Man Threatens to Kill Dustin Pedroia's Family
By Lauren Keene
Woodland police arrested a man Friday after he allegedly called a business owned by the family Boston Red Sox player Dustin Pedroia and threatened to kill his relatives.
The arrest occurred several days after Boston Magazine published an article that quoted Pedroia calling his hometown “a dump,” but police could not confirm whether the verbal jab motivated the alleged threats.
“We don’t know for sure, but that business has been getting phone calls ever since that was published,” Sgt. Heath Parsons said.
According to Parsons, the threats were made at about 12:30 p.m. Friday via a phone call to Valley Tire Center, 179 W. Main St., which is owned by Pedroia’s parents.
Parsons said the suspect “made multiple phone calls and stated that the Pedroia males would be shot and killed.”
By working with AT&T, police were able to trace the call to a cell phone belonging to parolee Kenneth Lewis Samuels, 47, who was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats.
“He admitted to making the calls, but he didn’t talk about what he said,” Parsons said.
Samuels, of 329 W. Woodland Ave. in Woodland, was lodged at the Yolo County Jail.
Woodlanders have had mixed reactions to the Boston Magazine piece, which also quoted Pedroia as saying, “You don’t want to stay in Woodland. What do you want to stay in Woodland for? The place sucks.”
Pedroia, the 2008 American League MVP, later apologized in an interview with The Sacramento Bee, saying his comments were taken out of context.
