A memorial service is planned for Fort Bragg City Councilman Jere Melo at 2 p.m. Sept. 10 at the Timberwolf Stadium on Chestnut Street in Fort Bragg.
The high school football stadium has been called his greatest legacy to the community since its construction was one of many efforts he undertook during his 15 years as a councilman, which also included building firehouses and public parks. Melo also served as Fort Bragg”s mayor between 2000 and 2004.
Melo, 69, was shot to death Saturday morning when he and a companion stumbled on an opium poppy garden while looking for an illicit marijuana grow site on private timber land near the Noyo River and the Skunk Train rail lines, about four miles east of Fort Bragg.
Cal Fire announced Tuesday that it closed Camp One and the public firewood gathering areas of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest until further notice, and authorities are urging the public to stay out of the entire forest while the manhunt for the alleged gunman continues.
Details about the shooting and suspect Aaron Bassler, a Fort Bragg transient in his 30s, are emerging as the Mendocino County Sheriff”s Office continues to lead the multi-agency search. The search focuses on a six-mile area from the Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg east to Northspur, in and around the forest.
“We have no reason to believe he left the forest area,” MCSO spokesman Capt. Kurt Smallcomb said Tuesday.
Melo and a friend, whose identity hasn”t been released, went into the remote, rugged terrain looking for an illicit pot garden Saturday morning, intending to report the garden”s GPS coordinates to law enforcement — something Melo did frequently in his property management capacity with a local timber company, according to Smallcomb.
The men instead found a garden of more than 100 opium poppies Bassler was allegedly growing, according to Smallcomb. He said Bassler was on higher ground and began shooting down at the men from about 10 yards away, using a high-caliber, “high-powered” long rifle of an SKS type that some said was an automatic weapon.
Smallcomb could not confirm that the weapon Bassler allegedly used was automatic, or its caliber.
Melo was unarmed, but his companion exchanged gunfire with Bassler and was then able to escape, running “a long way” before hitting a lucky break, according to Smallcomb. He met a Skunk Train rail maintenance car and rode with it, calling law enforcement on a cell phone when he reached an area with better cell reception, Smallcomb said.
Melo died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the results of a Monday autopsy.
Authorities do not believe Bassler was hired to guard the garden, but was growing it himself, according to Smallcomb. He said authorities believe Bassler was also associated with illicit marijuana growing in and around the area where Melo and his companion were searching.
“Marijuana has historically been all through the area,” Smallcomb said.
Melo would frequently search the timber land for illicit pot gardens and report their GPS coordinates to law enforcement in his property management capacity to keep the properties clean, according to Smallcomb.
“We were in weekly contact with him,” Smallcomb said.
Dan Gjerde, a fellow Fort Bragg City Councilman, posted on Facebook Tuesday that he remembered last seeing Melo at an Aug. 16 meeting the Board of Supervisors held in Fort Bragg.
“It was just days after the murder of Matt Coleman,” Gjerde writes, referring to an Aug. 11 incident where Coleman was shot and killed while conducting property management on rural property near Cape Vizcaino, between Westport and Rockport, for the Save the Redwoods League.
Bassler has a history of misdemeanor convictions dating back to 2001 and prior, according to Smallcomb. They include charges of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol and firearm-related charges, he said, including an incident earlier this year where Bassler was arrested for driving under the influence after allegedly running a truck into a middle school tennis court in Fort Bragg.
Bassler was also brought up on federal charges after he allegedly threw packages containing drawings and writings over a fence at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco in four separate 2009 incidents that each brought the city police department”s bomb squad, according to the SF Gate.
The county of Mendocino lowered its flags to half-staff in memory and honor of Jesse Pittman, a Willits U.S. Navy SEAL who was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. The flags will remain at half-staff in Melo”s memory and honor, the Mendocino County Executive Office announced Tuesday. County flags will remain at half-staff until Councilmember Melo”s interment.