UPDATE, 2:35 p.m.: Readers understandably have questions about why the two suspects in this large-scale heroin bust were booked and released on their own recognizance.

Sgt. Mike Guy of the EPD’s Problem Oriented Policing unit told the Outpost this afternoon that he did not know the reason — that it would be a question for the jail.

Lt. Wayne Hanson, spokesperson for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, is just back from vacation and was not immediately familiar with the case. However, he made a quick call down to the jail office and found out that the “matrix” that the jail uses to determine whether or not an offender can be held, depending on the severity of the alleged crime and the current jail population, would, in fact, permit a book-and-release of a person found with just over a pound of heroin, so long as that person was local and had a clean rap sheet, with no record of violence.

“It’s feasible he could get OR’d with 1.1 pounds of heroin,” Hanson said, ruefully. “Welcome to 2015.”

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department: