle of blood. We called the police.”
The second victim’s girlfriend managed to get her boyfriend to his feet. Stein said, “[The second victim] appeared to have a pretty massive head wound… . A concussion could be worse than any wounds. Head wounds are pretty dangerous.”
A deputy driving by was stopped by one of the people who had gathered around. The second victim and his girlfriend left. “They did not want medical help,” Stein explained.
At this point, Stein said, “The deputy, he started taking a report then went to check on the first victim.”
Stein described the alleged assailant as “5‘8ish, 180 pounds,” “kind of chubby,” in his late twenties, “buzzcut,” and wearing a camo Redway Feed t-shirt with no sleeves.
LoCO attempted to gather further facts from the Humboldt Co. Sheriff’s Department but was unable to get a full response by the time we published this story. A press release has been promised for tomorrow. Anyone with any further information should contact the sheriff’s department.