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Local News 01 27 26 · KMUD News

• 0:05
  Speaker A: Good evening and welcome to the local news. Today is Tuesday, January 27th. I'm Gabriel Zucker reporting for KMUD. In tonight's news update from the Arcata Fire district about the Arcata Square fire and a structure fire in Mckinleyville. Humboldt county correctional staff prevent overdose and then find more drugs during body scan stabbing reported at Community Commons park in Willow Creek. Stay tuned. Those stories and more coming up.
• 0:34
  Speaker B: Redwood Community Radio acknowledges that its transmitter sites are located on the unceded territory of the Sinkion, Wailaki, Wiat, Wilkot and Kato people. We honor ancestors past, present and emerging and acknowledge the ongoing cultural, spiritual and physical connection that these tribes have to this region.
• 0:53
  Speaker A: KMUD talked with Chris Emmons, the fire chief of the Arcata Fire District. He shared an update on the Arcata Square fire and also talked about a recent structure fire in Mckinleyville.
• 1:04
  Speaker C: For the fire district portion of the cause and origin. So we completed our origin and cause and it's currently. It's undetermined. It's an open investigation pending any new information. But it's undetermined. And the reason we say it's undetermined, there's only four classifications that fire investigators can give by national standards, and we follow the same national standards. So those determinations either have to be natural, which would be something like lightning or lava setting something on fire, accidental, which could be pretty much anything that's not human caused, like deliberate. It would be like, let's say an electrical fire or, you know, somebody's. I don't know, it could be many different things, but like a candle was going, they were using it for light and it tipped over. I mean, that would be an accidental type of a thing. And then there's incendiary, which is a deliberate act to cause fire. And then the last one is undetermined. And so undetermined for us. You know, essentially what it comes down to is we have to identify the item first ignited and the ignition source. And if we have multiple ignition sources still remaining that we could not rule out with that, we have to call it undetermined. We would rather be right in the sense of we're not going to speculate. We want to be right, make sure we're sure before we make a determination. Because it doesn't do anybody any good if we make a determination that it was accidental and it wasn't, or make a determination that, you know, worse yet that we said it was intentionally set and it wasn't intentionally set. Or, you know, obviously if it was a natural occurrence such as a, you know, A lightning strike which was not the case. We can rule that one out, but just different things like that. So we had to go with undetermined at this point pending any further information. So what happens from here is we turn it over to the property owners and their insurance providers or carriers I should say. And the insurance companies have their own investigators where they can go do specific testing, equipment, materials, it becomes their property and they're able to do follow up testing. And a lot of times that's testing, that's in addition to the things that we haven't been able to cover.
• 3:33
  Speaker A: Evans shared what happened with the structure fire in McKinleyville.
• 3:37
  Speaker C: It was early Sunday morning, right around 4am we got a call of a residential structure on fire. It was off of Martin Road, which is off of Central Avenue down by Central and Murray. And we got on scene and the roof had already partially collapsed and there was heavy fire coming out from the front part of the structure. We had all three of our engines, which that would be six firefighters plus we had two chief officers there, so eight Arcata Fire District personnel. We also had Fieldbrook Fire was out there with us and they had I believe 5 total people from their agency that were on scene helping us. It was about, I'll say about 20 minutes roughly to get the fire under control. Nobody was hurt.
• 4:24
  Speaker D: It was a vacant building.
• 4:27
  Speaker C: Like I said, there was partial collapse early on in the fire and yeah, we had it pretty well extinguished by, I'd say about completely extinguished within an hour and a half, but it was under control in about 20 minutes.
• 4:41
  Speaker A: He was unable to go into detail about how this fire was caused, but was able to share that investigators found.
• 4:47
  Speaker C: During the process, during the cause and origin and it was pretty indicative of what we would see for an intentionally set type of a fire.
• 4:59
  Speaker A: Overall, 25% of the building was collapsed and the rest of it had heat damage. Emin said in his opinion the structure was a complete loss with an estimated value of $200,000. On January 22, 2026, Allison Trantham of McKinleyville was arrested by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office for several drug related charges including HS11351, possession of a controlled substance. She was transported and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. KMUD was able to talk to Dwayne Christian, the correctional captain that oversees correctional facility for the sheriffs. He broke down. What happened?
• 5:42
  Speaker D: We had an individual booked in custody by the Sheriff's office and once she was patted down and brought into the facility she was given access as most people when they come in the facility to phones, restroom, et cetera, to be able to make phone calls to family members or bail bond or whatever. And at a certain point, she was overusing the phone, and staff noticed that she appeared to be kind of thumped over, which isn't always completely unusual. Sometimes people are intoxicated and they fall asleep leaning up against the phone or whatever. Our standard practices, if someone's not alert, that type of thing. Staff went over to check on her. She appeared to be in some medical distress, wasn't really responsive. They immediately summoned medical personnel. We have medical personnel here, 247 medical personnel came and made an assessment and determined they believed her to be potentially overdosing. So they administered Narcan and were able to get a reaction out of her, get her to be more responsive, but was still kind of in and out of alertness consciousness. So they gave her a second round and also requested that emergency medical personnel be contacted. So staff here contacted the emergency medical personnel. Ambulance came. She went to the local hospital under the guard of a correctional deputy and was checked out there and at the hospital believed to have potentially been overdosing. So they treated her for that. There was also concerns that she may have additional illegal substances concealed within herself, either by swallowing or placing items in a body cavity. So hospital staff did a scan to determine that there was no other contraband or illegal substance. Obviously, there's a safety issue if there is, and something, you know, obviously that's not safe for anyone. So in the scan, they determined that there was. There was additional. What appear to be additional items of potential contraband. So the medical personnel made the medical decision that they needed to do a more extensive search for, you know, life safety reasons. And they were able to do those searches and discovered quite large quantity of substance that weighed approximately 30 grams. Upon her return, and those substance, with the staff returned here at the facility, they were tested and some of the. Some of the substance was tested and tested positive for fentanyl. So she was subsequently charged for smuggling drugs into a jail or prison.
• 9:13
  Speaker A: He shared the steps they take to make sure that there are no fatalities while people are in custody and shared the importance of Narcan.
• 9:19
  Speaker D: We have fairly thorough policies because we always have to balance, you know, our right and need to search an individual, but also versus their constitutional rights. Like, before anyone is housed up in the population of our jail, by law, they can be searched both using a body scanner and by what would be.
• 9:44
  Speaker C: Called a strip search, where it's a.
• 9:46
  Speaker D: Visual inspection that they're not, you know, overtly covering up any sort of contraband. But when they're first brought in, they're afforded a legal right to try to facilitate bail and stuff like that. So they can't necessarily be immediately brought in and strip searched and body scanned unless there's something that the officer brings them in that is documentable evidence that they believe they have something concealed. You know, just mere possession wouldn't necessarily rise to that level. They would have to have done something to make the officer believe that they were concealing something. Then they sign an affidavit and were able to do that. So most everybody gets searched prior to getting everybody that stays within the jail and his house upstairs gets body scan and a strip search. But in this instance, you know, she was still having an opportunity to make bail and stuff like that. So why we have a medical professional in our booking area at all times, because obviously that's a high area for even just people that have ingested drugs prior to being arrested to potentially overdose. If they appear to be under the influence of anything, we have sobering cells that we can place them in for their safety. And we do checks on those individuals every 15 minutes. And again, if there's anything concerning the staff, if there's labored breathing or any signs of any unwellness, then they immediately get that nursing medical staff that's assigned there to look at that individual, take their vital signs. We also take their vital signs of everybody that's brought in before they're accepted medically for bookings. So we have a lot of safeguards in place. And this lobby area where she was using the phone, it's under constant supervision by correctional staff. So there's no point. There's no point that there's not somebody there observing that area. Narcan has been a significant game changer in a lot of areas in the community. It exists in a correctional facility being able to save people from overdosing. So we have narcan in various areas throughout the jail that's available for use. Our staff are trained on the use of narcan. We have medical professionals here at all times that have access to Narcan, both the nasal aerosol narcan and also the Narcan that can be administered through a shot. Our staff are only trained to administer the nasal aerosol narcan, but they are trained and like I said, we have narcan at various locations throughout the facility to prevent these type of things or in the event that there is an overdose, to hopefully save lives.
• 12:42
  Speaker A: This was an unfortunate situation. And thankfully tranthem survived the overdose. On January 25, a stabbing was reported at the Community Commons park in Willow Creek and the perpetrator is still unidentified. Nat Cardos reports.
• 13:00
  Speaker B: On January 25th, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office received a report from Providence St. Joseph Hospital of a man that arrived with a stab wound to the back. According to the 57 year old victim, at approximately 9am he was at Community Commons park when a still unidentified man stabbed him with an unknown object. KMUN News spoke with Aaron Inskip, Public Information Officer with Humboldt County Sheriff's Office for more information on the incident.
• 13:24
  Speaker E: On January 25, 2026 at 2:25am the Humboldt County Emergency Communications center received a report from Providence St. Joseph's Hospital regarding a male subject who arrived at the hospital emergency department with a stab wound to the back. Deputies responded to the hospital and contacted the 57 year old victim. The victim reported that on January 24th at approximately 9am he was at the Community Commons park near the Bigfoot Museum in Willow Creek. He was packing up his belongings when a male subject who he did not know walked past him and without a word being said stabbed the subject in the back with an unknown object. After the stabbing, the suspect ran away northbound on Highway 96. The victim described the suspect as a male in his early 20s with light tan skin, light colored eyes and short brown hair. He was approximately 5'11 to 6 foot 1 and weighed approximately 180 pounds. He was wearing a light blue zippered sweatshirt with the logo True Religion on the front, blue Levi 501 jeans and tan cowboy boots. The victim sustained serious but non life threatening injuries and was admitted to the hospital for further treatment.
• 14:41
  Speaker B: The incident is still under investigation and the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office requests anyone with information to call them at 707-445-7251 or the Sheriff's Office crime tip line at 707-268-2539. This is Nat Kardis reporting for KMUD News.
• 15:02
  Speaker A: In State news, progressive groups press California lawmakers to soften health care cuts, Public News Services Suzanne Potter reports.
• 15:11
  Speaker F: As California lawmakers negotiate the next state budget, groups that fight poverty in the state are asking them to reject the health care cuts proposed by governor Gavin Newsom. The governor's proposal comes after Republicans in Congress slashed Medicaid enrollment last summer, primarily by imposing extra work requirements and eligibility checks. Linda Way with the Western center on Law and Poverty says Governor Newsom's proposal extends those policies to people on the state funded part of MEDI California.
• 15:39
  Speaker D: The Governor's budget proposal amplifies these federal cuts by being more expansive. It's cruel, it's unnecessary, it's more severe than federal cuts demand.
• 15:52
  Speaker F: Governor Newsom says the federal cuts have forced him to retreat from prior policies that extended Medi Cal to many undocumented immigrants. For example, starting this July, many undocumented people in the state will lose dental benefits. Now the governor proposes to offer state funded emergency medical coverage instead of full scope Medi Cal to certain groups of immigrants, including refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of trafficking and domestic violence. Hannah Orbach Mandel with the California Budget and Policy center says instead California should raise more revenue by getting rid of tax loopholes that allow corporations to park money in offshore accounts.
• 16:28
  Speaker G: The policymakers have options if they choose.
• 16:31
  Speaker D: To make bold choices that would raise significant ongoing state revenue and protect people from these harmful cuts.
• 16:40
  Speaker F: The Republicans so called One Big Beautiful Bill act is projected to push 2 million Californians off Medi Cal coverage and cost the golden state up to $30 billion in federal funding per year. For California News Service, I'm Suzanne Potter. Find our trust indicators@publicnewservice.org.
• 17:01
  Speaker A: In national news, Minnesota Gun Rights Caucus Defends Carrying Guns at protest condemns ICE killing KPFA's Lauren Schmidt reports.
• 17:11
  Speaker G: I'm Brian Strouser, chairman of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus. We are an independent state based gun rights group here in Minnesota that engages in education, litigation and lobbying at the Minnesota State Capitol. So let me just start with the law. Right. Minnesota law allows for residents of Minnesota and non residents to obtain a permit to carry that allows them to carry a firearm open or concealed in just about anywhere in the state and that includes carrying a firearm at protests if they choose to do so. There is no law here that prohibits them from doing so. In this case, Mr. Priddy was engaged in First Amendment protected activity observing and filming federal law enforcement and then by all accounts in the video looks like he intervened to help a woman that was being pepper sprayed and then was some point in that confrontation shot and killed.
• 18:10
  Speaker H: From a legal standpoint, does the mere presence of a firearm constitute as a credible threat to law enforcement? And as a gun owner and lobbyist, can you speak to why your organization is condemning the killing and challenging the fear for life justification being cited?
• 18:32
  Speaker G: Yeah, it's not, I mean the right to own and carry a firearm in the United States with some, you know, restrictions for felons and people that have been adjudicated dangerously mentally ill. That's a constitutional right here. Just like free speech, just like being safe from unreasonable search and seizures. So the very presence of a firearm being carried by a citizen is not, does not convey the ability to use lethal force by law enforcement simply because they see a firearm. Law enforcement officers have to believe that they are in favor fear of death or great bodily harm because of actions that someone has taken, not just because they possess a firearm in the moment. I think the secretary of Homeland Security has stated that he was a domestic terrorist that intended to come and massacre law enforcement, that he approached them with a weapon drawn. And none of that is true, as we can all see on the videos that have been released that are out there the in the public domain.
• 19:30
  Speaker H: Historically speaking, conservative political parties have been viewed as more gun friendly. What has been your personal reaction to hearing this rhetoric coming from a party that has traditionally defended Second Amendment rights?
• 19:46
  Speaker G: It's been very disappointing, to be honest. I think going into Saturday morning, I would have characterized the current administration, the presidential administration, as the most pro Second Amendment administration in recent decades in the United States. They've done a lot for gun rights, I think, in a very positive way. And a lot of these comments about this tragedy that happened on Saturday have been quite disappointing, both in terms of telling the truth about what we see, what we can all see in the video, but also the motives and intent of what Mr. Peretti was engaged at. Again, carrying a firearm in this way is legal in Minnesota and condemning his actions in that way does not feel appropriate.
• 20:36
  Speaker H: Groups like the National Rifle association often argue that the Second Amendment exists in part to protect against a tyrannical government. And some might argue that that tyranny is here. What is your response?
• 20:52
  Speaker G: I mean, I think part of what you're seeing right now in the discourse around the Second Amendment, particularly over the last couple of weeks here in Minnesota, is that a lot of those, you know, that are more Democrat aligned politically have started to realize that purpose of the Second Amendment, that it is about the ability to resist the tyrannical government. We're seeing and hearing different statements coming from the political left here in Minnesota. And I think even we had a former congressman here just make that statement the other day that he used to criticize or laugh at those or I think he said roll his eyes at those who said that was the purpose of the Second Amendment, but that he was beginning to see why folks believed that after this incident on Saturday.
• 21:44
  Speaker A: In National Native News, Antonia Gonzalez reads today's headlines.
• 21:48
  Speaker I: This is National Native News. I'm Antonia Gonzalez. On January 27th of last year, San Carlos Apache teenager Emily pike went missing from A Mesa, Arizona group home. Her dismembered remains were discovered a month later in garbage bags more than 100 miles away. No arrests have been made nor suspects named. Earlier this month, a memorial in Mesa marking where Emily was last seen alive got taken down. As KJZ's Gabriel Pietrazio reports, it's the latest rallying cry for justice and the 14 year old girl's unsolved murder.
• 22:28
  Speaker C: Who are we here for?
• 22:30
  Speaker D: Emily Wright.
• 22:31
  Speaker C: Then say her name.
• 22:32
  Speaker D: Emily Wright. Say her name. Emily Wright.
• 22:36
  Speaker C: Say her name.
• 22:37
  Speaker D: Emily.
• 22:38
  Speaker J: At the corner of Mesa Drive and McKellips Road, dozens of demonstrators met on a recent Saturday as cars drove by, honking their horns.
• 22:47
  Speaker C: Justice for who?
• 22:49
  Speaker D: Emily Pye.
• 22:50
  Speaker C: Who do we love?
• 22:52
  Speaker D: Emily Pye. Who do we love?
• 22:55
  Speaker J: This is where Emily was last seen alive. Since her disappearance, a chain link fence hugging the edge of a 28,000 square foot vacant lot has become home to a roadside memorial for the slain Apache teen. Visitors from near and far have flocked to this bustling intersection adorned with flowers, stuffed animals, a banner of Emily's face and lots of red ribbons. That was until someone suddenly took everything down earlier this month. No matter who did it, Jolene, Shorty is still upset you took down her stuff.
• 23:40
  Speaker F: There is a respectful way. There is a traditional way to let things go.
• 23:45
  Speaker J: This is not the way for Shorty, she says. This is the second tragedy to happen there.
• 23:51
  Speaker F: I see a clean slate. A clean slate to start over. In a way, they almost helped us. We're going to come back and put up more stuff. We're going to honor them the way we're supposed to.
• 24:03
  Speaker J: Delvina Charlie, who is Dana, thinks taking down those mementos adds insult to injury.
• 24:10
  Speaker D: This is the respect that we got were pushed to the side. That our voices meant nothing, that she meant nothing. If this was a different privileged girl, it would have been handled differently.
• 24:22
  Speaker J: Since the items were taken down, Emily's family has been in talks with the city of Mesa on planting a tree and placing a bench at Fitch park, just a few blocks from her last known location. Jared Marquez is San Carlos Apache and treasurer of the Turtle Island Women Warriors.
• 24:40
  Speaker C: I've been there. Being a 13 year old kid, never talking to my parents, running around on the reservation, you know, nobody ever truly caring. And it's hard to think what this girl went through. A lot of us could have been through.
• 24:57
  Speaker J: As for the investigation into Emily's murder, Kjzz asked the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, and the lead agency, Gila County Sheriff's Office, for the status but did not receive any updates. For National Native News, I'm Gabriel Pietrazio, reporting from mesa.
• 25:17
  Speaker I: The National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund are hosting a webinar titled Know youw Rights, followed by Q and A on Wednesday to provide practical guidance for tribal citizens on interactions with ice. The organization say it's in response to growing concerns from across Indian country. I'm Antonia Gonzalez.
• 26:03
  Speaker D: Native voice one, the native american radio network.
• 26:11
  Speaker A: That's all for tonight's broadcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our engineer, Katie Phillips, and thanks to our reporters, Nat Cardos, Suzanne Potter, Lauren Schmidt and Antonio Gonzalez. KMUD News is online. You can find us on kmud.org and now streaming on most podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, where you can download our stories and newscasts for offline listening during your rural commutes. You can also follow us on social media. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can give us a call at 707-923-2605 or send an email to News at kmud. Org. Redwood Community Radio, Inc. Is funded by Press Forward, the national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news. Learn more at PressForward News. Reporting for KMUD, I'm Gabriel Zuckerberg.