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As millions of Americans brace for the indefinite suspension of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on Nov. 1, Humboldt County residents, businesses and nonprofits are stepping up to ensure local folks have continued access to healthy food. 

SNAP, known as CalFresh here in California, provides monthly food benefits to nearly 42 million low-income people — approximately one in eight U.S. residents — including 5.5 million Californians and 32,000 people here in Humboldt. Those benefits won’t be distributed next month due to the ongoing government shutdown and the Trump administration’s refusal to draw from a contingency fund, marking the first delay in SNAP benefits since the program’s inception.

When Eureka resident Olivia Gambino heard the news in the wee hours of the morning last week, her first thought was how to help.

“The moment I read at 3 a.m. that SNAP was not going to be delivered, I began thinking of a strategy,” Gambino told the Outpost. “It is our job as citizens behind the Redwood Curtain to take care of our own. … As I have grown in this community, so has a fierceness of protection, responsibility, and love towards it. I would like to see everyone — no matter who you are — put your foot down and say, ‘I will protect my neighbors, I will lift them up, and I will show everyone respect and treat them with dignity.’”

On Monday, she went to Costco and bought enough bulk food to fill nine boxes for families in need. On top of what she’s donated personally, Gambino has raised $1,000 from at least 15 donors to buy Winco gift cards for local families. 

“Winco gift cards seemed the way to go [because] there’s dignity in autonomy,” she said, emphasizing the importance of “just acting” and not overcomplicating the issue. “The people who receive these benefits are my friends, my family, my neighbors. You can’t simply look at someone and say, ‘You get what you get.’ Food is very personal, and feeding a family is not one-size-fits-all.”

Gambino said she would “love for this to manifest into a larger effort,” adding that she will continue to accept donations and deliver gift cards “as long as folks keep supporting the effort and I feel like I can persist.”

“I can’t do it all the time, but I loved putting the boxes together from my heart,” she said. “Delivering food is fun!”

Those interested in donating can send funds to Gambino through Venmo. And if you’re interested in doing something similar, be wary of scammers. 

“Watch out for internet scammers,” she warned. “I give assistance in person in the form of physical cards or food boxes. Do not transfer money to anyone you do not know! I already had folks ask me to wire them money through the messenger app. You definitely have to use your critical thinking skills.”

[MONDAY UPDATE: Gambino reached out over the weekend to tell us that someone is impersonating her account on Venmo. We’ve removed her account from this story. On the upside, she said she’s helped a total of 30 families since we last spoke.]

Old Town Coffee & Chocolates is also stepping up to help. Starting Nov. 1, both Eureka locations will offer free breakfast to people losing SNAP benefits. 

“If you’re losing SNAP benefits for your family, breakfast is on us 7:30 - 10 a.m. Just ask for the Special Snack,” the business wrote in an Instagram post. “We are plotting ways to extend this into dinner hours. … If you’re in a position to help us offer this to our community, please do.”

Staff with the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which administers CalFresh locally, have been meeting with Food for People and family resource centers to ensure vulnerable community members have access to up-to-date information. 

“DHHS does not have funding that can support the lack of CalFresh benefits, but staff are continuing to work cases so they will be ready to issue benefits once the shutdown has ended or benefits are funded by another source,” DHHS spokesperson Christine Messinger told the Outpost. “DHHS staff has also joined forces and is launching a county employee food drive to collect food to support some of our local [family resource centers].”

Food for People, of course, is doing what it can to fill the gaps through its countywide pantry network and mobile produce pantry.

“We are trying our very best to prepare for the surge that we are likely to see, given the disruption in benefits,” said Food for People Executive Director Carly Robbins. “It’s really important to remember that nationwide food bank networks are not built for this kind of response. A statistic that I point to a lot is that for every one meal a food bank provides, SNAP or CalFresh benefits provide nine. Trying to take that on in the existing network is kind of inconceivable, but we are doing everything we can to prepare.”

Staff are working with local partners and the county to source as much food as possible to keep the nonprofit’s pantry stocked.

Speaking to criticism that people who receive SNAP benefits are taking advantage of government resources, Robbins said she has found the opposite to be true in her interactions with people at the food bank.

“The folks that we see in our food bank — most of whom do receive CalFresh or have applied in one form or another — by and large fall into categories like seniors and veterans living on low, fixed income, or folks who are employed or underemployed in a region where the cost of living is really high and wages are comparatively low,” Robbins said. “That’s why SNAP benefits are huge. They help stabilize households so people aren’t having to decide, ‘Do I pay my rent so I keep my household stable, or do I feed my child?’”

“At Food for People, we want people to be able to have the stress of feeding themselves and their family off the table so that they can focus their funds — if they need to — on housing and utilities to keep their households stable,” she added. “That’s what creates a healthier community for everyone.”

Those interested in donating funds or food can do so at Food for People’s website — at this link. Monetary donations are ideal because the nonprofit buys in bulk, but food donations — especially high-protein items — will be gladly accepted as well.

‘SNAP Benefits Can and Must be Provided’

California is taking legal action against the Trump administration in response to the SNAP cuts. Earlier this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta joined two dozen other states in suing the federal government over its “unlawful refusal to fund SNAP benefits due to the nearly month-long federal government shutdown, despite possessing funds to support SNAP in November.”

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: For the first time ever, SNAP benefits will not be available to the millions of low-income individuals who depend on them to put food on the table,” Bonta said in a prepared statement. “November SNAP benefits can and must be provided, even with the government shutdown. USDA not only has authority to use contingency funds, it has a legal duty to spend all available dollars to fund SNAP benefits.”

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Tuesday, argues that the federal government has the funds available to cover “all, or at least a substantial portion,” of November SNAP benefits for its 42 million recipients. The complaint notes that the USDA is sitting on billions in contingency funds, some of which have already been used to fund the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program during the government shutdown.

“[A]t least one other appropriated fund available to USDA has enough money to fully cover November SNAP benefits,” the complaint continues. “[O]n September 30, USDA itself acknowledged in its own shutdown contingency plan that SNAP ‘has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown’ and that ‘[t]hese multi-year contingency funds are also available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year.’”

A full-screen banner on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) website claims the funding isn’t available: “Bottom line, the well has run dry.” The notice also states that Senate Democrats “have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program” and have opted instead to “hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures,” a claim Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called “a total, absolute, effing lie.”

In a newsletter sent out this morning, North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman called the Trump administration’s action “despicable.”

Huffman

“This level of cruelty is incorrigible, and I refuse to sit back and let Republicans put millions of struggling families at risk of being unable to feed their kids and have access to basic health care,” Huffman stated. “I joined 213 of my Democratic colleagues in demanding that Secretary Rollins use the administration’s power and the SNAP contingency fund to provide full November food assistance as the Republican shutdown enters its second month.”

In previous government shutdowns, the USDA has found ways to keep SNAP funded to avoid a lapse in benefits. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the USDA tapped into contingency funds to issue SNAP benefits early. In a memo issued last week, the USDA claimed the contingency funds are “not legally available” and are set aside for natural disasters.

Federal law requires states to continue operating SNAP programs “even when benefits are suspended or reduced,” according to the complaint. States currently cover 50 percent of the cost of administering SNAP programs, but that figure will increase to 75 percent in 2027, in accordance with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“Plaintiff States are thus being forced to spend their limited resources to operate a benefits program while USDA fails to provide the underlying benefits,” the complaint continues. “Indeed, Plaintiff States have already spent millions in October to administer SNAP benefits … When those benefits do not go out on time (or at all), that investment will have been for naught. USDA has given no indication that States could recoup their share of these forced wasted expenditures.”

Correspondence from the USDA has “instigated significant uncertainty, confusion, and questions among State agencies,” and imposed “an additional administrative burden on already-strained resources and staff trying to operate a complex program,” the complaint states. For some state-run programs, that means preparing for “significant” layoffs.

The coalition has also requested a temporary restraining order that would require the USDA to maintain benefits through November.

‘We Gotta Act Fast and Think Differently’

There’s no telling how long the lapse in SNAP benefits will last. St. Vincent de Paul’s dining facility in Eureka is preparing for an increase in Free Meal attendees. Local volunteer Hannah Ozanian said she’s anxious to see how the organization will be impacted by the influx of new people.

“With homeless services across the board, there is typically a reprieve at the first of every month when folks get their monthly allocations. That’s when a lot of people spend their money, and as it runs out, they come back for meals towards the end of the month,” Ozanian said. “But what if we don’t have that break anymore? What if the numbers just keep going? We gotta act fast and think differently.”

Along with Free Meal, St. Vincent de Paul Redwood Region Board President Bob Santilli said volunteers are preparing “commodity boxes” with both fresh and non-perishable food items for people in need. 

“We’ll probably see a spike in demand for those,” he told the Outpost. “We are known for having a lot of resources because of our collaborations. There’s a lot of uncertainty when you operate within this industry, and you just have to be aware of that and take any opportunities that come your way. From a donation standpoint, we’re well-supported through several organizations, including Food for People, Costco, WinCo and Coca-Cola.”

On top of that, Santilli said he just received word that the Humboldt Creamery would be donating a bunch of ice cream to the dining facility for the holidays. Pacific Towing is going to donate a few dozen turkeys for Thanksgiving as well.

“We have a lot of empathetic partners,” he added. “And there’s a lot of big-hearted people that volunteer with us, people who’ve never had a great shake in life, but they understand the plight of others.”

St. Vincent de Paul is always looking for new volunteers. A group of high schoolers from St. Bernard’s Academy has been volunteering at Free Meal on Mondays, but they always need more people, especially during the holiday season.

The Community Access Project for Eureka (CAPE) is also working with St. Vincent de Paul’s and other local partners to keep community members informed. Those seeking resources can visit the Eureka Community Resource Center at 1111 E Street, Monday - Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. 

The Community Resource Center can also be reached at 707-441-4242 for more information or to collaborate on program development.

College of the Redwoods Launches Food Drive for Students

College of the Redwoods is expanding access to its Basic Needs Center and launching an emergency food drive to support students. Those who wish to donate non-perishable items can do so at CR’s Eureka, Del Norte and Hoopa campuses, or at its downtown Eureka office at 527 D Street. Donations can also be made at upcoming football and basketball games.

Those wishing to contribute financially can donate online at this link or mail a check to the College of the Redwoods Foundation, 527 D Street, Eureka, CA 95501, with a note indicating the donation should be used for the Basic Needs Center.

“Hunger does not recognize political parties,” CR President Keith Flamer said in a prepared statement. “Our focus is on making sure every student has access to food and the support they need to continue their education, no matter what is happening at the federal level.”

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A few other local businesses/organizations have announced their own free or meal programs since we originally published this story. Drop us a line at news@lostcoastoutpost.com if you have additional resources. We’ll do our best to keep this list updated.

• Arcata House Partnership has free food at its pantry in Valley West. The nonprofit is in “urgent” need of non-perishable food items. Donations can be taken to Arcata House Partnership’s office at 4677 Valley West Blvd. in Arcata between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday - Friday. More information here.
• Community United of North Arcata/Comunidad Unida del Norte de Arcata (CUNA) is hosting a free produce day on Saturday, Nov. 1, from 3 to 6 p.m. at 4700 Valley East Blvd. in Arcata. More information can be found on their Facebook.
• Falafelove in King Salmon is a free meal to anyone who’s hungry. “We will be serving a chicken barley soup at no charge for anyone who asks, no questions asked – until the government shutdown resolves.” Details here.
  
• Food Not Bombs serves free (vegan) hot meals every week in Arcata and Eureka. Meals are served every Sunday on the Clark Plaza in Old Town Eureka at 3 p.m. and the Arcata Plaza at 3 p.m. Food Not Bombs also provides meals at 4 Bayshore Way in Myrtletown on Mondays.
• The Humboldt Gold Exchange in Eureka is providing free meal bags for children with proof of a SNAP/EBT card. More information can be found here.

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Additional SNAP-related resources:

• Food for People
• County of Humboldt - CalFresh Services
• Humboldt Families Helping Families Facebook Group
• California Association of Food Banks
• California Department of Social Services CalFresh FAQ

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On October 29, 2025, at about 5:25 p.m., a Eureka Police Department (EPD) Community Safety Engagement Team (CSET) Sergeant, Patrol Officers, and members of Humboldt Bay Fire (HBF) were dispatched to a report of a suspicious person and possible water rescue in Humboldt Bay near the Slough Bridge. The reporting party indicated an individual appeared to be walking into the water.

Upon arrival, HBF and EPD personnel observed a male approximately 50 yards from shore, moving erratically and continuing further out into the Bay. HBF rescue swimmers deployed to contact the individual; however, upon contact, it became apparent that the individual was experiencing a mental health crisis and was uncooperative with rescue efforts.

Due to the individual’s location, HBF was unable to safely deploy their larger vessel and requested assistance from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) for a smaller, more maneuverable vessel. As daylight diminished, the situation posed increasing safety risks to both the individual and responding personnel. To assist, HCSO deployed a drone to provide aerial lighting and real-time footage to Incident Command. Mental health professionals from the Crisis Alternative Response of Eureka (CARE) program were also notified.

After approximately two and a half hours of coordinated efforts, the individual ultimately complied with first responders and agreed to board the HCSO vessel. With assistance from the drone’s aerial lighting, the individual was safely transported back to shore, where ambulance personnel provided medical attention. The individual was then transported to a nearby hospital and placed on a mental health hold for evaluation and care.

The Eureka Police Department would like to extend its gratitude to the Humboldt Bay Fire Department and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office for their collaboration. EPD and HBF would like to thank the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office for their assistance as their personnel and resources were instrumental in ensuring the safety of both first responders and the individual involved.

UPDATE, 3:04 p.m.:

The Sheriff’s Office posted this message to Facebook a few minutes ago:

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UPDATE, 1:36 p.m.:

In response to our inquiry about the social media post, Lt. Jesse Taylor texted the Outpost to say that the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office had received an inquiry from another local media outlet asking how law enforcement was preparing for impacts from the looming government shutdown.

He continued: “[T]he spirit of the post was to message that we would not tolerate theft or looting, which might impact those in need. In retrospect, the post was insensitive and we understand how we missed the mark. We recognized this and took it down for these reasons.”

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Original post:

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Earlier today the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office posted the message below to its Facebook page, accompanied by the above image.

Effective Nov 1, if the government shutdown continues, many members of our community may have their benefits indefinitely delayed. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is ready to respond to any calls for service involving theft or looting.

We encourage our community to stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity. If you rely on food benefits, make sure you’re prepared for possible delays. If you see anything suspicious, let us know.

For more information, visit: cdss.ca.gov.

#HumboldtSheriff #GovernmentShutdown #Benefits

Reactions on Facebook were mixed, with several people expressing anger at the framing of needy neighbors as criminal threats.

The post was deleted after about 20 minutes, but many local residents remain upset. Humboldt County Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo told the Outpost she has received multiple calls from constituents who found the post offensive to people who receive benefits.

We reached out to the Sheriff’s Office for comment. Lt. Jesse Taylor said he would inquire with the employees who usually make the office’s social media posts and get back to us. We’ll update this post if and when we hear back. 

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On the night of October 29 and into the early morning hours of October 30, 2025, Eureka Police Department (EPD) patrol officers responded to a series of ten vandalism incidents across the north end of the city. An individual was reported to be shattering multiple glass doors at several businesses, including the front doors of the Eureka Police Department Headquarters and the Humboldt Bay Fire Headquarters.

During the investigation, and with assistance from victim businesses, officers identified and located the suspect near 4th and A Streets. The suspect, 34-year-old Bruce William Snow, was arrested and booked into jail for multiple counts of felony vandalism and probation violations.

If you believe you were also a victim of vandalism during this incident, please contact the EPD Criminal Investigations Unit at 707-441-4300.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

Under California law, certain sex offender registrants must abide by special terms between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m. on Halloween night, including:

• Stay in their own home;
• Not answer the door for anyone except Law Enforcement;
• Keep all exterior lights off;
• Cannot pass out treats;
• Cannot decorate their house for Halloween.

Community members are encouraged to review the Department of Justice’s Megan’s Law database for any area where you intend to take children trick-or-treating and practice the following Halloween safety tips:

For Pedestrians:

• Adults should always supervise children while trick or treating.
• If you will be walking at night, be visible. Carry a flashlight and wear light, reflective clothing so that drivers can see you.
• Make sure Halloween costumes are flame-retardant and visible with retro-reflective material.
• Walk in well-lit areas on the sidewalk, not on the street.
• Never allow children to run out into the street.
• Only cross the street at crosswalks or corners where it is safe.
• Only trick-or-treat at residences with exterior lights on or that indicate they are accepting trick-or-treaters.

For Drivers:

• Drive cautiously and slow down.
• Watch for pedestrians who may be in dark clothing or may cross roads unexpectedly.
• Carefully exit and enter driveways and alleys.
• Be extra alert for vehicles backing out of driveways or leaving parking spaces as drive-up trick or treating may be more common this year.
• Do not drink alcohol and drive. Designate a non-drinking driver if your plans for the holiday include consuming impairing substances.

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is a participant in the Region II Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE) Team, and these enforcement efforts are funded through the SAFE grant.

PREVIOUSLY

• Cars of Students in CPH’s New Hinarr Hu Moulik Dorms Are Eating Up Road Parking

There’s an unbroken, unmoving line of cars as far as Arcata’s Eye Street goes, all the way down to Cal Poly Humboldt’s Hinarr Hu Moulik dorms. If any of them had been occupied with the intention of driving them anywhere, it’d be a traffic jam; but they are, at the moment, empty. Most of them are not owned by the residents along Eye Street, who have to compete for street parking with the almost 600 students at the end of the road, who have a parking lot with space for 328 cars. Almost since the moment the dorms opened in August, it’s been a contentious issue, brought up more than a few times at city council meetings and the topic of dozens of emails sent to the city — but an end to the parking problem may be at hand. 

Eye Street residents recently presented a petition, signed by around 50 people, to the city council and the Transportation Safety Committee asking them to extend permitted parking down to the end of the street and a side street off of Eye. A city employee confirmed Monday that the item was on an upcoming agenda and will likely pass, though he was unsure when the change will happen. 

To get a parking permit, the applicant has to prove with a copy of the lease or a utility bill that they live in one of the three zones Arcata regulates resident parking in. The Group B parking zone ends just a few dozen yards down Eye Street. The permits are free. 

The parking glut has had its tolls. Lea Nagy, 81, lives and operates an Airbnb on Eye. She herself is an HSU graduate, likes living in a college town, and doesn’t have any beef with the students, who she said were “sweet” and sometimes helped her with her groceries — she just wishes their cars didn’t take up so much space and block her mailbox. 

Guests renting out her Airbnb often have a hard time finding space to park their cars. Many of them, she said, are older and disabled and need to be near the entrance, but sometimes they have to park blocks away. Returning customers tend to be flabbergasted at the change.

“They make comments like, ‘Oh my god, there’s no parking,’” Nagy said in an interview with the Outpost. “They go, ‘God, what happened to your street?’” 

She and her neighbors also worry that a fire truck wouldn’t be able to fit down the road, which was narrow to begin with and is squeezed even tighter with the dozens of cars parked along the side. 

Nagy said she felt supported by the city council and the university; CPH even built her a fence separating her yard from campus and washed her windows. 

“They are good kids,” Nagy said of the students. “They just don’t realize the impact and want to park close. I don’t blame them.”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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The state of California gave Sylvester Conway every opportunity to kill.

He already had two DUI convictions by 2019, when the California Highway Patrol arrested him for driving drunk in Fresno County. The jail released him three days later. Conway didn’t show up to court and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

The cycle continued. In April 2021, prosecutors say he drove the wrong way on the highway with a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit. Conway signed a citation for driving under the influence, promising that he’d show up to court. He didn’t.

The same thing happened in August that year — another DUI arrest, this time by Fresno police, and another warrant for skipping court.

All three Fresno DUI cases were still open, and all three warrants were out for Conway’s arrest, when police say he sped — drunk again — on his way to a casino in February 2022. This time, he lost control, flipped his Acura and killed his passenger, Khayriyyah Jones. He’s now facing murder charges in Madera County.

California’s DUI enforcement system is broken. The toll can be counted in bodies.

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California have shot up by more than 50% in the past decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal estimates show. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions. Thousands more are injured. Again and again, repeat DUI offenders cause the crashes.

To understand why so many people are dying under the wheels of drunk and drugged drivers, CalMatters reviewed thousands of vehicular manslaughter and homicide cases prosecutors filed across the state since 2019. We also examined other states’ laws on intoxicated driving and sifted through decades of state and federal traffic safety data.

We found that California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the country, allowing repeat drunk and drugged drivers to stay on the road with little punishment. Here, drivers generally can’t be charged with a felony until their fourth DUI within 10 years, unless they injure someone. In some states, a second DUI can be a felony.

California too often fails to differentiate between drunk drivers who made a dangerous mistake but learn from it and those who refuse to stop endangering lives. It’s the missed opportunities to prevent tragedies that haunt the loved ones of the dead.

Sarah Villar, a pediatric physical therapist, was out walking the dog with her fiance in San Benito County when a drunk driver swerved off the road and killed her in 2021. The driver had been convicted of driving drunk in 2018, 2019 and again in 2020 — all misdemeanors — and served just a couple weeks behind bars before the fatal crash.

Villar’s parents buried her in her wedding dress.

“To the broken justice system that allowed this to happen — shame on you,” her father, Dave Villar, said in her eulogy. “If I walked out my front door today onto my porch and fired a shot into my neighborhood every day until I killed someone, when would I be a menace to society? When do I become a danger to my community? I say it’s after the first shot. Our system says it’s after the last.”

California also gives repeat drunk drivers their licenses back faster than other states. Here, you typically lose your license for three years after your third DUI, compared to eight years in New Jersey, 15 years in Nebraska and a permanent revocation in Connecticut. We found drivers with as many as six DUIs who were able to get a license in California.

Many drivers stay on the road for years even when the state does take their license — racking up tickets and even additional DUIs — with few consequences until they eventually kill.

When the worst does happen, there’s often little punishment. Drunk vehicular manslaughter isn’t considered a “violent felony.” But in a twist of state law, a DUI that causes “great bodily injury” is — meaning that a drunk driver who breaks someone’s leg can face more time behind bars than if they’d killed them, prosecutors said.

Despite the mounting death toll, state leaders have shown little willingness to address the issue. A bill proposed in the state Legislature this year would have expanded the use of in-car breathalyzers, which research shows can significantly reduce drunk driving. Most other states already require the device for first-time DUI offenders. But lawmakers killed the provision after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles said it didn’t have the time or resources to carry it out.

Drunk and drugged driving is now so common in car-centric California that drivers routinely rack up four, five, six DUIs. One woman in Fresno just got her 16th.

The case files we reviewed are full of horrific reminders of this ubiquity. Like the story of Masako Saenz.

In 2000, Saenz was driving with her 5-year-old son, Manuel, to pick up an uncle in Stockton for the family’s Easter celebration when a drunk driver slammed his pickup truck into her tiny Toyota Tercel, killing the boy.

The driver had been convicted of his fourth DUI two months before. He likely would have been behind bars that day, but San Joaquin Superior Court Judge John Cruikshank was letting him finish a rehab program before reporting to jail.

The case made national news when Saenz broke down during the arraignment. “Murderer! Murderer! You killed my son!” she screamed and had to be removed from the courtroom.

She told a Sacramento Bee reporter that people would marvel at how well she seemed to be doing. “But they have no idea,” she said. “They have no idea. Sometimes even now I wonder if I can go on.”

In the years after, her life unraveled, police and court records show. Saenz became homeless, sleeping along Sacramento roadways.

She appears to have started posting to an online memorial website for her son — simple messages of love and grief sent into the void. “He will always be with me,” reads the last post from January 2022.

Three months later, a man with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit — whose license was suspended after a string of speeding tickets — gunned his car, lost control and careened into an encampment just miles from the state Capitol. A witness found her body wrapped in a tent.

Mother and son were killed two decades apart by drunk drivers who never should have been on the road.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

‘It’s accepted in society until the worst happens’

Once upon a time, California showed that you can reduce drunk driving deaths simply by trying.

Two decades before Saenz’s son was killed, another Sacramento mother’s unfathomable loss galvanized the state and country. In 1980, Candace Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter was walking to a church carnival when a drunk driver — out of jail days after what was reportedly his fourth DUI arrest — slammed into her so hard she flew out of her shoes, landing 125 feet away.

In response, Lightner helped found Mothers Against Drunk Driving, ushering in the modern anti-DUI movement. California was at the forefront, forming a special task force in 1980. State leaders enacted a slate of new laws, setting a legal limit for blood alcohol content and increasing DUI penalties. In 1982, Gov. Jerry Brown touted the reforms as the “toughest package of legislation in the Nation against driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

In the decades that followed, California cut alcohol-related roadway fatalities by more than half.

Now, the state’s headed backward. And as deaths have increased, law enforcement has done less: DUI arrests statewide dropped from nearly 200,000 in 2010 to 100,000 in 2020.

The death of Masako Saenz launched no new movements. Her killing was briefly mentioned in a local news roundup of homeless deaths from 2022. But that was about it. There wasn’t a picture of her on the site, just a stock photo of a burning candle — a placeholder for a life lost.

The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office filed a lesser manslaughter charge against the driver, Puentis Currie Jr., instead of the more serious charge police recommended. Currie got three months behind bars, then a few months with a monitoring bracelet so he could keep going to college.

Prosecutors asked Sacramento County Superior Court Judge John P. Winn to sentence Currie to at least community service instead of letting him “sit at home and play video games,” according to a court transcript. But Winn declined, saying he was leaving the department and didn’t want to saddle his replacement with decisions regarding the details of such an order.

Just this past May, police caught Currie driving on a suspended license again after pulling him over for a busted headlight, court records show. That could have meant more jail time. Instead, he got a ticket.

Currie said he needs to drive to and from work and was driving home from a shift when he got the recent citation. Now 25, he hopes talking about his case might keep other kids from driving while intoxicated.

He said that the night he killed Masako Saenz, he had gone out to celebrate his cousin’s birthday. He did tequila shots and took ecstasy and remembers getting in the car but nothing else until after the crash.

One of his attorneys told him about Saenz’s son. The weight of what he’d done hit him.

He said he goes back to the scene of the crash every April.

“I put flowers there just to show, like — ” he said, breaking down in tears, “show that I care, or show her that I’m truly sorry.”

He said it’s too easy to ignore the risk of driving under the influence. Lawyers, doctors, everyone gets DUIs.

“I think it’s accepted in society until the worst happens,” he said.

‘It is literally just a matter of time before they kill’

David Alvarado already had three prior DUIs when a CHP officer saw him almost hit another car in January 2019. He admitted he’d been drinking Coors Light at a friend’s house.

But prosecutors couldn’t charge Alvarado with a felony, which typically brings with it more serious penalties and oversight. His previous DUIs — from 1997, and two from 2006 — essentially didn’t count. In California, a DUI drops off your record after 10 years. He was just another misdemeanor drunk driver in a state with more than 100,000 of them that year.

The Madera County District Attorney’s Office hadn’t even filed criminal charges yet when, 10 months later, law enforcement stopped him again for driving drunk.

Over the next two years, they’d pull him over twice more, citing him once for driving without a valid license and another time for drunk driving, court records show.

That’s three DUI arrests and a ticket in less than three years.

His punishment: probation. The judge ordered him to wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet for 129 days.

Less than a year after his conviction, he was driving a F-250 pickup truck when he slammed into a car stopped at a red light, killing Mary and Paul Hardin, a Texas couple visiting on a church mission trip. Prosecutors say Alvarado was drunk. He is now facing murder charges in Fresno County.

Benjamin Hardin is the second oldest of the victims’ 11 children. He said his parents touched so many lives with their kindness and love. When the family cleaned out the couple’s California apartment after the crash, he said they found a fresh baked loaf of bread with someone’s name on it that their mother must have intended to deliver.

“I know that my parents would want me and my siblings to forgive him,” Hardin said. “My parents would not want me to carry hate in my heart for him.”

Still, he said he was stunned to learn that someone could get that many DUIs.

“It really does feel like it is literally just a matter of time before they kill someone — or in my family’s case, two someones,” he said.

The Victims of Drunk Drivers Memorial at Pacific View Mortuary and Memorial Park in Corona del Mar, on Sept. 24, 2025. Photos by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

State data shows repeat drunk driving is not an aberration. A recent DMV analysis tracked drivers who got a DUI in 2005. More than a quarter got another DUI over the next 15 years. Of the drivers for whom the 2005 arrest was at least their third DUI, nearly 40% went on to get yet another.

San Benito District Attorney Joel Buckingham said he views a third DUI as a crucial moment to intervene, aiming for drivers to serve at least 60 days in jail to “really kind of wake them up.”

But he also tries to take matters into his own hands at home. When he teaches his kids to drive, he tells them to “assume everyone is trying to kill you,” he said.

It’s the lack of consequences or meaningful intervention over years that make so many of the cases read like tragedy foretold.

William Curtis was convicted of driving while intoxicated in May 2012.

Over the next several years, he would be involved in two collisions, receive four traffic tickets and get another DUI, all while his license was supposed to be suspended, Sacramento County court records show.

For the second DUI, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Police filed the citations in traffic court rather than sending them to the DA’s office for criminal prosecution. As a result, he got off with little more than a fine for refusing to stay off the road.

And he continued to drive until one night in November 2020, when he sped down Highway 99 drunk and crashed into the back of a stalled car. That vehicle burst into flames. Emergency personnel later found the charred remains of Dominique Howard trapped inside the burned vehicle.

Law enforcement later let him call his mother. Court records reveal what they heard Curtis say:

“I killed someone. I’m going away. I’m sorry, mom. Tell my kids I love them.”

‘You just saved a family of four’

Ryan Nazaroff became a police officer because of the worst day — or maybe one of the two worst days — of his life. He was just 16 in February 2008, with a bunch of friends going from party to party on the roads that run between the farms outside Fresno. There was another car of kids in front of him, Nazaroff said.

He remembers seeing the vehicle in front swerve. It hit the shoulder, overcorrected to the left and started to roll. His 14-year-old brother and another passenger were ejected.

Nazaroff found his brother laying on the dirt shoulder, dead.

In the horror of the moment, he remembers the polite professionalism of the CHP officers who investigated the crash. Nazaroff decided then that he wanted to do that for other people in their worst moments and try to help prevent the types of tragedies his family endured. He eventually joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The first chance Nazaroff got as a young deputy, he took an assignment working traffic patrol on the graveyard shift, cruising alone along the dark roads of Norwalk and La Mirada, 20 miles southeast of downtown LA, looking for drunk drivers and responding to crashes. Mothers Against Drunk Driving gave him awards for his DUI arrests.

“You try and remind yourself, every DUI arrest you make, you just saved a family of four,” he said.

Ryan Nazaroff in Rowland Heights, on Sept. 26, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

Nazaroff was up for a promotion in April 2022 when he pulled into the station garage and his phone buzzed. He picked up. A Fresno County sheriff’s deputy was at his mom’s house.

It had happened again.

A drunk driver blew a stop sign and smashed into the dump truck his father was driving. Jeffrey Nazaroff was barely a block from where he was supposed to park his truck, finish his shift and go home. Instead, Ryan’s dad became one of the more than 1,400 people killed in an alcohol-related crash in California that year, federal estimates show.

Ryan Nazaroff called off of work and went home. He sat up all night with his wife before driving to be with his family the next day.

The woman who killed his dad was not a first-time drunk driver. Zdeineb Juarez Calderon was arrested two months before the fatal crash for allegedly driving drunk and crashing into a sign post. He thought that should be enough to charge her with murder.

To sustain a murder charge, prosecutors need to be able to prove that the person knew the danger and took the risk anyway. That typically means showing the defendant received a formal warning about the dangers of intoxicated driving, called a Watson advisement. Judges will typically read a boilerplate warning into the court record when someone is convicted of a DUI or have them sign a form.

But Juarez Calderon wasn’t convicted of anything yet for the earlier crash, so there was no Watson warning in the court records. Prosecutors told him the best they could charge Juarez Calderon with was vehicular manslaughter, Nazaroff said.

He was further frustrated to learn that because vehicular manslaughter isn’t considered a “violent” felony, the repeat drunk driver who killed his dad will likely serve only a small fraction of her 10-year sentence in prison.

That’s because the state requires people convicted of a violent felony to serve more of their time in prison. In general, someone convicted of a violent felony will serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars while for a lesser felony it’s as little as a third, said Steve Ueltzen, a Fresno County senior deputy district attorney.

“It’s a tough conversation to have with victims,” he said.

Juarez Calderon was sentenced to prison in January 2024. Records show that with the time she already spent in jail pretrial, she’s eligible for release this December.

Ryan Nazaroff displays childhood photos on his phone. The photo on the left shows his father, Jeffrey Nazaroff, alongside Ryan and his younger brother, Thomas Nazaroff. The photo on the right shows his father with Thomas. Rowland Heights, Sept. 26, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

‘It’s an abuse of authority and power’

California judges and lawmakers have often refused to require one of the few technological solutions most other states use to at least try to cut down on repeat drunk drivers.

Ignition interlock devices, known as IIDs, are those in-car breathalyzers that a driver needs to blow into for the vehicle to start. The technology has been around since the 1960s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says they can decrease repeat drunk driving offenses as much as 70% while in use. In California, the devices prevented more than 30,500 attempts to drive under the influence in 2023 alone, state legislative reports say.

But unlike most states, California doesn’t require first-time drunk drivers to use the devices. MADD gave us an “F” on a 2022 national report card of states’ ignition interlock laws.

More than a decade ago, state Sen. Jerry Hill tried to require the devices for all DUI offenders in honor of a friend killed by a drunk driver. The Bay Area Democrat, now retired, grew dismayed by what he deemed a “soft approach” to DUIs, where legislators and committee consultants worry more about inconveniencing drivers than preventing deaths.

Hill ultimately had to settle for a 2016 bill that required the in-car breathalyzers for repeat DUI offenders.

But records suggest even that law isn’t being followed. Judges in more than a dozen counties ordered the breathalyzers for less than 10% of drivers convicted of a second DUI, according to a 2023 DMV report. In Los Angeles, judges made such orders for just 0.5% of the county’s thousands of second-time DUI offenders, according to the report.

“They should be ashamed of themselves, because how many deaths have they caused?” Hill said. “It’s an abuse of authority and power.”

LA County Superior Court spokesman Rob Oftring did not directly respond to detailed questions about how often the court’s judges order the breathalyzers, instead saying they “regularly submit abstracts of conviction” to the DMV.

The DMV hasn’t issued new figures showing the use of the devices in more recent years. Asked for comment, the agency responded via email saying: “The DMV follows the laws established by the Legislature in the California Vehicle Code. The department operates within those laws.”

Even drivers who have killed someone in recent years can get on the road without the device. We identified about 130 drivers who were convicted for a fatal DUI since 2019 who have already gotten their licenses back from the state. Alcohol was a factor in the vast majority of the cases. And although some appear to have had a short requirement to use an in-car breathalyzer, fewer than 20 are currently limited to driving vehicles with an ignition interlock device installed, their DMV records show.

Elias Mack thinks that’s a mistake.

Mack said he wasn’t much of a drinker, certainly not an alcoholic, when he drove drunk in early 2023 and caused the crash that killed Aurora Morris, his high school sweetheart.

“I was just young,” said Mack, who’s now 25.

He was convicted of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and at his sentencing, the judge ordered Mack’s license be revoked for three years. But under state law, the DMV is allowed to ignore such orders if the length of revocation is longer than what the statutes require. The agency gave Mack his license back little more than a year after his conviction and with no requirement that he install a breathalyzer, he said.

“I was trying to get my life back on track. I just wanted to do better and make her proud,” he said, adding that he needed to drive for work.

But the grief was almost too much. “To just live with that every day eats you alive,” Mack said.

He would often drive to see her memorial. “The only thing that’s making me feel good is just going to talk to her,” Mack said. But he was also drinking as a way to cope.

On one of those trips, just a few months after he got his license back, police stopped him. He got another DUI.

Mack said he’s sober now and hopes his story can help other people. He wishes the court had ordered him to have a breathalyzer after his manslaughter conviction.

It makes sense the devices would be mandatory, especially after a case like his, and for as long as possible, he added.

“It’s going to save somebody’s life.”

‘You have an opportunity to stop this’

Melanie Sandoval was still a teenager in 1989 when she was convicted in Madera County for driving drunk.

She got her second DUI a couple years later, and the state took her license.

She got her third a few years after that. And then her fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th.

It still didn’t keep her from driving drunk.

Kevin Bohnstedt saw the headlights coming toward him. The next thing he remembers, he was trapped in his seat with the airbags deployed and a woman outside rapping on the window.

Police found a pint of vodka in Sandoval’s car, said Ueltzen, who was the prosecutor in the case. It was her 16th DUI.

Bohnstedt, who spent 21 years flying jets off aircraft carriers as a naval aviator, said for months afterward he’d close his eyes and see the headlights coming for him. It took a while before he felt comfortable driving at night.

Kevin Bohnstedt stands in front of his home in central Fresno on Oct. 7, 2025. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Sandoval pleaded no contest to felony DUI and went to rehab. At a sentencing hearing in October 2024, Ueltzen implored Superior Court Judge Charles Lee to also send Sandoval to prison.

In a sharp back and forth, the judge and the prosecutor argued the weaknesses in the system.

Lee noted that if he sentenced her to four years, she would be out in two at most.

“What changes? She has been to prison so many times on so many different DUIs,” Lee said. “We warehouse her for a number of months. She comes out. She is still an addict. How is public safety addressed by a prison commitment here when we know she has gone to prison over and over and over again on DUIs?”

Ueltzen said that at least she could be forced to stay sober for a while.

“The public safety is addressed by the fact that while this defendant is in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, she is not behind the wheel of a car,” he said.

Lee was unmoved. For driving head on into another vehicle in what was her 16th DUI, the judge granted Sandoval probation with no additional time behind bars.

Her own attorney, who asked the court to send her to rehab instead of prison, said in an interview that there was “no accountability” in state law for repeat DUI offenders.

“If you have 16 DUIs, you likely should be doing 20 years in prison,” Marc Kapetan said.

Sandoval went on to violate the terms of her supervised release by showing up drunk to a probation appointment.

Just this summer a different judge ordered her to serve out the remainder of her four-year sentence in prison. With credit for the time she was in rehab, plus the time she spent in jail pretrial, plus the credit the state gives you just for behaving yourself behind bars, she should be out next year.

Bohnstedt said he recognizes the government can only do so much to stop people from making bad decisions and drivers have a responsibility for their own actions. But he said he was floored the court tried to let her off with mere probation and is baffled California can’t either get people like Sandoval the help they need or keep them from endangering the public.

“The biggest concern I have is the next time that it happens, there could be kids in the car. And she could kill them,” he said. “Or she could run people down. Any number of different horrific things could happen. And it could lead to somebody dying.”

If that happens, he said the state — lawmakers, law enforcement, the courts — will have blood on its hands.

“You have an opportunity to stop this.”

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We attempted to reach every driver named in this story or their attorneys — oftentimes both. If a person or their attorney isn’t quoted, we were unable to reach them or they declined to comment.

Court research by Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson.