watchpaul: 2017

Friday, June 02, 2017

Watching this case... Justice doesn't mean stringing a suspect up on the nearest tree

Actually not so much the case as the shit-show that has emerged in its aftermath.

The short story is a HSU college student was stabbed/killed at a late night party. A local kid was arrested for and then charged with the murder.

Mad River Union: 19-year-old David Josiah Lawson, a student at Humboldt State University, was later pronounced dead at the Mad River Hospital as a result of the stab wounds.

23-year-old Kyle Christopher Zoellner, of Mckinleyville, was arrested at the scene for homicide. Zoellner was booked at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for PC 187 - Homicide.

The judge found that there was not enough evidence to support going to trial, for example, the accused's finger prints do not match the prints on the knife.... and charges were dismissed.

And THEN, the shit-show began in earnest.

The accused is white, the deceased was black. Friends of the deceased have decided to make it all about race, and have taken to smearing an entire community over their imagined characterizations.

And they've taken to trying to silence those reporting on the court proceedings.

They want their Baltimore moment. They want the accused strung up by a tree and hanged by the neck until dead, evidence or no. It would make them feel better. The concept of innocent until proven guilty means nothing.

One of those parties, Tina Sampay (aka Slauson Girl, aka Mary Machiavelli), has a blog and is writing about the proceedings, and her opinions about all of it. She has also been commenting on local sites covering the case, she is vitriolic, aggressive, demeaning, and filled with hate. Her ignorance of this area and the people here is deep and profound, and she is not interested in learning, or seeing any of the good. She has gone so far as to try taking John Chiv to court for something - a restraining order? apparently in order to stop him from reporting things she does not agree with. All while claiming to be a journalism major (from HSU)

The purpose here is simply to provide links to ALL of the coverage of the case, including hers. Much like cases we've covered before, it'll be one place where you can find all links to all the coverage. If I miss any you can let me know.

Once-regular readers know this blog is now dormant - but this is important.

Much remains to be discovered, 100 or so kids at the party, possibly many witnesses not interviewed, now gone home for the summer since school is out for the summer, people not cooperating even when they were here, lots of cop-hatred and suspicion of police.

Everyone wants to get to the bottom of it - no one wants a murderer walking around loose. Neither do we want an innocent kid going to prison for something he didn't do. Everyone has enormous sympathy for the family of the victim, And for the accused and his family, as it turns out.

The rush to judgement by some public officials in the early days following the shooting was something to behold. The willingness to buy into the race-based narrative is very sad. IN particular, HSU's actions only fueled the flames. My opinion.

The D.A. (Thank God it's Maggie Flemming now and not Paul Gallegos) points out that any future charges will hinge on available evidence.

The investigation is ongoing.

The Mad River Union points out -

Information about the stabbing can be submitted to investigators at the Arcata Police Department, (707) 822-2428, the District Attorney’s Office, (707) 445-7411, or to Lawson’s attorney, Justin Sanders, at (213) 426-5000, ext. 1000.

NOTE: And here you have, in the comments... ***
Mary Machavelli May 29, 2017 at 11:48 AM
Seeing as we have a court date tomorrow chiv, for this type of behavior of you stalking and harrasing me online when I am doing a public service FOR FREE and you still wont stop, is sickening. It is ok as i am prepared to go to the fullest extent of the law in pursuing you and your antics. Stop posting lies about me or our time in court will not be over anytime soon. It is a shame yall are this OLD and have no sense of judgement or "journalism" ethics. What ever platform you have here for people to attack me means nothing because I know what I am doing is way more important than wasting time to slander someone. See you at court tomorrow. 2:00 p.m #ChivsDayInCourt #WontBeTheLast slow news day??

◼ The investigation for David Josiah Lawson's case remains open and active - John Chiv/Words Worth May 30, 2017

Mad River Union:

Initial reports:

◼ Police seek witnesses to Saturday’s fatal Arcata stabbing - Mad River Union April 17, 2017
◼ HSU Community comes together to remember slain student and support family - Humboldt State April 18, 2017
◼ Arcata Police Dept. receives anonymous email from stabbing witness - Arcata Police April 18, 2017

APD received an anonymous email from someone who may have witnessed the homicide. The email detailed specifics of the assault. The APD implores the author of the email to come forward and provide a statement to investigators. An anonymous email cannot be used as evidence.

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Paul Gallegos

The Humboldt County Grand Jury found that "Weak leadership and poor managerial practices" have undermined the office... Implicit in all evidence gathered by the Grand Jury - including interviews with the D.A. (Paul Gallegos) - is the unfortunate truth that the D.A. (Paul Gallegos) exhibits a limited understanding of how things are done in the department" Gallegos "lacks the global perspective needed to keep the department operating efficiently," and quotes an unnamed staff member as saying, "The D.A. (Paul Gallegos) does not fully understand the functionality of many of the things we do here" - Years later, in his own words: "I’m not an administrator, they didn’t elect me to be an administrator, they elected me to make sure this office runs..."

Douglas & Zanotti

CASE TOSSED The district attorney misrepresented the law and failed to provide evidence of former Eureka Police Chief David Douglas' and Lt. Tony Zanotti's innocence during a criminal grand jury inquiry into the 2006 shooting death of Cheri Lyn Moore, defense attorneys argued in court documents filed Thursday... ”Our judicial system stands as a real and necessary check on the grand jury indictment process,” one of the documents states. “This court has the authority and the means by which to halt this prosecution, which is justified neither by the undisputed facts, nor by the law.”

Gallegos has taken what was "arguably the state's best small DA's office, with a cutting edge CAST program that "trained the trainers"... into a bunch of time serving bureaucratic wannabee brown nosers, lightly sprinkled with a couple of earnest learners who are sure to split as soon as possible.

One weeps for Max Cardoza who won Angellel, and for Maggie Fleming who won so many impossible victories. Mired in Humboldt for personal reasons, they have to suffer the ignominy of working for Paul, with Yougo, yes, yougo who has freed more people as a prosecutor than he did as a defense attorney. As has Paul. Anonymous comment

Gallegos has answers for everything. I’ve never met anyone whose answers came so quickly, with such polish - except about his law school(s). He likely sounded the same way when promising to get prosecutors off their anachronistic “at will” status and onto civil service status. It never happened. Indeed, he told them, “Disloyalty will not be tolerated” – a real morale builder.

He sounds great. What progressive doesn’t want to believe in him? But it’s a myth. He’s an intellectual lightweight and self-aggrandizer who tries to please everybody with glib answers. Jim Fahey for The Arcata Eye

The Humboldt County DA's office is one of the most exciting prosecutorial
offices in California.

Its District Attorney, Paul Gallegos, is willing to charge anyone who commits
wrongdoing--no matter how wealthy, sacrosanct, or ruthless. He believes in total equality before the law. He also plans to be innovative in promoting programs of prevention and treatment. He wants to make it the best prosecutorial office of its size in the nation.... Gallegos' Help Wanted ad

Gallegos' OWN Quotes

★ ...District Attorney Paul Gallegos said he believes the statute of limitations clock, even on misdemeanors, doesn't start running until law enforcement knows or reasonably should have known of the offense. In this case, Gallegos said, that means the statute of limitations would not run out at least until Feb. 8, 2009, or one year after Gundersen's arrest and the discovery of the photographs in question...

★ "...some people actually molest out of different feelings, some times out of feelings of love....” DA Gallegos explaining why Child Abuse prosecutions were down

★ “I never said that the information was not available under the Freedom of Information Act. Quite the contrary, I informed you that our use of force policy is not a public record.” Paul Gallegos to the Times Standard 5/25/07

★ ...“One is that I do everything to make people happy which means I don’t stand for anything except for just something,” he said. “The other is I stand for something and I try to be a leader and take some people, a group of people, a community someplace and I say guess what folks, this is who I am. I stand for your beliefs. We share these beliefs or we don’t. You get the option to judge that. This is who I am and I am committed to leading us this place, wherever it is...." Eureka Reporter Gallegos defends record, looks ahead 7/3/2005

★ Note the difference between what he SAID, and what he DOES..."...So what are these issues? Top on Gallegos' list is the proliferation of "garbage cases," small-time crimes and overcharged cases that he said are clogging up the court system.

Garbage cases, said Gallegos, come in two forms: Cases that would lose if actually brought to trial and cases that are overcharged for the crimes committed. The idea behind filing both kinds of garbage, he said, is to get the defendant to plead guilty, netting a conviction without having to go into court.

Again, the IRONY is astounding! Look at what he SAYS, and then think about what he DOES! "Probably 95 percent of the cases that are filed plead guilty. In fact, there are a lot of cases that are filed on the assumption they will plead guilty, because of the time and expense involved in defending them. But these cases shouldn't even be filed in the first place, because if they were challenged, they would lose," Gallegos said. Better yet: If they weren't filed at all, it would save the county time and money...." North Coast Journal 2/21/02 Too bad he didn't take his own advice.

★ “Tim’s a stud,” he said. “He really is; anyone would be stoked to have him.” Gallegos on his second in command right hand man Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen. (Former second in command right hand man to Jim Jones/People's Temple.)

NOTE:

"Helping Crush Progressivism" - ie: exposing the predatory litigious orgs and those who seek power for power's sake.... The original purpose of watchpaul is to post important documents relating to Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his handlers who seek to gain power through the acquisition of political offices. This includes, but is not limited to, the manipulations of "Humboldt Watershed Council," "EPIC," "Baykeeper," and other activist groups - the unregulated orgs. It also includes the master manipulators, such as Richard Salzman and Ken Miller.

Links to key stories and documents are also included in the sidebar, so that you do not have to try to scroll back through what has become a lengthy series of posts. I encourage you to use the Search and Labels features as well.

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Friday, June 02, 2017

Watching this case... Justice doesn't mean stringing a suspect up on the nearest tree