Following an altercation between a group of youths and animal owners on Tuesday evening at the Fortuna Rodeo, the Fortuna Police Department is noting that safety is a top priority for the city during Rodeo Week.
It’s also advising that, despite rumors to the contrary, the FPD does not believe Tuesday’s incident is connected to a July 3 incident at a local assisted living facility in which several juvenile suspects were reportedly witnessed trespassing and antagonizing residents and staff. FPD Lieutenant Jason Kadle told the Times-Standard that online rumors about what one Facebook commentator characterized as “the juveniles that have been terrorizing Fortuna” were just that — online rumors.
“We don’t have any evidence or supporting facts that say that is the same juveniles,” Kadle said.
As to what happened Tuesday, Kadle said that the rumors trace back to a specific altercation late that evening.
“Apparently there were some juveniles in the area near where a lot of the junior rodeo contestants are camping and have their horses in portable pens near their trailers,” Kadle explained. “And some juveniles were, … from what I understand, they were trying to pet the horses, and the owners asked them not to do that. And there was a little bit of a verbal back and forth. … They were asked to leave, and then they made a threat that they were going to stab the horse.”
Kadle said that the FPD is taking that seriously, especially as they involved threats of violence to animals.
“Those horses are worth a lot of money, and I definitely wouldn’t appreciate that being said about my animals as well,” Kadle said.
The FPD, Kadle said, has increased patrols, and he said that anyone caught violating the law or the rodeo’s rules will be told to leave the premises and barred from returning to the event. He also said that anyone caught committing a crime at the event would face legal consequences.
“The rodeo is a big event for us here in Fortuna, and we want to make sure that everybody’s safe, including the animals,” Kadle said. “We want everybody to come down and take part in the events. It’s a great time, and we’re going to (ensure that with) any kind of horseplay or anything that happens in the park that we deem as a nuisance, we are definitely gonna remove those people from the park. And if they come back, we will issue citations, or if it’s an incident where we can take somebody to jail or the (juvenile) hall, that’s definitely going to be on the table.”
That being said, Kadle said that the Fortuna Rodeo is far from a rowdy event.
“We make sure that we are ready and capable to deal with whatever we need to deal with,” Kadle said. “ And we wouldn’t be able to do this without the help of the outside agencies that come in: Eureka Police Department, the Arcata Police Department, Rio Dell, Ferndale. We put out requests for mutual aid from all of them, and we get officers from all those agencies to come in and help.”
Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0585.
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