Early Friday morning, someone meticulously stacked a pile of about 20 full trash bags on the front porch of St. Vincent De Paul’s free meal facility, which has served meals to the impoverished since 1981. Eureka Police Department has a suspect, and said the person was identified as an unhoused person with mental health issues.
“It took the guy about 45 minutes to assemble the garbage bags,” said Bob Santilli, SVDP board member and administrator of the facility, from watching security footage of the night. The rogue garbage man struck around 1:15 a.m.
Friday morning, and could be seen taking trips to stack black trash bags to block the entrance. Santilli suspects the bags were pilfered from a dumpster by the North Coast Co-Op, given the timing of the trips, but the footage didn’t capture the source. At the end of the ritual, the man opened a few of the bags and smeared trash around the entryway and their sign.
Two young trees planted by Keep Eureka Beautiful were also torn out that night. “He knew he was on camera because he gave a kind of smart-alecky send-off at the end,” he said. St.
Vincent staff believe they recognize the person on security footage who has pulled similar shenanigans before. Eureka Police Department has a suspect, according to spokesperson Laura Montagna. “The person was identified by EPD’s CSET (Community Safety Engagement) team as an un-housed person with mental health issues,” Montagna said in an email.
Santilli said the plan is to issue a temporary no trespass order on the perpetrator and leave it at that. Despite the massive pile of trash blocking the door, volunteers and staff decided to forge ahead with purpose and gave out bagged lunches to the people looking for a meal. Sometimes the facility will suspend lunch service meals when there’s a large amount of trash nearby or a bunch of encampments.
But they decided to move ahead, with Santilli estimating 90% of the community they feed is respectful. “We generally serve the people nobody else will. (The staff) have such big hearts, I learn so much from them.
They can take those kinds of incidents and stick to the mission at hand,” said Santilli. A person from another agency helped truck the trash to the dump. Santilli said that there are recurring trash issues at and near the facility.
That same night, an unrelated person made a mess after pilfering through a nearby trash can. But something of this magnitude is rarer. He said physical threats, on the other hand, have dissipated over the last five or so years and believes that when the navigation center opens nearby, it will alleviate many of the remaining issues in Old Town and nearby.
Sage Alexander can be reached at 707-441-0504.
