Three stories: same ending

By Doug Page | Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 03:06 PM

First, we have the gentleman driving his 2005 Mercedes in a somewhat erratic manner down National Road. Driving down the middle of Englewood’s main drag at 1:25 in the morning will bring you to the attention of police.

Pulled over, the gentleman did the usual fumbling for his drivers license and insurance card. Stumbling while exiting his luxury automobile, the gentleman asked officers to delay his field sobriety test while he tied his shoe.

Bending over, he fell. He spent two minutes on the pavement attempting to tie his shoe. When assisted to his feet, it came as no great surprise that the gentleman failed the sobriety test. He was charged with drunken driving and released to his mother.

Second, we have the case of the wandering Dayton man. Once again in the pre-dawn darkness, police spotted the man speeding and drifting from lane to lane. The officer first turned on his overhead lights. No response. Then it was the siren. No response. Almost a-half mile later, the gentleman pulled into a parking lot.

Asked where he was coming from, the gentleman said he wasn’t sure. Asked where he was, the gentleman correctly named the street, saying he was trying to return his home in downtown Dayton. He, too, failed his field sobriety test. On his way to the county lockup, he told police he’d been drinking at a Dayton bar near his home. The driver said he should have walked home because somehow he ended up in Vandalia. Must have made a very wrong turn.

And finally yet another early morning wanderer. Police pulled him over for speeding. Despite all of his impending problems, the gentleman honestly answered the officers’ questions.

No, he had no drivers license. A record check found he hadn’t had one since 2002.

Had he had a little bit to drink? No, he said, he had had more than a little bit.

How much? “I really couldn’t tell you.” Too much to be driving? “Of course.”

He, too, failed his field sobriety test and agreed to a breath test, blowing .225 percent, nearly three times the 0.08 percent legal limit. En route to the county lockup, he passed out or fell asleep several times, according to the police report.

As my father once told me, nothing good happens after 1 o’clock in the morning.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love

Oh, the humanity

By Doug Page | Monday, November 23, 2009, 02:47 PM

Englewood police arrived on the horrific scene on Katy Street in the pre-dawn hours of a Thursday.

Destruction was everywhere. Four garbage cans and five recycling bins where scattered from curb to curb, the maimed wreckage of a pickup truck gone bad.

According to police reports, an officer on Wenger Road heard the squealing of tires, the screaming of a revved engine and the distinctive full-throated rumble of a bad muffler. He spotted a pickup truck matching that auditory description and gave chase as the vehicle blew through stop signs, fish-tailed through curves and hopped curbs to make tight turns. At speeds of 40 mph, the pickup drove through a yard then into a field near First Baptist Church in an effort to elude.

Rather than follow the offending vehicle, the officer waited on the street as the pickup tore circles through the field until it was mired in the mud. The driver then rabbited toward a nearby apartment complex.

By this time, other officers arrived and began a systematic search for the driver. He was found in one of the complex’s buildings, huddled in a corner. According to police, the gentleman stunk of drink, and was extremely emotional and incoherent.

The gentleman declined a breath test, but admitted to driving his truck. The rest, as they say, was all a blur.

What police determined was the gentleman hadn’t had a valid license since 2006 and had taken his father’s truck without permission.

He was taken to the county lockup on a laundry list of charges, ranging from drunk driving to failure to comply. Back on Katy, the recovery resumed at dawn as city workers cleaned up the mess.

No word on the medical condition of the garbage cans or recycling bins.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love

If stupidity were illegal

By Doug Page | Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 01:00 PM

In the wee hours of a Monday morning, an Englewood police officer spotted a car with an expired license plate.

Stopping the car, the officer found the gentleman had neither his drivers license nor proof of insurance on him. He did, however, have the smell of alcohol on him. Checking his license history, the officer also found the gentleman did not have driving privileges because of numerous open suspensions. Not particularly good thinking.

When asked, the gentleman said he thought he’d taken care of that trivial matter. The officer then had the gentleman perform a field sobriety test. Part way through the test, the gentleman had another thought and told the officer he was going back to his car.

It was at this point, the gentleman was arrested and cuffed. A search of the car turned a dope pipe, which the gentleman claimed as his, according to the police report. The gentleman also refused to take a breath test and refused to tell police his address. Good thinking.

While in the back of the squad car, the gentleman managed to slip his handcuffed hands from behind his back to his front. More good thinking. He was recuffed and placed in leg restraints.

En route to the county lockup, the gentleman began berating the officer with profane language. Upon arrival, a corrections officer opened the squad car’s back door to free the gentleman’s feet. The gentleman then tried to kick the corrections officer. More stellar thinking.

As a result, the gentleman was cited for operating a vehicle under the influence, expired registration, drug paraphernalia and failure to disclose personal information — all misdemeanors.

Were stupidity illegal, he might be facing a felony

Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love

There’s more disturbing here than just the music

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 02:19 PM

Englewood police had been called before to the neighborhood on complaints of loud music. The neighbors claimed a gentleman would park his car in front of their houses and play his music at high volume.

They also claimed the gentleman monitored a police scanner so when neighbors called police he would turn off the music.

Police had warned the gentleman two days prior to an officer pulling up four houses away from the gentleman’s residence on a quiet, peaceful October morning.

The officer reported he got out of his cruiser and was standing on the sidewalk when he saw a vehicle slowly back out of the gentleman’s driveway, do a U-turn and back into the driveway. The driver then turned off his headlights and “proceeded to turn the stereo up to a level that I could hear four houses away,” the officer reported.

This at 6:30 in the morning.

The officer approached the vehicle and asked the driver to identify himself. It was the gentleman police had warned.

The officer explained that numerous neighbors had complained about his behavior. Then the officer added that he had heard the stereo played at “a disturbing level.”

The gentleman “became irate and demanded to see our ‘loud o’ meter’,” the officer reported.

The gentleman was cited for loud music and ordered to appear in Vandalia Municipal Court.

The gentleman might have mis-remembered the Robert Frost verse. Perhaps he thought the poet wrote, “Good sound walls make good neighbors.”

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love

The tale of the Good Car Fairy

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 02:44 PM

It all started with a call to Englewood police from a local towing service.

In the dark hours the night before, someone had entered the locked tow yard and driven off with 1991 Buick Regal, exiting by driving the car through the tow yard’s chain link fence. The business provided police with a copy of the security tape, the car’s plate number and the address of the car’s owner. Earlier in the month, the car had been towed to the business after the owner had been arrested and jailed when he attempted to drive off without paying for the gas he pumped. His mother paid his bond, and he was later released.

Two days later, Englewood was notified the car had been found. The owner was in the vehicle, going nowhere because of a flat tire.

An officer was dispatched to arrest the gentleman and bring him back to Englewood for questioning.

The owner told detectives, yes, his car had been towed, though he didn’t know where and was unconcerned about retrieving his car because he was getting rides from friends.

When asked how the car came back into his possession, the gentleman said he found it on the street near his father’s house.

Asked his father’s address, he responded “I don’t know.”

Asked how the car might have gotten there, the gentleman said perhaps a friend.

Asked the friend’s name, he responded, “I don’t know.”

Finally a detective asked if the “good car fairy” returned his car to an unknown address out of the kindness and goodness of the fairy’s heart, according to the police report.

The gentleman responded he had no idea.

Asked if he had paid for the tow to get his car back — and documents to prove it — the gentleman reiterated he had no idea how the car showed up on the street.

Detectives once again informed him that the car was stolen for the tow yard and driven through the chain link fence, and that he was in possession of the car. He, therefore, would be charged with receiving stolen property.

“I’m going to jail?” the gentleman asked.

“I advised him,” the detective wrote in his report, “that he was. Even though the good car fairy returned his car to him, (the fairy) stole it in order to do so.”

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love

The answer is … Yes

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 12:50 PM

It was a Friday morning when Englewood police were called to an apartment to check on the welfare of a woman.

When officers arrived, the woman said she was fine and had no plans to hurt herself. “What? Do you think I’m stupid?” Officers reported the woman appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and was upset about a visit from police the night before.

During that visit when the woman complained about harassing text messages, officers had arrested her boyfriend on an unrelated warrant.

After officers returned to their cars and began leaving, one saw the woman break out the front window of her apartment with her hand. She then dialed 9-1-1 and “screamed and cursed at the dispatcher regarding her displeasure with the police department”, according to the police report.

As officers were returning to the front door, they saw the woman break out the remaining glass in the front window with a metal baseball bat. She then piled chairs in front of the front and back doors of the apartment and walked upstairs.

Officers used a master key to open the apartment and ordered the woman to come down the stairs. She did with a cigarette in one hand and cell phone in the other as she spoke on the phone, ignoring orders to place her hands behind back.

When officers tried to cuff her, she resisted. Eventually, one officer Tazed the woman so she could be cuffed. She was evaluated by EMTs, but declined further medical treatment beyond treatment for a cut on her arm, apparently from breaking the window. She was cited for disorderly conduct and criminal damaging, both misdemeanors.

While on the way to the county lockup, she used the backseat of the police cruiser as a restroom. She remains in the lockup on $3,000 bond.

Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love

TV assaulted. Police believe it was an innocent by-stander

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 03:54 PM

The live-in boyfriend called Englewood Police in the early morning hours of a recent Monday to report a domestic dispute.

When officers arrived, the girlfriend said she wanted the boyfriend gone from the home they shared. The girlfriend said her boyfriend’s name was not on the lease so she wanted him out.

An officer explained because the boyfriend had been living in the home, he had established residency there. If she wanted him gone, she would have to start eviction proceedings. According to the officer’s report, the girlfriend acted as if she were drunk.

The officer also noticed a LCD TV in the living room had a crack in the screen. When asked what happened, the girlfriend replied the TV belong to the boyfriend, and she had thrown a lighter at it, cracking the screen.

Officers got the girlfriend to agree to sleep in the bedroom and stay there, and the boyfriend on the living room couch.

Not quite 30 minutes later, the boyfriend called again. The girlfriend had come out of the bedroom and had been haranguing him. Police cited the girlfriend for disorderly conduct, but before they were able to cuff her, she hurled a cell phone at the TV, “causing additional damage to the screen,” according to the report.

The boyfriend told police the girlfriend was upset because he was staying up late. (Perhaps watching too much TV?) In addition, the boyfriend claimed his girlfriend had consumed half-a-bottle of vodka.

No word, however, on the TV’s condition.

Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment More: Cop reports we love