Blog Jammin’ BY RYAN BURNS / TUESDAY, JULY 2 AT 1:52 P.M.
Co-op Security Accused of Excessive Force
A civilian “loss prevention officer” employed by the North Coast Co-op in Arcata chased down and handcuffed an alleged shoplifter on Saturday afternoon, and a neighboring business owner who witnessed the arrest says the man used excessive force. Michael Kingg, a Co-op member and owner of the bead supply store on the corner of Eighth and I streets, said he was working in his shop around 3 p.m. when his kids called out to him, telling him to come look at the man holding a woman down outside. “I didn’t know if this guy was a cop, a mugger, her boyfriend,” Kingg said in an interview Monday afternoon. “It looked like he was going for cuffs, but he was in plain clothes.” The man kept the woman pinned to the ground, kneeling on her neck and pulling her arm back to cuff her.
op management. “His response was to say, ‘Give me that camera.’” Kingg told the Journal that the man repeatedly demanded he hand over his camera, later asking a Co-op employee to take it from him, but the employee refused. In his email, Kingg described what happened next: “He tried to come in the [bead] AN UNIDENTIFIED CO-OP SECURITY GUARD CUFFS AN ALLEGED SHOPLIFTER. shop & physically PHOTO BY MICHAEL KINGG. take the camera from me, but the door was already Kingg felt that the force was excessive and locked by that time & with the arrival of snapped a few photos, including the one the APD [Arcata Police Department] he no printed here. longer tried to steal my camera, or make “I asked him if he would provide his mention of it. Had I not locked the door, I name or any other form of ID,” Kingg would have been a victim in this matter.” wrote in an email that he later sent to Co-
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8 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2013 • northcoastjournal.com
In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Arcata Police Detective Sgt. Todd Dokweiler said that the woman was a shoplifter fleeing from store employees. “We were notified, we responded and we accepted the citizen’s arrest,” Dokweiler said. “It’s a pretty common situation where employees will detain someone — either cooperatively or not.” Kingg posted his photos of the incident on Facebook and later walked over to the Co-op, where the security guard was “real apologetic” about trying to take his camera, he said. But Kingg is still hoping that Co-op management will take action to prevent such an incident from happening again. Reached Monday afternoon, Arcata store manager Kevin Waters said, “As with any situation like this we’re going to investigate it fully.” Beyond that he had no comment. ● BY EMILY HAMANN / MONDAY, JULY 1 AT 7:18 P.M.
Pride: SF Style
This year’s gay pride parade in San Francisco was a historic celebration, coming just days after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and in