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Forget about hunting for eggs this Easter season! Northcoast Children’s Services (NCS) has something much more interesting planned for you – a weeks-long hunt for colorfully painted rocks, spanning across Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

For most of April, the community will have the chance to search for 135 hand-painted rocks across the two counties, spanning as far south as Redway, north to Smith River and east to Willow Creek and Orleans. The lucky folks who find one of these rocks, will be entered into a drawing to win a $50 gas card.

Christy Snyder, enrollment recruitment manager for NCS, told the Outpost that the event is simply meant to serve as a fun way to bring awareness to NCS and the Head Start program, which provides services for income-eligible pregnant women and families with children under five – including food access, healthcare, daycare and preschool. NCS usually conducts recruitment efforts by going door-to-door once per week. But during COVID, that became a lot more difficult and less fun, Snyder said.

“My thought process was ‘How can we get the word out about Northcoast Children’s Services and make it fun?’” Snyder told the Outpost. “And I just thought, ‘everybody loves finding rocks.’ I’ve found a couple with my grandkids and I love it when I find them.”

So, NCS staff and volunteers set to work collecting and decorating the stones. The kids from one of NCS’s preschools – Sonoma Street Head Start in Eureka — even helped-out, painting rocks as a curriculum project, Snyder said.

A kiddo from Head Start displays their rock art

Starting on Monday, April 4, NCS staff and volunteers will spend the week hiding the rocks, and the hunt will go on for about three weeks. Snyder said that she instructed her helpers to “hide the rocks in plain sight” so that they won’t be too difficult to find, and to place them in areas where families would go – such as parks, outside of grocery stores and on hiking trails, like the Hammond Trail or the Waterfront Trail in Eureka.

Though NCS is designing the hunt to be family-friendly, Snyder said that everyone in the community is welcome to join in the fun. “I don’t care who they are, whether they have kids or not,” she said. If you find one of the hidden rocks, all you have to do is call the number on the back (that is also how you will know that it is an NCS rock, and not someone else’s painted rock) and you will be entered into the raffle. 

Of course, NCS will want to chat with you about the organization – ask you if you have kids, or if you know anyone who has kids. Spreading the word about NCS and the Head Start programs is, after all, kind of the point. And spreading the word about NCS is more crucial than ever, Snyder said, since preschools and childcare centers are struggling to recover from the pandemic.

“COVID has hit childcare and preschools hard,” Snyder said. “Our biggest issue at the agency is staff. We’ve had to close a few centers because we just don’t have staff. So, we do want to get the word out and let people know that there is preschool available. And then, hopefully, we can find more staff, so we can reopen those preschools.”

The city of Fortuna continues to mourn the loss of retired police chief Bill Dobberstein who died this past weekend. Today Matt Eberhardt, a lieutenant with the Fortuna Police Department, penned the following remembrance of his late colleague which was posted to FPD’s social media:

FPD

We have been grieving the loss of retired Police Chief Bill Dobberstein. He lived a life of service to others. He served in the United States Air force and he served as a member of the Fortuna Police Department for over 25 years, retiring as Chief of Police in January of 2020.

Bill loved Fortuna and public safety. Throughout his career he saved lives, inspired others and truly made a significant impact on those who had the pleasure of knowing him. Bill was a fun loving friend, coworker and Chief. We remember the smiles he gave us and the laughs we enjoyed with him. The members of the Fortuna Police Department honor his memory and extend our condolences to his family, friends and all those he touched in his amazing life.

As the agency’s Facebook manager it has taken me some time to gather my thoughts. Bill was a friend and significant part of my everyday life for many years. He is missed and I was honored to be his friend and coworker.

-Lt. Matt Eberhardt

In the acronym soup of California public higher education, gone are two three-letter combos that led legions of students to plug their noses annually: The SAT and ACT are (functionally) no more.

After the California State University system formally ditched the SAT and ACT as admissions requirements last week, the state is now the first — and only — in the United States to have no public university accepting standardized test scores for admissions.

The Cal State system followed in the University of California’s footsteps, which swore off the SAT and any other admissions test last year.

Cal State officials and the system’s academic senate cited studies showing that high school grades better predict how well students will perform in their first year of college than test scores. Other data showed that predictive power only went up marginally when test scores were combined with high school grades; the makers of the SAT say the test’s predictive boost is significant. Critics have also long maintained that the SAT rewards students who have the financial resources to hire tutors or enroll in prep courses to improve their test scores, leaving low-income students at a disadvantage.

Both the UC and Cal State system are now “test-blind” — a rarefied club of 86 academic institutions and systems nationwide. Another 1,825 other campuses don’t require test scores but will still assess them if a student submits that information, a concept known as “test-optional.”

So, what will the era of admissions without tests look like at the nation’s largest public four-year university?

The future of Cal State admissions

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, the system’s 23 campuses chiefly admitted students based on a formula of high school grades and ACT or SAT scores. Only in the last two years, after suspending its SAT requirement during the pandemic, has the system relied on other factors.

The system’s Admissions Advisory Council plans to submit a final set of admissions eligibility criteria to the California State University Office of the Chancellor by late spring.

The recommendations will largely reflect the work the system did during the pandemic to replace its testing requirements with additional information about an applicant’s high school grades and socio-economic factors.

Currently, the minimum eligibility requirement is a 2.5 grade point average for California high school graduates and a 3.0 if the applicant isn’t a state resident. Another is to complete the required 15 courses in math, English, science, history and other subjects, known as A-G courses. Some campuses accept slightly lower GPAs but consider other academic and socio-economic factors.The Admissions Advisory Council — in the first change to the system’s eligibility index since 1965 — is instead proposing that the minimum eligibility criteria include four factors:

• the students’ GPAs for the 15 required courses;
• whether students passed more than 15 of the required courses during their time in high school;
• whether students attend either a high school that is near the Cal State campus to which they’re applying or attend a high school with a high percentage of students who receive federal meal subsidies because they’re low-income;
• other socio-economic and interpersonal factors, such as whether students worked during high school, had no one else in their family complete college, had family commitments or volunteered.

The system is now developing the minimum GPA and weights for these factors. Once published, campuses will be able to use a formula to calculate whether applicants are eligible for admissions. It’s a quantitative approach that resembles use of an eligibility formula during the SAT era. Officials may continue to tweak it over time.

The Cal State system will roll out its new criteria gradually, giving it time to communicate the details to high school counselors. Current high school juniors who apply to enroll at a Cal State in fall 2023 will be admitted based on the current minimum eligibility criteria. Today’s high school sophomores seeking entry into a Cal State for fall 2024 will be admitted based on the current criteria or the new eligibility index in the works — whichever is more advantageous for them. Students applying for fall 2025 admissions will be governed by the new index.

Abandoning test-based criteria couldn’t come sooner for low-income students, said Cal State trustee ​​Krystal Raynes, an undergraduate at Cal State Bakersfield.

“I remember saving up my lunch money to take both the PSAT and the SAT because my parents didn’t know what that was and didn’t want to spend money on me taking a test,” she said at the March board meeting, a day before the trustees voted unanimously to ditch admissions tests. “Meanwhile I knew students who were prepping with tutors in junior high, so there’s definitely that economic gap there.”

Criteria for more competitive campuses

But minimum eligibility isn’t enough of a cut-off for numerous Cal State universities. Right now seven universities are fully impacted, a technical designation meaning a major, program or the whole university receives applications from more qualified students than there’s space. All but seven campuses have at least one major program that’s impacted.

The Cal State admissions policy plan is to allow these oversubscribed programs to continue using a combination of up to 21 different admissions factors to admit students. These overlap partly with the newly proposed minimum eligibility criteria but include other variables, such as grades in specific high school subjects, whether students qualify for an application fee waiver and their military status. No campus uses all 21 factors for admissions.

Like the minimum eligibility index in development, all of these factors are data the Cal State application already collects. The system software is sophisticated enough to calculate the admissions scores for each campus based on the admissions criteria they select.

Though the Cal State system admits 93% of the California high school students who apply, several campuses are far more selective. Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and San Diego State, the most competitive, admit only a third of their California freshmen applicants.

Spotlight on admissions criteria at popular campuses

Presently six of the 23 Cal State campuses won’t consider any in-state student with a GPA below a 2.5. Even within this group, campuses are using multiple factors to handle their influx of applicants by balancing academic and socio-economic factors.

“Unequivocally, I think it is a great move” to remove admissions tests, said San Diego State President Adela de la Torre. “If we’re going to talk about diversity and inclusion, you have to have metrics that reflect a broader set of criteria.”

“If we’re going to talk about diversity and inclusion, you have to have metrics that reflect a broader set of criteria.”
— Adela de la Torre, president of San Diego State University

The San Diego university expanded its criteria for admission for students entering last fall. Half of the admissions score is based on the GPA a student earned in the 15 required courses for entry. The other half includes the grades in math and science courses, foreign language, history and whether a student comes from a local high school. The university also gives extra points for signs of socio-economic hardship among students applying from nearby high schools or entering special programs for marginalized students, like for foster youth.

San Diego State will largely keep this formula beyond 2023, but like other campuses, it may change its weights and add more admissions variables over time.

Long Beach State guarantees admission to local high school students who meet the minimum eligibility requirements. Other students will be held to a higher admissions standard. All impacted Cal State campuses give some kind of admissions priority to applicants attending local high schools. Long Beach State has more than 50 public and private high schools in its local service area.

At Cal Poly-Pomona, 86% of the points in the admissions formula come from academic factors and 14% are based on non-academic areas.

Unlike the UC, Cal State has no admissions readers

The UC campuses hire hundreds of part-time application readers who undergo training to go through every application. The Cal States have no readers and never did. And unlike the UC, the Cal State application doesn’t ask students to provide essays or extended written responses.

UCLA hires 200 part-time readers who earn stipends of $1,350 to $2,500 depending on the number of applications they review. The university received nearly 150,000 freshmen undergraduate applications for fall 2022 enrollment, the most in the country. Other UC campuses shared that they bring on 50 to 160 readers; the numbers vary depending on each campus’s application volume.

The price tag for readers at UCLA is between $400,000 and $500,000. Meanwhile, the entire operating budgets of the admissions offices at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and Cal State Fullerton are $2.2 million. [CORRECTION: This story originally overstated the price of readers at UCLA. It has been corrected.]

Cal State campus admissions officials will occasionally review individual applications, such as when a denied student files an appeal. Admissions teams also spot-check applications to see if students omitted required information. Plus some music and performing arts programs require applicants to submit portfolios that faculty then review.

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

Patricia Ann Welsh was born on November 1, 1936 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Edward and Nan Maguire. She fondly remembered playing in her Germantown neighborhood streets and parks, walking to school, and spending summer holidays enjoying the family beach house in Cape Cod, N.J.

At 13 she met Jimmy Welsh. The two fell in love and dreamed of making a life on their own in the west, far from the city where they were raised. They had a fairytale wedding the year Patricia turned 19. They drove away from their wedding reception in a truck and trailer as they headed off to begin their new life in California. Their song, “Let the Rest of the World Go By,” includes the lyrics: “We’ll build a little nest, somewhere out in the west, and let the rest of the world go by.” That is exactly what they did. On June 30, 2021, they celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Our family grew up on their stories of adventures and mishaps and learned the value of undying love and loyalty from their example.

Jim and Pat have four children, 13 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Pat’s legacy lives on in the thinking, practices and hobbies of them all: baking, gardening, games, knitting, crafting, quilting, creating and traveling. She was a first-class baker who provided treats with no limits and spoiled her family with homemade bread for decades. A dedicated knitter, crocheter and quilter, Mom gifted us many handmade works of art and heart. From afghans, purses, treasure bags, and quilts, to crocheted holiday ornaments, snowmen, and Christmas trees, her legacy will live on each time we wrap up in or decorate with her beautiful handicrafts.

Pat never left any doubt that her highest priority and greatest joy came from her family and the homes she and Jim created as they raised their four children in a manner so divergent from the city childhood they had both experienced. They raised their children with the natural world at their doorstep. They raised kids who knew how to hunt, chop wood, build fires, feed baby cows and goats, collect eggs, hike mountains, and appreciate the gifts of a life being raised by a mother who always loved deeply and unconditionally. These priorities have become our basic family values and are shared across the generations.

Many of our most treasured family traditions are centered around Mom. Every summer we looked forward to berry picking and enjoying her fresh blackberry pies. In fall our family and friends gathered to pick apples and press gallons of cider. Mom loved keeping a careful tally of the day’s work. Apples that fell off the trees prior to pressing day were lovingly prepared by Mom into applesauce, apple butter or one of Mom’s delicious pies. Every Christmas Eve, Mom played the piano while family and friends gathered to sing carols. She practiced for weeks, doubted her skill, and sometimes had to start again, but that event will live on in the memories of us all as one of our most beloved days of the year.

Early in their marriage, Pat worked as a secretary. She was a speed typist and excelled at shorthand, frustrating her children by writing Christmas lists they could not read. She returned to secretarial work at the HSU Nursing department and Humboldt Home Health once her children were raised. She was a philanthropist and a volunteer, serving as a leader for her local PTA, Girl Scouts, and Boy Scouts, supporting her children’s sports teams, and serving as a Braille transcriber for many years, going on to become president of the local Braille association. She loved challenges and stayed on top of advances in tech, making a seamless transition from using manual Braille typewriters to a completely computerized system. Her greatest joy was brailling books for children.

Pat suffered a massive heart attack in 2016 that left her winded when doing large tasks, but did not slow down her knitting projects or Sudoku challenges. The downtime allowed her to master her iphone and opened new lines of communication with her farflung grandchildren. Every text from “Mamu” ended with several emojis… always including a heart, a musical note and often an “LOL.”

Last summer saw a return of Mom’s heart issues. In late November, she experienced two additional major heart attacks and had to be resuscitated both times. We thought, and the medical professionals believed, that our time together had come to an end. Miraculously, she recovered and returned home to enjoy six weeks of feeling better than she had in years. During this time she created one last bright pink afghan to welcome her newest great grandchild and practiced daily for the annual Christmas Eve caroling piano accompaniment. Most of our large and widespread family was able to visit with her during this period and lots of laughs and tears were shared as we knew we were living and loving on borrowed time.

On February 28th, Mom’s heart gave out. A hundred years would not have been enough, but we know her body was tired and she was ready to say goodbye. Nothing truly lessens the pain of losing her. We are forever grateful and in awe of our dad who, through sheer force of will and a lifetime of love, put everything else on hold to lovingly care for her at home. Throughout her life home has always been where she preferred to be and it is fitting and comforting that she was able to spend her last days in the place she loved best.

Pat is survived by the love of her life: her loving husband of 65 years, James Welsh. She leaves behind her four children and their spouses who Pat loved as if they were her own: Rosemarie and John Gloor (McKinleyville), Daniel and Amy Welsh (Citrus Heights), Chris and Deb Welsh (Knoxville, TN), and Phyllis and Tom Nolan (McKinleyville); her beloved grandchildren: Logan Gloor, Kelsey Iberti, Liza Welsh, Cathy Albert, Taylor LeBlanc, Rachel Voorhees, Jenny Welsh, Thomas Nolan, Emily Welsh, Corina Montgomery, Marisa Gloor, Ben Welsh, and Austin Nolan and her five great-grandchildren: Nick Cavallero, Wyatt Albert, Luca Iberti, Owen LeBlanc, and Jolene Albert. She is survived by her sister, JoAnn Reckner (Wisconsin), brother, John Maguire (Pennsylvania), and her sisters-in-law: Genevieve Bottoroff (Florida) and Margie Stiehl (New Jersey).

Our family would like to thank those who provided support for Mom and our family: Paulette Crowell, Denise Witte, Mad River Ambulance, Humboldt Hospice, St. Joseph’s Family Practice, Dr. Tin Botzler and the Providence Medical Group Cardiology team, and the incredible nursing staffs of Mad River and St. Joseph’s hospitals.

At her request, there will be no funeral services. A celebration of her life will be held this summer.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Patricia Welsh’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

Press release from the Calfire Humboldt-Del Norte Unit:

As early as next week, work may begin on a fuels reduction project near Redway, California. The fuel treatments are designed to reduce the severity and spread of potential wildfire in the urban interface environment. This project will enhance defensible space around the Redway community in State Responsibility Areas (SRA).

This fuel reduction project is a collaborative effort between CAL FIRE Humboldt – Del Norte Unit, Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council, and the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District. This project is a result of the ongoing efforts of the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council to improve the resilience of Southern Humboldt communities to wildfire.

The planned fuel treatments encompass 142 acres of land adjacent to Redway. Contract crews will use, masticators, hand tools, weed-eaters, chainsaws, and wood-chippers to reduce excess fuels in the area. The excess fuel removal will involve weed-eating, brush removal, thinning of trees, and falling of small trees. Any trees removed will typically be small overcrowded suppressed trees. Remaining trees will also have the lower limbs removed to eliminate “ladder fuel.” Ladder fuels are vegetative fuels that provide a path for wildfire to climb from surface fuels like grass and brush, up into the crowns of trees. By removing brush, ladder fuels, and smaller trees, vegetative fuels are separated, and the fire hazard severity is reduced. Most understory vegetation will be lopped and scattered or chipped into mulch.

The year 2021 was another devastating record setting year for wildfire in California. CAL FIRE is continuing work throughout the state to treat vegetative fuels and create more resilient landscapes. The intent is to reduce the number, size, and severity of wildfires and to protect homes and other structures. As CAL FIRE begins this endeavor, Humboldt – Del Norte Unit Chief Kurt McCray would like to encourage homeowners in wildland areas to continue work to create defensible space around their homes. With increased defensible space around homes and fuel treatments such as this project provides, both individual homes and entire communities will stand safer against wildfire.To learn more about this and other similar projects, get involved with the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council by visiting https://humboldtgov.org/1888/Southern-Humboldt-FSC, or visit the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District at http://humboldtrcd.org/.

For more information on how to prepare your home from wildfire, visit www.ReadyForWildfire.org.

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Uplift Eureka – a program established through the city’s Community Access Project Eureka (CAPE) to support our local unhoused population – will soon be able to help around 100 homeless individuals get off of the streets, after receiving a $1,030,111 Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG-CV) aimed at mitigating the impacts on the homeless population created by COVID-19.

Jeff Davis, program coordinator for Uplift, told the Outpost that the funding will be used to expand and enhance Uplift’s outreach services and provide rapid rehousing and emergency shelters. More than $300,000 will go toward rapid rehousing — a low-barrier method of housing support that provides recipients with rental assistance and services. The funds can help cover deposits and rental costs for the tenants, Davis said, adding that the funding should be able to help rehouse up to 40 homeless individuals in Humboldt County.

Just like it sounds, rapid rehousing is meant to provide homeless people with housing quickly and without preconditions like employment or income. Of course, that can be difficult since landlords usually require verifiable income and rental history. Uplift helps homeless people overcome these barriers by working with landlords and management companies that are open to taking tenants who don’t meet those usual qualifications.

“It’s difficult because the City of Eureka doesn’t just have the properties for us to put them in city-owned properties,” Davis told the Outpost. “We’ve been doing rapid rehousing for the last three years, so we’ve really built a relationship with various management companies in town.”

The program offers landlord incentives, such as a sign-on bonus, for participating in the rapid housing program. Even more valuable, Davis said, is that Uplift provides ongoing support to help if a tenant is causing problems. “If there is an issue there, the landlord can call us up,” Davis said. “They have a whole support team.”

Though Uplift generally focuses on serving Eureka’s homeless community, the recipients of rapid rehousing assistance will be selected through the Humboldt Housing & Homeless Coalition’s coordinated entry system, meaning anyone experiencing homelessness in Humboldt County can potentially be eligible. 

In addition to providing more rapid housing, the grant funding will go toward expanding Uplift’s outreach efforts, allowing Uplift to hire more staff, purchase medical supplies and add two additional outreach vehicles. Uplift staff often visit local homeless encampments to find people who need and want housing or services. The additional mobile outreach vehicles will act as offices of sorts, Davis said, allowing Uplift to assist people on site with services such as help obtaining a California I.D. or social security card, or signing them up for services such as CalFresh or Medi-Cal.

Uplift’s outreach efforts will also be expanded to focus more on emergency medical and mental health services. Davis said this expansion ties into the city’s long-term plan to develop an “alternative response team” to work with the Eureka Police Department. The concept, which many cities have implemented as part of police reform efforts, is to hire mental health specialists who can respond to 911 calls involving mental health crises.

The city is not ready to make those changes just yet, Davis said. But the hope is that Uplift’s outreach expansion will help lay the foundation by training some of these specialists so that by the time the EPD is able to have the mental health response team, they will already have experience in the field.

“A lot of this is going out and doing preemptive outreach with medical professionals, mental health clinicians, to go to encampments, go to where folks are and try to engage them and provide them with these services before these conditions worsen to the point where it requires a call for service or a trip to the emergency room,” Davis said.

Uplift will also use some of the grant funding to provide emergency shelter for homeless folks in need by providing them with motel vouchers, giving them a temporary place to stay indoors while Uplift works with them to secure more permanent housing. Finding emergency shelter space can be very difficult, Davis said, as the City of Eureka does not operate an emergency shelter and the local homeless shelters are often full. Also, because the Eureka Rescue Mission operates two different shelters – one for men and one for women and children – family units often have to be separated to move indoors. Sheltering people in motel rooms allows for couples and families to stay together.

Unlike the rapid rehousing program, people do not have to go through the coordinated entry system to move into the emergency motel housing. The rooms will be based on need, with Uplift conducting outreach to local homeless people, finding folks who need and want to get off the streets immediately/ Priority will be given to those with health issues.

The funding should cover rooms for about 60 individuals, Davis said. Though motel shelters are not a permanent solution, they provide a critical service, offering people a clean, warm and safe environment, thereby giving them an opportunity to secure more permanent housing or employment, he explained.

“It really helps to stabilize people while we’re searching for housing,” Davis said. “Everything is easier once you’re housed – once you have access to heat, a shower, running water, a toilet, a place where people can lock up their belongings and not have to worry if their possession will disappear while they’re gone.”

You can visit Uplift Eureka’s website for more information on the various programs and resources available to help homeless individuals secure housing and employment. If you are interested in the rapid rehousing program, you can sign up for the HHHC coordinated entry system by calling 2-1-1, or visiting 211humboldt.org.

The only requirement is that you are currently homeless.

Sentencing was postponed this morning for Delano Blayze Malang, convicted of mayhem for biting off half the thumb of an Arcata police sergeant.

Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis granted the continuance after defense attorney R.J. Leohner said he has not received Malang’s mental health records from out-of-state. He did not request the records until last week.

“It was an error on my part that it wasn’t filed earlier,” Leohner told the judge.

Deputy District Attorney Trent Timm, the trial prosecutor, was blind-sided by the defense asking for a delay. He had notified APD Sgt. Heidi Groszmann, the officer whose thumb was bitten, that Malang was being sentenced this morning. Groszmann came to court prepared to speak to the judge.

“We definitely object to a continuance in this case,” Timm said. “I did not know there was a motion to continue until now.”

He said Groszmann took time off work to come to court and make a statement.

“She has rights,” Timm said. “Her rights are being trampled on by defense counsel.”

Leohner responded he would not object to Groszmann speaking today rather than waiting for the sentencing, but she said she would wait. Sentencing is now scheduled for May 13.

Malang grew up in a small town in Oregon but had been homeless in Arcata for several months when the thumb-biting incident occurred on Aug. 1, 2021. Officers, with great difficulty, were trying to take Malang into custody because they suspected he was high on methamphetamine.

If Malang does have mental problems, the issue wasn’t addressed during his trial.

But Elvine-Kreis said this morning Malang’s mental health will be something he considers at sentencing.

He apologized to Groszmann for the delay but said “good cause (for continuance) is good cause.” He noted Malang is not to blame for the records being unavailable.

Malang, who wears a red jumpsuit signifying he is segregated from the jail’s general population, sat silently next to his attorney this morning. At age 22 he already has one “strike” for robbery and now could face a long prison sentence for mayhem and causing great bodily injury.

Malang testified during the trial and acknowledged his crime. He denied he was under the influence of meth at the time.

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PREVIOUSLY: 

• Testimony Wraps in Case of Arcata Man Accused of Biting Off Cop’s Thumb; Defense Attorney Reprimanded For Mocking Officers
• ‘He Brought the APD to its Knees,’ Boasts Defense Attorney Of Client Who Bit Off Officer’s Thumb; Jury Begins Deliberations
• Thumb Biter Found Guilty on All Counts; Judge Declines to Jail Defense Attorney for Poor Behavior During Trial