Small Town News

One of the basics I learned in journalism was who, what, where, when and why? Later as an investigator/auditor I learned about evidence, and how to verify conclusions, based upon facts, not just supposition or opinion. Somwhere in the time between when I learned that and now, what passes for journalism has gone off the path, and no longer deserves the high esteem it once held; not a blanket judgement, but there are a disconcerting number of examples, from the New York Times to our small town paper in Eureka CA. Here is one of the stories I have been following, about an ongoing investigation into the Blue Lake Police Department.

Blue Lake is a lazy little town, a few miles inland from Eureka and Arcata in Humboldt County California, the heart of the Redwood Empire, but for the last 30 plus years also a focal point of law enforcment for the war on drugs. It is rumored the primary cash crop in the county is marijuana...

Blue Lake's gun arsenal called shocking

The Feb. 8 arrest of Blue Lake Police Chief David Gundersen on charges of spousal rape, and the subsequent investigation, has shed a new light on one of Humboldt County's smallest police forces. And some information coming out of Gundersen's case file has some wondering what was going on in the department.

An investigation report by the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office in Gundersen's case file includes a list of firearms reportedly taken from the Blue Lake Police Department and, law enforcement experts say, the numbers are staggering.

Among the 46 weapons listed, 27 were submachine guns, according to the report.

Gregory Lee, a retired supervisory special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a former FBI Academy instructor, who now works as an expert witness on police procedures, said the numbers coming out of Blue Lake are shocking.

”You sure as hell don't need 27 machine guns for a department of four officers,” he said.

Reached Tuesday, Blue Lake City Manager Wiley Buck said the department acquired the submachine guns about a year ago, but had no intent to use them and didn't pay for them.

”We didn't purchase any of them,” Buck said. “They were free from other departments or free from companies. ...

Buck said Gundersen acquired the guns with the intent of loaning them out to other local agencies. Buck said the department loaned two of the submachine guns to the Rio Dell Police Department in exchange for traffic monitoring devices.

Rio Dell Police Chief Graham Hill confirmed that his department did have two of Blue Lake's Colt AR-15s for a while, but returned them after Gundersen's arrest.

OK, I'm no expert, but I do know an AR15 is a civilian M-16, which is an assualt rifle, not a machine gun. They fire rifle ammunition.

a sub-machine gun is defined in the dictionary as: A Submachine gun is a type of machine gun. In particular, a submachine gun is a machine gun which fires ammunition normally used in pistols.

I know its semantics to some people, but its like saying a Porsche designed car when referring to a Volkswagen.

Now what the Blue Lake Police was doing with all these weapons is another story..