[UPDATE 9:55 p.m.: Suspect Named] Car Explodes into Flames Near Humboldt County Courthouse
Flames leap from a white sedan on the law at the Humboldt County Courthouse this evening. [Photo by Lloyd Snyder]
A firefighter at the scene as black smoke billows from the vehicle parked on the Courthouse lawn. [Photo by Lloyd Snyder]
For unknown reason a man lit his car on fire, Eureka Police Department Officer Ryan Swanson told our reporter who filmed live at the scene.
https://www.facebook.com/RedheadedBlackbelt/videos/791286066887931
A close up shows the writing on the side of the vehicle. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]
Writings that were fluttering in the street near the burned vehicle. [Photo by Lloyd Snyder]
The sidewalk and other areas near where the car was set on fire have more writing on them. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]
The vehicle was pulled off the lawn. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]
Please remember that information gathered from initial reports is subject to revision as more facts become available.
UPDATE 9:02 p.m.: Eureka Police Department just posted the following,
On Saturday, August 23rd at approximately 7:51 pm, Eureka Police Department and Humboldt Bay Fire were dispatched to a vehicle on fire on the lawn of the Humboldt County Courthouse. A 69-year old male drove his white 4-door sedan onto the lawn in front of the Courthouse building on the 800 block of 5th Street and lit his vehicle on fire. The subject was arrested immediately. No one was injured.
This is an on-going investigation. If you have any information regarding this incident, please contact EPD’s Criminal Investigations Unit (CIU) at 707-441-4300.”
UPDATE 9:22 p.m.: A daylight image from last week shows the same vehicle outside the Courthouse during an August 16 “Fight the Trump Takeover” rally. The man standing on top of the car last week is holding a sign reading “White man gets beat by cops.”
Authorities have not yet released details on whether tonight’s explosion caused injuries or what charges the man may face. Eureka Police spokesperson Laura Montagna cannot confirm that the man standing on the car in the photo last week was the one arrested tonight.
Left image from last week’s protest against the Trump Administration, Right photo from tonight. Both by Ryan Hutson.
UPDATE 9:55 p.m.: Humboldt County Sheriff’s Lt. Jesse Taylor tells us that the suspect, “Stephen Paul Paiment (age 69) was arrested for arson.”
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Holy shit, that guy has been parked out of the courthouse for the past two weeks, he was the one writing all that bullshit on the sidewalk, bro should be charged with domestic terrorism
ABsofuckinglutly. Domestic terrorist. maybe even child rapper too.
Trump is guilty of those offenses as well, Mr. Clark!
Proof?
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/08/23/politics/epstein-doj-files-house-oversight-democrats
FFS, some of you can’t go an hour without threadshitting into unrelated politcs.
The guy was literally protesting Trump. I believe the relevance is obvious, FFS! Stop supporting a pedophile felon domestic terrorist and i will stop complaining about it, threadshitter.
Uh…I didn’t say a damn thing about Trump. That’s all you. There’s other places for it. Go there.
So…bringing up Trump again I see….you just can’t stop I guess
Chronic TDS is a mental illness.
Who is the proven pedophile in your humble opinion.
You’re just like Trump with your distracting accusations lol
More leftist lies.
Another victim of chronic TDS.
Does this screw up CPH’s carbon offset?
He is to old to be a rapper that is a child.
“Bad cops
White man
Stop abuse on me”
Those are some pretty dope lyrics.
I’d love to hear the beat we was going to set it to.
But I agree, he’s too old to be a child rapper.
I always wanted to be a child rapper too.. rappers get paid a lot.. lil Romeo was a millionaire before he could legally drive
Child rapper? What do rapping kids have to do with him? Rap music gets a bad enough image..
He caused you to be terrified?
Emphasis on the, “TWOWEEKS”…!!!
Should have waited for the next 5150 Shared Rage-fest Rally. Timing matters.
Turns out he apparently was one of the 5150 Rage-festies. Surprise! Intentionally rage baiting the already insane is not likely to turn out well.
Old rule- Do Not antagonize the crazies
Honestly people need to learn to disagree. This is the end stage of shit division. How shitty is violence. Thank God everyone is going home to their families tonight.
Thank God no one was injured when the gas tank exploded.
Thank physics. Gas tanks rarely explode. Tires, AC units, and airbags yes. Gas tanks usually rupture and then spill.
Hmmm…Only in Eureka where even white parked cars try to appeal their sentence.
Short walk back to jail.
LOL Shortest ever! Nice guy
This is crazy, that guy has been on the radar and then this… what a lunatic , thank you California for not gives shit
Thankyou libs for this type of foolishness. If you vote lib or prog YOU are to blame,. ……
I understand he was MAGA CULT Member 👍
You really articulate your critical thinking skills carefully 😂
Wow, I drove past as he was scrunched over drawing those big tidy block letters on the street. Wondered what he was up to, whether I’d missed a demonstration, whether he should put out a traffic cone to keep himself from being run over.
The reason he lit the car off is because he’s nuts! White men blah blah- not even original.
Ok which RHBB poster hasn’t been around today?
Where were YOU?
Ive been here all day champ.
😂 Nah, not RHBB fam.
Remember, they don’t call it the LOCO for no reason…
Lol
Looks like it was a Stephen, aka Steven.
Look, Steve, you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. Oh….nevermind.
Where’s Martin?
I’ve owned cars I felt like setting on fire.
Yeah but the difference is he didn’t make it look like an insurance scam 😂
his car reminded him of Trump. TDS. You never know who will go next. Your kids teacher or the city manager?
Now THAT’S what I call Trump derangement syndrome!
this guy is an asshole. Look how much pollution a burning car makes. Charge this asshole with environmental laws.
This guy is clearly missing something upstairs. This isn’t political, this is nutso.
I think he’s on to something with that ” Nuclear Power Cover Up”. I bet the Deep State is behind this somehow!!
Old news. Happened about a half life ago.
I’m pretty up to date w these cover ups and so called conspiracy theories and haven’t heard of this one yet.. he may just be a lunatic
True but it does bring up an important point that political extemeist.. on both sides.. are lunatics. 50 percent adults don’t vote because they know the system is broken and nothing really changed either way.. the other 50 percent are political extemeist who are brainwashed.. this man is the embodiment of that fact. True patriots don’t vote or vote 3rd party and don’t buy into the 2 party system brainwashing. Voting for a lesser evil of the 2 is literal insanity.
I know this platform is stoked on the messages given by the perp. The cops are awesome around here. If you aren’t a druggy or dirtbag you wont be bothered by them. Accountability is a thing of the past with today’s generations.
lol what is this, law and order? “Perp” “dirtbag” you need to be held accountable for your lack of imagination!
There are some cops around here that are awesome. However, there are many who are thugs with badges. I’ve had far too many experiences with the bad ones in Eureka. The unfortunate thing is that the chiefs have refused to weed out the bad for far too long, making it impossible to trust any of them because you don’t know which they are. This appears to be true of the current chief as well.
It’s a small city. I can assure you, people talk and know exactly who the “thugs” are and who the rational ones just doing their jobs are.
I don’t. (I’m country folk.) Could you please provide a thug list?
That’s hilariously false.
I would agree w the local PD being awesome for all I know but I know for a fact there are scumbags and corruption within the county sheriff dept and this terrorist attack was on the sheriff dept lawn so there could be some animosity toward county officers I could see that heard of a lot of corruption w certain figures within that dept
No specifics? Spill that tea!
Search for recent article about public “Defender’s” office vs Prosecution’s funding (quotations for my sarcasm ….not in article title)
That’s what what I thought until the sheriff came in flying to shove me off my dead kid while I was performing CPR. Then they just sat around trying to break into my house for two hours while I rolled around in the mud not wanting give my kid to the coroner.
It’s us against them with those dicks.
But yeah, this dude needs to lay off the meth.
Certified Anti-Trump rally goers going ever deeper and deeper off of the deep end…
You do realize that anyone is allowed to go to public demonstrations, right?
I can’t make heads nor tails out of any of what he wrote, so I can’t tell what his beef is.
Seems like mental illness is likely to be a factor.
Either way, it’s highly inappropriate to try and draw some sort of association between this and peaceful protesters.
Regardless it’s typically political extemeist that protest on either side. An intelligent american is aware that it doesn’t matter what side is in office the real problems arnt dealt w either way but as long as they create that illusion and have the 2 sides of lunatics fighting over little things that don’t matter so the status quo of raping and polluting of the planet for unsustainable resources, allowing corporate big money domination without accountability, corruption of government agencies like FDA, cancer society, American heart association for example to mislead and poison the public legally, and allowing 85 percent of the rest of the world to live in adjunct poverty, mass media gaslighting and mind control, etc etc will continue as long as you 2 are fighting over who gets to use what bathroom etc etc. intelligent ppl know there is no hope w the current 2 party system because y’all extemeist buy into it. Vote 3rd party. Voting for the lesser of 2 evils is literally insanity.
What do birds of a feather do?
This dude found his kindred spirits at the 5150 Shared Rage group tantrums.
Obviously anyone is allowed…
That much is, “CRYSTAL CLEAR”…
All you have to do is look at the ZANY CROWD….
You do realize that RHBB proved that he ATTENDED the anti Trump rally, don’t you…???
Doesn’t matter one whit what he wrote, and/or what you can’t make heads nor tails out of…
His beef is also TOTALLY irrelevant…
He ATTENDED the anti Trump protest, with his symptomatic “signs”, just like the rest of them…!!!
Period.
ARE YOU DENYING THAT HE HAS GONE EVEN FURTHER OFF OF THE DEEP END, THAN HE ALREADY CLEARLY WAS, AS HE STOOD ATOP HIS CAR WITH SUCH WACKO “TAGS”, BY THEN, AFTER A PEIOD OF TIME, IGNITING HIS CAR AFIRE ON THE COURT HOUSE LAWN…???
Keep in mind that it was NOT a permissive burn day.
My entire comment is therefore, verifiably, albeit unpopularly , 100% true…
Zany Liberals, staunchly and vociferously vigorously defending a totally wacko Anti-Trump RALLY GOER, graffiti artist arsonist…!!!
Typical…
If you’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen them all..!!!
Priceless…
Birds of a feather, flock together…
You can’t make this WACKO shit up folks…
Just another LIBERAL , on another Liberal day, parked in the LIBERAL Humboldt County Seat’s infamous, ” “TWOWEEK” ZONE”, AKA, Eureka, California…!!!
mRNA screws with antidepressants and any mind altering medications. This is a huge problem when 25% of the nation are on drugs because they can’t deal with life. Big thank you to the vaccine pushers, wonder why so many crazies lately.
How many times was he vaccinated?? Makes ya wonder ..
bro
https://unicourt.com/case/ca-sbr1-the-people-of-the-state-of-california-vs-stephen-pall-paiment-11261
Omigosh, thanks for that. I don’t understand a lot of the legal designations or the reasoning, but i do see a conviction for voluntary manslaughter, and charges for murder dismissed via plea; also kidnapping, assault with intent to do Great Bodily Harm; even torture. Well la-di-dah, how has this nut been out running around Eureka?
He’s out because the folx in charge of California coddle criminals.
OFCS!
I don’t think it’s the same person. There is no way the dude only got 4 years for murder and kidnapping.
He made pinkie promise to do better…
What the hell
Are we sure this is the same guy? I highly doubt he would already be out of prison for pleading out to kidnapping and murder since that case is from 2021..That’s only 4 years…
Hell, can you imagine how many people would be willing to kill someone they hate if they’re only going to do 4 years in prison?
Don’t forget the city needs to charge the dealership who sold the car for the cleanup.
And charge a fine for not getting a burn permit
🤣FARC Or ELN ?
The guy convicted of murder. Did Corcoran Penitentiary time. Probably on parole? Homeless and wants to go back?
He was on parole. So obviously he was rehabilitated and no danger to the public….
Stage 4 TDS
I mean I’m always trying to get white men to join the cause and realize while they’re not the first choice to receive police brutality, they’re also definitely not exempt. Especially places where there’s mostly white peoples and a small minority population. They got to beat someone. But nah they prefer to be cop lovers instead.
TDS runs ramped in Humboldt.
Liberalism is a mental disorder and right here is the Proof!
Au contraire — relying on nut cases to try and prove a political point is nuts!
They’re all unhinged nut cases.
This is the type of person the libs think can be cured with free food and housing, and mental health programs.
What mental health programs? “Free food and housing” …”benefits” are a full time job. If you live, even as a senior, in low income housing with rent assistance NOT FREE you have to reapply every year with more than 50 pages of applications and equal number of supporting documentation and also have your apartment inspected.
I have a suspicion that Mr. Clark & Country Joe are just an algorithm.
Nothing more than AI generated buffoonery.
Country Joe is a real person. I’ve spoken to him. Mr. Clark is to the best of my knowledge also real.
Thank you, Kym. I’ve even been accused of not living in the country.
This guy used to have a black car with pink writing saying stop abusing women, right? Looks like that guy.
All these people making comments about domestic terrorism, and I get it. After all, he set his car on fire on the courthouse lawn. That said, why is no one talking about how he was protesting for weeks about how he was beaten up by law enforcement? Am I saying that this justifies his actions? Not necessarily, but it does make me want to take his claims a little more seriously. What I can’t figure out, though, is how he was ever given enough time to set the stage for his crime without any sort of intervention. That is a major thoroughfare, it was broad daylight and you mean to tell me that not a single person said anything? He was LITERALLY next to the Sheriff’s Department, the County Jail, AND the Courthouse, all of which are blocks away from EPD, and all of these agencies drive right by to drop off their latest charge (pun intended). Yet, he had plenty of time to scrawl all of his messages all over the sidewalk, drive his car onto the lawn, and set it on fire. Way to look out! Law enforcement must have been busy with some really important work, things like pulling people over for window tint.
The EPD and HCSO ignore the situation. They ignore their sworn oath of office and refuse to defend the Constitution of the United States due to illegal sanctuary city and state status. They should all lose their badges and become security guards someplace else. I have no respect for LEO’s that spit on their oath of office.
The oath of office for a California police officer is a formal pledge taken upon employment. It reflects their commitment to uphold the Constitution and laws while performing their duties with integrity and respect for constitutional rights. Below is a general example of the oath:
“I, [Name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”
Sanctuary status relates to immigration enforcement, which this has nothing to do with whatsoever.
Did anyone happen to notice that the usual hive of miscreants was missing from the front of the courthouse on the day the car was torched. They never miss a Saturday to scream vulgarities and display vulgar signs in front of the courthouse. It’s obvious they knew, which makes them all culpable in the destruction and chaos. This violence will only escalate as EPD and the HCSO merely drive by a wave.
They were there. Just not as many earlier in the day, but the same people. I’ve been made aware that this guy is the same one that’s been seen around Eureka, Winco parking lot in particular in a white van with colored hearts all over it like an ice cream truck. I recall last seeing it a couple months ago.
Another peaceful protest from the peaceful left that believes in Democracy until it does not go their way then resort to violence
Hey like or not Trup won both the popular and electoral vote. What are you protesting? The fact you lost?
BTW the US is a republic not a democracy look up the differance