How to resolve AdBlock issue? Lakeport Police Department to staff full-time school resource officer at Lakeport Unified School District
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department announced this week that it will be staffing a full-time school resource police officer on the campuses of the Lakeport Unified School District starting the first week of October.
Chief Brad Rasmussen said Lakeport Police Officer Victor Rico has been assigned to the school resources officer duties for the remainder of this calendar year.
Rico was born and raised in Lake County and is fluent in Spanish. He joined the Lakeport Police Department earlier this year, as Lake County News reported.
Rasmussen said Rico will begin his campus-related duties on Oct. 3.
The school resource officer program has been made possible by a funding partnership between the Lakeport Unified School Board and the Lakeport City Council, according to Rasmussen.
“We appreciate the support and commitment of this program from the city and school district administrations and the school board and council members,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen said all involved officials believe that placement of a police officer on the school grounds in the city will greatly enhance the safety of all students, staff and visitors on the campuses.
Additionally, as past experience has shown, Rasmussen said an office can assist students and have a positive impact on their lives.
Rasmussen encouraged anyone who has questions about the program to contact the police or school district administrations.
Community members also may contact Officer Rico through the Clear Lake High School office at 707-262-3010 or by email at
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
Police arrest man who fled vehicle crash scene
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man was taken into custody late last week after he attempted to flee the scene of a vehicle crash.
Nathan Allen McCloud, 18, of Clearlake was arrested in connection to the incident, according to Sgt. Travis Lenz of the Clearlake Police Department.
On Friday approximately 10:22 p.m. Clearlake Police officers were dispatched to the 14700 block of Burns Valley Road for a reported vehicle collision where the occupants were fleeing the scene on foot, Lenz said.
Lenz said Officer Chris Kelleher arrived on scene and located one of the vehicle occupants walking on Burns Valley Road.
As Kelleher exited his patrol vehicle, the suspect – who later was identified as McCloud – fled from him on foot, running north into the Austin Manner apartment complex, Lenz said.
Officer Kelleher began chasing McCloud on foot. During the foot pursuit, McCloud reached into his right pant pocket numerous times, according to Lenz.
After several hundred feet, Officer Kelleher was able to catch up to McCloud and take him to the ground, Lenz said. Following a brief struggle, Kelleher overcame McCloud’s resistance and placed him into handcuffs.
As Kelleher helped McCloud back to his feet, an unidentified second male subject who was believed to be with McCloud, approached them and began yelling obscenities at Kelleher, Lenz said. In addition, the second male suspect was reaching toward his waist line, which led Kelleher to believe he was armed with a weapon.
Lenz said Kelleher put the second male suspect at Taser point while he awaited the arrival of other officers. During that time, McCloud tried to headbutt Officer Kelleher as his attention was focused on the second male suspect.
Additional officers arrived on scene and the second male suspect fled on foot and was unable to be located, Lenz reported.
During a search following McCloud's arrest Kelleher located a loaded .380-caliber pistol in McCloud’s right front pant pocket. That pocket was the same which McCloud was reaching into as Kelleher was chasing him on foot, Lenz said.
McCloud was later booked into the Lake County Jail on charges of obstructing a peace officer by force, being armed in the commission of a felony, carrying a loaded concealed firearm in a public place and possession of a concealed firearm, Lenz said.
McCloud's booking sheet showed his bail was set at $30,000. He later posted bail and was released.
Anyone with information in regard to this investigation is asked to contact Officer Kelleher at the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251, Extension 516.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
Police release age progression images in Lakeport missing person's case
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The effort to solve the city of Lakeport's only missing person's case took a new turn this week, when the Lakeport Police Department released newly completed age progression images of a young Lakeport man who disappeared 20 years ago.
On Thursday, Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen released the sketches of Lakeport resident Steven William Branston, created by internationally acclaimed Canadian forensic artist Diana Trepkov.
Branston was 20 years old when he left his family's Lakeport home in August 1996 bound for Hawaii. He was last seen that same month in the Honolulu area.
In the years since, his family has made repeated trips to Hawaii to search for him, while Lakeport Police and law enforcement in Hawaii have carried out their own investigations.
This summer, Rasmussen said his agency received two possible leads about unidentified deceased men from other states – Washington and Mississippi – that had raised the possibility that Branston had been found. However, through fingerprints and DNA, both individuals were ruled out as being Branston.
As part of that followup investigative work, the Lakeport Police Department worked with Branston's family to create a DNA profile which has now been entered into state and national missing persons databases, Rasmussen said.
With the advent of the Internet and social media, which have developed significantly in the two decades since Branston's disappearance, Rasmussen and his staff decided to begin a renewed effort to find Branston or determine what happened to him, as Lake County News has reported: http://bit.ly/2bMAADe .
As part of that effort, this month Rasmussen hired Trepkov, owner of Forensics by Diana, http://www.forensicsbydiana.com/ , to complete two hand-drawn age progression images of Branston.
Rasmussen said the two images were based off two different known photographs of Branston when he was approximately 20 years old and intended to show what he may look like today at age 40.
He said it's hoped that the new age progressed images will assist in generating leads to determine the whereabouts of Branston.
Difficult but rewarding work
Trepkov said this is her 199th case. She's been involved in law enforcement cold cases throughout Canada and the United States and is experienced in numerous areas of forensic art including composite drawings/police sketches, postmortem reconstruction, surveillance video sketching, facial reconstruction of the skull, historical facial reconstruction and age progressions.
She's also been a speaker at law enforcement conferences in both Canada and the United States, is an advocate for the homeless, missing persons and children and is the author of four books including “Faceless, Voiceless – From Search to Closure, A Forensic Artist’s Inspirational Approach to the Missing and Unidentified.”
Trepkov told Lake County News that she began working as a clerk in a regional police department in Canada in order to get her foot in the door as a forensic artist.
Eventually, she would get her first case from Los Angeles, where she did a postmortem drawing of an individual to help show what they would have looked like while they were alive.
She's also worked on a 170-year-old cold case involving the lost expedition of British Capt. Sir John Franklin, who led a voyage beginning in 1845 with the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, seeking to navigate a northwest passage through the Arctic.
Franklin – who had been on three previous Arctic explorations – and his 128 men all were lost after abandoning the ships, which had become icebound. In 2014 the Erebus was found off the Canadian coast near King William Island. Then earlier this month, officials announced that the wreck of the Terror was found south of King William Island in Terror Bay.
In 1993, two expedition members' skulls were found. Last year, Trepkov did a facial reconstruction to help identify them.
She said she picked her career because, “It's helping people.”
Trepkov said she begins her work on cases by researching them to understand them. “You mentally prepare for it.”
Age progression cases like Branstons are her specialty, she said.
In the case of Branston, she imagined him living in Hawaii, and took into account his personal issues, including the mental illness that his family said he had and which appeared to have been a motivating factor for his leaving home.
Trepkov said the eyes are the mirror to the soul, so she places special focus on them. “The eyes will always remain the eyes,” she said. “Our eyes have followed us through our whole life.”
The eyes – along with facial proportion – also is a key to identifying people, she said.
She took the shape of Branston's face and added the effects of time, sun and gravity. She added lines around the eyes, made his nose slightly bigger and added slight droop to his ears. In one sketch, his hair appears slightly lighter, and she tried to show the texture of his hair as it would be from the warm, humid conditions in Hawaii.
Trepkov also made sure to focus and stay true to other features, like his teeth, which are important to facial structure.
She said she also imagined him dealing with his mental illness, which is an important aspect of his story. Trepkov said she thinks he is scared and paranoid, and not wanting to be found. Because of his illness, she added, it's important that he be found and get the treatment he needs.
The two age progression sketches of Branston took Trepkov about two weeks to complete.
She said it was important to her how Branston's parents felt about the sketches. “I heard they were happy with them,” she said. “It's still their Steven but the older version of him.”
Trepkov acknowledged that her career is both tough and sad, and that “you never really rest inside.”
“It weighs on your heart,” she said, adding that after doing so many cases, “there's a lot of nights you don't sleep.”
She said she knows her work has helped identify people in cases, but so far her work hasn't led to anyone being found alive.
Trepkov is hoping Branston's case will change that. “My biggest goal is to find someone alive so I could see the happy ending, so the person does come home to the family.”
Her gut feeling on Branston: “I feel he's alive out there. I don't know. It might be wishful thinking.” She hopes her work will help bring him home, to his family.
Trepkov said teamwork in solving such cases “is everything.” Everyone – family, authorities, people on social media and in the community who are interested in his case – are all part of that team. She recognized how important social media has become in sharing such cases, and making it easier than ever to do so.
For his part, Rasmussen is doing his best to get the information about Branston and the new images out into the local community, to Hawaii and across the world wide Web.
He said he's getting assistance from groups that specialize in missing person's cases – providing advocacy services, support and sharing of information – including the National Missing Persons Foundation, the AWARE Foundation Inc., Nor-Cal Alliance for the Missing and the Missing Pieces Network.
Those groups had asked for updated age progression images of Branston to help in their followup, Rasmussen said.
How you can help
Branston is described as a white male, 6 feet tall and 170 pounds, with blue eyes and brown hair.
Authorities ask that anyone with information about Branston contact Lakeport Police Det. Dale Stoebe or any other officer at 707-263-5491, send them a private message on the department's Facebook page @LakeportPolice or by sending an anonymous message through Nixle on your cellular telephone by texting the words TIP LAKEPORT followed by your message to 888777.
Anyone with information in Hawaii can call the Honolulu Police Department at 808-529-3111.
For more information on this case visit the Lakeport Police Department's Web site's “Missing Persons – Unsolved” page at http://cityoflakeport.com/departments/page.aspx?deptID=76&id=222 .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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Police arrest Sonoma County man for attempted ambulance theft
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Authorities have arrested a Rohnert Park man who attempted to steal a fire department ambulance late last week.
Matthew Christian Holmes, 33, was taken into custody early Thursday, according to Sgt. Tim Hobbs of the Clearlake Police Department.
At 2:20 a.m. Thursday, Clearlake Police officers were dispatched to St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake on 18th Avenue for a report of a subject attempting to steal an ambulance, Hobbs reported.
Hobbs said officers arrived on scene a few minutes later and contacted medical personnel from Lake County Fire Protection District who were standing with a male subject identified as Holmes.
During the investigation officers discovered that medical personnel from the Lake County Fire Protection District had transported a patient to the hospital for an unrelated incident and parked in front of the emergency room ambulance bays, according to Hobbs.
When exiting the emergency room to return to their ambulance and leave the hospital they noticed the driver’s door of the ambulance was open and then it closed, Hobbs said.
At that point, Hobbs said they noticed Holmes in the driver’s seat of the ambulance. Holmes began moving the sun visors and looking around inside the ambulance for the keys.
One of the paramedics yelled for Homes to get out of the ambulance and Holmes complied, Hobbs said.
Officers interviewed Holmes who admitted he was trying to steal the ambulance so he could take it to Kelseyville. Additionally, Hobbs said Holmes showed signs and symptoms of being under the influence of a controlled substance.
Holmes was arrested and booked into the Lake County Jail for attempted vehicle theft of an ambulance and being under the influence of a controlled substance, with bail set at $10,000. He remained in custody on Sunday evening.
This is the second time this summer that a Lake County Fire Protection District ambulance was a theft target.
On July 29, the Clearlake Police Department arrested 24-year-old Derrick Schuleter of Clearlake after he stole an ambulance from a fire scene and took it to Lower Lake, as Lake County News has reported.
Schuleter also remained in custody on Sunday, with bail set at $20,000, according to jail records.
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Clearlake Police Department investigates shooting incident
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department is investigating a shooting earlier this week that led to a man being hospitalized.
The shooting occurred early Wednesday morning, according to Det. Ryan Peterson.
At 6 a.m. Wednesday Clearlake Police officers responded to the 3600 block of Sycamore Street for a report of gunshots, Peterson said.
On their arrival, the officers were contacted by witnesses who advised them a male victim was taken to St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake by family members, according to Peterson.
Peterson said that, shortly afterward, the Clearlake Police Department was contacted by St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake and advised that the victim was currently at the emergency room with apparent gunshot wounds.
Due to the nature of the crimes, the victim’s name will not be released at this time, Peterson said.
While at the scene, the officers observed numerous spent shell casings in the roadway. Peterson said a protective sweep of the residence was conducted for other potential victims.
During the protective sweep several growing marijuana plants were located outside of the residence, Peterson said.
The marijuana was determined to be for medicinal use, but not in compliance with local municipal codes. Peterson said information about the grow later was turned over to the Clearlake Code Enforcement for further disposition.
Detectives from the Investigations Unit responded to assist with the investigation and contacted the victim at the hospital, Peterson said.
Peterson said the victim told detectives that while he was placing items into his vehicle to go to work he observed a male walking along the roadway. The victim didn’t think anything unusual about this and continued with what he was doing.
The male walking in the roadway then began shooting at the victim, striking him numerous times. The victim ran a short distance away and the suspect fled on foot. Peterson said the victim was then transported to the hospital by family.
Peterson said the victim provided some information regarding the possible suspect, however that information is not being released at this time as the investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with information in regards to this case are asked to contact Peterson at 707-994-8251, Extension 320.
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