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A lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday accuses Humboldt County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Campadonia of using excessive force during the traffic stop and arrest of an unhoused man in Garberville last year.

The suit, filed by Eureka attorney Benjamin Mainzer, alleges that while making an “unnecessary arrest” of plaintiff Darrin Dickson, who had been living out of his car, Campadonia lost his temper, yelled profanities and shattered the driver’s side window with his baton, injuring Dickson’s eye, face and scalp in the process. 

Campadonia then proceeded to grab Dickson by the throat and strike him in the face with his elbow, according to the suit. The complaint further alleges that after arresting Dickson, Campadonia had the man’s vehicle towed and impounded, against office policy, in retaliation for Dickson exercising his constitutional rights.

Humboldt County is also named as a defendant, accused of depriving Dickson of his constitutional rights by inadequately training, supervising and disciplining deputies; by regularly permitting them to use excessive force; and by sanctioning Campadonia’s behavior via an internal investigation that concluded that his actions did not violate office policy.

The county previously rejected a claim for damages that Mainzer’s office submitted on behalf of Dickson back in March.

Reached via email, Humboldt County Public Information Specialist Catarina Gallardo said “This is an important issue for the county. However, this is a legal matter and in order to respect the integrity of that process the county will not discuss this topic with the press at this time.”

Let’s take a closer look at the specific allegations:

According to the suit, Deputy Campadonia initiated the traffic stop on the evening of Sept. 26, 2023, pulling Dickson over near the intersection of Redwood Drive and Sprowl Drive in Garberville after seeing him run a stop sign and accelerate at an unsafe speed. 

The two knew each other from previous “peaceful” interactions, but Campadonia considered Dickson “uncooperative” because, in those previous meetings, Dickson had “elected not to answer questions Campadonia posed to him,” as is his Constitutional right, the suit alleges.

This time, as Campadonia approached his vehicle, Dickson rolled the driver’s side window down just enough so they could speak to each other. Campadonia asked him to roll it down further or open the door, but Dickson said he could hear the deputy “just fine,” according to the suit.

Meanwhile, a second deputy sheriff, Julian Aguilera, had arrived. 

Campadonia then yelled at Dickson, “Open the fucking door!” and shortly thereafter he ordered him to get out of the car, even though there was still no officer safety reason for Dickson to exit the vehicle,” the complaint says.

Ten seconds later, Campadonia deployed his extendable baton and smashed the driver’s side window, striking Dickson in the forehead and causing a bleeding contusion, according to the lawsuit. “Glass from the shattered window hit Dickson’s face and got in his right eye causing a corneal abrasion and other bleeding cuts on his face and scalp,” the complaint continues.

The suit says Deputy Aguilera tried to de-escalate the situation a couple of times, even using his hand to push away a taser that Campadonia had pulled and pointed at Dickson’s chest while yelling, “Do you want to get fucking tased?”

“Deputy Aguilera did not believe there was any reason for Deputy Campadonia to have drawn his taser, point it at Dickson and threaten to tase him,” the complaint says.

But Campadonia continue to escalate the situation, reaching into the vehicle to grab Dickson — momentarily by the throat — and in the ensuing struggle, striking Dickson in the face with his elbow, according to the complaint.

Around that time, officers from the California Highway Patrol arrived.

”These officers attempted to calmly speak to Dickson, but Deputy Campadonia continued to yell and curse at Dickson thwarting their efforts to deescalate the conflict that Deputy Campadonia had created,” the suit says. “Dickson told these officers that he feared for his life.”

Dickson was eventually arrested without further incident, and according to the complaint, Campadonia told him at the scene that his car was parked legally so he could leave it where it was.

“However, in retaliation for what Deputy Campadonia perceived as [Dickson’s] earlier noncompliance, Deputy Campadonia intentionally acted contrary to Dickson’s wishes and had Dickson’s vehicle towed and impounded in contravention to Department policy 502.2.3,” the suit says. “Deputy Campadonia knew or had reason to know that Dickson lived in his vehicle and knew or had reason to know that by towing and impounding the vehicle, he was taking away his only shelter.”

The lawsuit lists 10 specific claims for relief, including:

• assault,
• battery,
• unreasonable search and seizure — excessive force,
• substantive due process violations for seizing Dickson’s vehicle,
• liability from the county for ”perpetrating, sanctioning, tolerating and ratifying the outrageous conduct and other wrongful acts” and
• negligence.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction requiring deputies to undergo training on de-escalation tactics and excessive force; general and compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees, costs of the suit and “other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.”

Reached by phone, Mainzer declined to speak on the record about the case. 

Early last month the Outpost requested a copy of all body-worn camera footage from county deputies during this incident. The county denied the request, saying the footage is exempt from disclosure because the use of force did not result in death or “great bodily injury.”

We believe that that determination is legally unjustified and we continue to work toward getting the footage released.

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DOCUMENT: Darrin Dickson v. County of Humboldt, Ryan Campadonia and DOES 1-40, inclusive

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Dolan Dillon and Kevin Stokes spoke very calmly for men who were dangling 30 feet off the ground. 

“Clip in here,” Dillon said. “Nice! You got it.” 

The Humboldt Bay Fire Department staged a training exercise today on the Redwood Sky Walk in Sequoia Park Zoo. They simulated rescuing someone who was roped underneath one of the Sky Walk’s bridges and couldn’t get up (in a real-life scenario, most likely a maintenance worker working on one of the bridges). 

By Dezmond Remington.

Zoo director Jim Campbell-Spickler said the idea for the exercise came from the fire department. 

“The forest is dynamic,” Campbell-Spickler said. “If we had a situation where a tree fell and people were trapped, we’d want to know that we could save them.”

“A lot of people use [the Sky Walk],” Fire Chief Sean Robertson Tim Citro said. “We have to be prepared for it.” [Whoops! — Ed.]

Firefighter Dillon was the victim and Stokes the savior. The actual rescue only took a few minutes — Stokes rappelled down off of the bridge, attached Dillon to his harness, and other firefighters slowly lowered them to the ground — but the setup took about an hour. The firefighters took the time to figure out the best way to attach two people to the bridge safely without damaging any of the trees. They decided on clipping carabiners through eyes in the I-beam frame in the bridge, attaching ropes to those, and then wrapping the ropes over the railing on the other side. They used French Prusik knots on the steel cables holding the bridge up as a back-up.

By Andrew Goff.

Both Campbell-Spickler and the firefighters made it clear that in an emergency they would just wrap a rope around one of the redwoods, aesthetic qualities of the bark be damned. 

Eureka’s city manager Miles Slattery offered to be the victim again after being a drowning victim in a different Humboldt Bay Fire training department several weeks ago, but Citro turned him down.

“We didn’t want to make it look like we were picking on him,” Citro said. 

On a related note, while my colleague Andrew Goff and I were leaving the drill, we noticed the zoo’s resident crested screamers building a nest around a egg. Pleased at this beautiful symbol of nature’s continual renewal, we pointed it out to Campbell-Spickler, who immediately notified several different zoo employees. Maybe Eurekans will be blessed with a baby screamer in the coming weeks. 

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PREVIOUSLY (2020):

• More Than Half of Humboldt’s Registered Voters Have Already Voted

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Voting has been going on for almost a month! Isn’t that amazing?

If you just woke up from a five-year coma, you might not know that there was a global pandemic that changed a whole lot of things — not least, in California, the way we cast ballots. Nowadays every registered voter gets mailed a ballot well before the election. You can fill it out at home, if you like, or mail it in, or drop it off at a drop box, or take it to one of the shrinking number of actual polling places to vote in-person, like you used to do.

This new system means that election workers are able to tally a large percentage of the vote before polls close (still 8 p.m. Tuesday, by the way). And though you’d think this means we’d get final results quicker, in fact that’s only true in the case of a blowout election. The large expansion of the number of ways to vote — vote-by-mail, same-day registration, provisional ballots, etc. — makes it something of a bear to account for every last ballot cast, to make sure it is the one true vote registered per citizen.

Humboldt County’s Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters, Juan Pablo Cervantes, tells us that his office has received 36,390 ballots as of this morning, which is about 43% of the number of ballots issued. Cervantes says that they’re hoping to process as many of those as they can before the polls close tomorrow. That’ll be the first vote tally update to be issued by the Elections Office sometime shortly after 8 p.m.

Forty-three percent turnout one day before actual Election Day sounds pretty good, but in fact it’s a bit down over the numbers four years ago. At this point in the 2020 cycle, the office had gotten back more than half of the number of ballots it had issued. When all was said and done, the county ended up with 81 percent voter turnout that year.

Are fewer people going to vote this year? Or was it just that fewer people planned to vote in-person in 2020, at the height of the pandemic? There’s no way to know! We’ll have to wait and see! Catch us back here tomorrow for all the usual LoCO Election Day fun.

Have you submitted your ballot yet? Are you unsure about how to do so? Well, in addition to the good old U.S. Mail — make sure you get it postmarked today or tomorrow! — you have the myriad options listed in this handy chart that went out with your voting materials.

Elections for community college board seats rarely make the spotlight in California. After voting for candidates for president, U.S. Congress, and the state Legislature, many voters skip the community college races altogether.

In Southern California, culture wars are starting to influence some of those races on this year’s ballot — and fueling hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. Debates over issues such as the display of pride flags also reflect tensions across many of California’s K-12 school districts, where similar topics have sparked hours-long public meetings, lawsuits, and a new wave of political action and election spending at the local level.

The community college races aren’t as contentious as some school board races have been, said Larry Galizio, the president and CEO of the Community College League of California. Of the nearly 230 community college board races taking place this November, more than half of them have just one candidate, according to a CalMatters analysis of public data. Small or rural community college districts often have the lowest levels of participation. If there’s only one candidate for a position, counties typically cancel that race, and the sole candidate wins, by default.

The same trend is true in California’s K-12 school districts: More than half of school board elections this November are uncontested, and many rural districts have no candidates running at all, according to an analysis of more than 1,500 school board races by EdSource.

Still, like growing tensions at some K-12 districts, community college board meetings have become more “vitriolic” in the last few years, Galizio said. Last summer, for example, trustee Ryan Bent proposed a resolution that would ban pride flags at the three campuses in the North Orange County Community College District. Although it failed, the proposal helped galvanize his opponents. Kyle Miller, who is challenging Bent this November, has raised more than $100,000 this election cycle on a platform that emphasizes getting partisan politics out of the community college district.

In Santa Clarita, located at the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County, two opposing political action committees are getting involved in the election for trustees at their community college district, which oversees the College of the Canyons. Collectively, the candidates and their committees have raised more than $450,000, according to campaign finance records. Both committees accuse the other of focusing on partisan issues, such as diversity, equity and inclusion or presidential politics.

But most of the races this November are like the one for the Cabrillo Community College District, which encompasses most of Santa Cruz County. Two years ago, board members voted to change the name of the district’s main campus (Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was a 16th century Portuguese explorer). After public outcry, board members delayed implementing their decision.

Next week’s election would have been the first opportunity for voters to weigh in on the board’s delay, but the county canceled the election since all four positions were uncontested.

“I fully anticipated to have someone to run against,” said Ken Wagman, one of the unopposed candidates for the board. “It saddens me. I think democracy is served by elections. When candidates are challenged, they’re forced to think, to communicate with their public. No one knows I’m running.”

‘Provocative political actions’ by community college leaders

Galizio said the COVID-19 pandemic helped shift the way that some residents viewed their elected college trustees. “Districts and (college) boards had to make very difficult decisions and there are always people who are opposed to those decisions,” he said. “That’s where you really started to see an increase in the intensity.”

In the past few years, many California community colleges began flying a pride flag for the first time — inciting vandalism and theft, especially in rural or historically conservative counties. Bent’s proposed resolution in Orange County would have prohibited his district’s campuses from displaying flags that represent “religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation” identities. These flags make some people feel “unvalidated, unwelcome or unrepresented” and have led to a decline in college enrollment, Bent wrote last July in the proposal.

Pushback came swiftly. Faculty, students, and local elected officials aligned with the Democratic Party, including Sen. Josh Newman and Assemblymember Sharon Quirk Silva, spoke out against the resolution, and it failed.

Now, it’s part of Miller’s campaign to unseat Bent. In an interview, Miller said such policies are “provocative political actions” that draw attention but distract from more important issues, such as campus infrastructure, faculty pay, and career education.

Bent declined requests for comment. Public records show that he has raised less than $2,000 for this election.

California law prohibits community college trustees from identifying with a political party on the ballot, but many candidates signal their party affiliation anyway, often through endorsements. Despite his campaign motto — “get politics out of education” — Miller accepted the endorsement of the Orange County Democratic Party.

“I’m not saying nobody is political,” he said. “I’m saying you don’t let it enter your job as trustee.”

In Santa Clarita, both political action committees agree that community college trustees shouldn’t focus on national politics or partisan issues — but they each claim their opponents are doing just that.

Wendy Brill-Wynkoop is a community college professor and the treasurer of the faculty union’s political action committee, which has supported four candidates for the Santa Clarita Community College District’s board of trustees. The race is about students, she said.

“I don’t think it should be politicized, and we haven’t politicized it at all,” she said. “But the other side has driven in the Trump parade with the candidate signs on their cars.”

“I’m not saying nobody is political. I’m saying you don’t let it enter your job as trustee.”
— Kyle Miller

This August, Harleen Grewal, a dentist, formed a rival political action committee, Santa Clarita Voices for Better Schools, which has supported four candidates for the community college board. Grewal denied any formal affiliation with the local Republican Party, though it has endorsed all four of her candidates. Instead, she said she formed the political action committee to fight back against the faculty union and “left-leaning” members of the board, who she said have advanced “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion), held “secret” board meetings, and “kicked out” the former college chancellor.

After a closed session meeting, the board placed the chancellor, Dianne Van Hook, on administrative leave this summer, without providing an explanation. Van Hook announced her retirement soon after. Around the same time, the local paper wrote an editorial, accusing the college board of violating the Brown Act, which generally prohibits public officials from meeting behind closed doors. Last week, Van Hook filed a wrongful termination claim against the district and the board.

No candidates in Humboldt

For some, a seat on a community college board is the first step in a political career. Former Gov. Jerry Brown served on the Los Angeles Community College District Board as his first elected position before becoming secretary of state and later, a two-time governor. Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat, and Assemblymember Mike Fong, a Monterey Park Democrat and the chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, both had stints as community college board members before joining the state Legislature.

Most of the governance of a community college involves implementing new policies and overseeing budgets, contracts, and executive staff. “I’d only encourage people to run if they’re serious and they understand that it’s a different kind of (elected) position,” Galizio said. He said the majority of those who run for a board seat have “no ambition for elective office beyond community college.”

Galizio said he’s concerned that some high-profile races may yield candidates who feel beholden to the interest groups, such as unions or developers, who financed their campaigns. But he emphasized that most races don’t have this problem.

In rural areas like Humboldt County, college boards struggle to find any candidates at all. In 2020, the College of the Redwoods appointed Rebecca Robertson, a professor at Cal Poly Humboldt, after nobody ran for one of the open board seats. “It’s a responsibility and an honor to serve on the board,” she said. “Ideally there would be competitive elections and multiple people to step forward.”

This August, she filed for re-election, but no one stepped up to challenge her. Then, last month, her husband accepted a job at the community college, creating a potential conflict of interest. Robertson decided to resign from the board, but since she’s the only candidate, she’ll be re-elected anyway.

“This is a small community, and there just aren’t a lot of people who stand up to take these positions,” she said.

After the election, she’ll have to resign, again, so the board can appoint a successor.

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Data reporter Jeremia Kimelman contributed to this reporting.

Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Press release from the Humboldt Arts Council:

Morris, or lovingly known as Morrie, the ceramic banana slug created for the 2024 Eureka Street Art Festival by local artists Shannon Sullivan and Jessica Swan, was brazenly stolen from the Melvin Schuler Sculpture Garden at the Morris Graves Museum of Art the night of November 2nd following Arts Alive.

After welcoming over 800 community members to the monthly celebration of the arts and town art walk, Humboldt Arts Council staff locked up and said goodnight to Morris. Sometime between 9 p.m. and 11 a.m. Sunday morning, the thief(s) cut the lock and chain that secures the Sculpture Garden gate and pried Morris from his post where he greets passersby’s on the Seventh Street side of the MGMA.

“We are devastated by the theft of our beloved Morris the Slug. Art is meant to connect the community and bring us together. In such a divided time it is art that can unite us, and that is what Morris was intended to do.” Says Jemima Harr, Executive Director-Curator of the Humboldt Arts Council.

HAC Staff are working closely with the Eureka Police Department and ask the public’s assistance in keeping an eye out and an ear open to any known clues of where Morris the Slug might be or who might have taken off with him.

Just next week the MGMA was planning to welcome local students on a field trip to view Morris, and it will be very unfortunate to tell the young artists that Morris is missing. “Public art is meant to be freely accessible to all, and it is so disheartening that someone would intentionally take it away from the community,” says Harr.

Cal Poly Humboldt University Police Department release:

The University Police Department (UPD) is seeking the public’s assistance in an ongoing investigation into incidents of vandalism that occurred on campus Saturday, November 2, 2024 at approximately 2:15 am. The incidents involve significant property damage to Siemens Hall and the Forbes Gym. The police department is seeking information that could lead to the identification of those responsible.

The Police Department is actively reviewing surveillance footage and following up on leads. However, any additional information from the public could be critical in identifying suspects. Anyone with information is urged to contact the University Police Department at 707-826-5555 or submit a tip though the Rave Guardian (https://www.humboldt.edu/basic-needs/safety) mobile app.  Rave Guardian is available on the Apple Store and Google Play Store apps. 

Tips can remain anonymous. UPD would like to thank the community in advance for any assistance in this matter

Let’s assume you hate the results of the upcoming Presidential election. Yes, I know there’s a possibility we may not know the outcome Tuesday night. But go with me on this…

The winner of the Electoral College is not the one you voted for. Your blood pressure skyrockets. Your bags are packed to move to a remote island in the middle of the ocean. You’re ready to abandon every investment you’ve ever owned and sit in cash ‘til kingdom come.

Before you feel all those things, I want you to hear three key points from me today.

#1 Compound interest is magical, but it only holds its power if it’s allowed to compound.

Take a look at the chart above.¹ Some of those events are elected Presidents that you may have an allergic reaction to. Some of those crises were objectively bad and caused economic and human suffering.

Still, here’s the bottom line: investing $10,000 in 1970 in the S&P 500—the stock market index of the largest companies in America—grew to $2,645,998 by 2024.

If you tried to time the dips over that time frame, selling on the ugliness of each particular crisis or the elections you didn’t like, how would you have known when to get back in and buy?

#2 Timing the market is super hard.

If you miss out on the best days of the market, you’ll likely face much lower investment returns.²

Visual Capitalist shows that if you had invested $10,000 in 2003 and missed the best 60 days of the market in that 20-year time frame, you would only have $4,205 instead of $64,844. 

Bummer, right?

Lest you think you won’t miss the best days of the market because you’ll only be in when they’re at their best, you need to understand something—most of the market’s best days over the last few decades have been during bad bear markets. Here’s the chart:

This supports the wise words of Warren Buffett’s late right-hand man Charlie Munger, “The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.”³

#3 Be cautious about where you get your investment advice from and how you make investment decisions.

You probably shouldn’t take investment advice from people who don’t know your financial situation or people who say they know investing but may not face any consequences for what they say.

This means you may need to reconsider making investment decisions based on financial television, your social media feed, your favorite YouTube channel, or the political friend you’re texting on Election Night.

Here’s the kicker: Even the things I say here are general investment principles, not personal investment advice. There may be reasons why you should take various actions in your investment portfolio, but who is in the White House should not be the exclusive one. After all, investment portfolios and financial plans aren’t just about stocks anyway.

“This time is different,” you might say. Maybe. But that phrase is one of the most dangerous sentences that can come out of an investors mouth. It can be used to justify a decision that feels great in the present but looks foolish in hindsight. As one trader put it, “It can be very expensive to try to convince the markets you are right.” Or in the piercing words of comedian Rick Gervais on The View: “Just ‘cause you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.”

This is not a forecast that the stock market will perform a certain way based on the election outcome. It’s simply a reminder to be careful letting America’s decision about the 2024 Presidential election be the decisive moment of your financial planning future.

# # #

Sources:

• 1 First Trust. First Quarter 2024 Research Kit. Accessed online: https://www.ftportfolios.com/Commentary/Insights/2024/4/1/markets-in-perspective-client-resource-kit–first-quarter-2024
• 2 “Timing the Market: Why It’s So Hard, in One Chart” by Dorothy Neufeld and Miranda Smith. Accessed online: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-timing-the-market/
• 3 Quoted by financial author Morgan Housel on October 8, 2018. Accessed online: https://x.com/morganhousel/status/1049392552175124481?lang=en

Brandon Stockman has been a Wealth Advisor licensed with the Series 7 and 66 since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. He has the privilege of helping manage accounts throughout the United States and works in the Fortuna office of Johnson Wealth Management. You can sign up for his weekly newsletter on investing and financial education or subscribe to his YouTube channel. Securities and advisory services offered through Prospera Financial Services, Inc. | Member FINRA, SIPC. This should not be considered tax, legal, or investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.