Arrest for Water Theft
This is a press release from the Rio Dell Police. The information has not been proven in a court of law and the individuals described should be presumed innocent until proven guilty:
On Thursday March 19th Rio Dell Police arrested Mr. Darren Gallagher of Wildwood Avenue after an investigation into theft of utilities, specifically water resources. Water service at a Wildwood Avenue address had been previously terminated for non‐payment and a lock was placed on the shut‐off valve.
On or around March 3rd, city staff discovered the lock had been tampered with and that water services had been unlawfully
turned back on. Utility crews again disabled the water service. Yesterday, utility crews discovered that service had been reconnected using an unmetered pipe. Rio Dell Police initiated an investigation and Mr. Gallagher was arrested after questioning. A request for prosecution will be forwarded to the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
There is nothing worse than a water thief, however, he may be in the right and the water dept. in the wrong.
I had an uncle that worked for a water department and he said that it was against the law to shut off domestic water to an occupied dwelling, for health and safety reasons. It kinda makes sense. If you can’t flush your toilet or have water for drinking and cooking it would get pretty messy. Not to mention family fire protection.
I also think that the water department can easily get a lean on the property, no matter who owns it.
I wouldn’t shut anybodies water off for any reason, it is cruel and unusual when there are better methods to collect. Get Real!
And this is coming from someone with no heart.
P.S. Thanks for the edit feature feature Kym!
Last time I seen this guy… He was getting a DUI on a riding lawnmower
A tenant of mine vacated the Eureka property and left a mess, even left a fire burning in the back yard- burning in raised landscape beds from a charcoal fire for DAYS. I go to check on my rental just as flames start popping up out back, go to grab the hose to put the fire out- PRESTO! City Of Eureka had pad locked the water meter.
This is dangerous and one can only wonder where the liability would fall if the house had burned down. The crazy thing is you kinda get the feeling that the City Of Eureka is stealing much, much more than a few gallons of water. Even in larger cities this doesn’t happen.
Civilized people do not charge for water.