The Scanner: Burn It Down

WHAT A BURN A 44-year-old west Charlotte woman was thanking her lucky stars that her enemies are not very smart after almost falling victim to a failed attempt at arson recently. The woman told police that just before 9 p.m. on a recent night, some unknown suspect stuck a paper cloth in her gas tank and tried to light it on fire. Fortunately for her, the cloth never lit, so neither did the gas in the tank.

GAMER GATE A 25-year-old man made a bad decision with his Playstation 4 early one recent morning and lost it as a result. The man told police that he needed a place to charge and update his PS4, so he did what any logical human would do and sat beside a Harris Teeter on Mount Holly Huntersville Road in north Charlotte to use its WiFi at 12:30 a.m. The man fell asleep while his game system was updating, and when he woke up at 3 a.m. someone had run off with the Playstation.

THAT’S A TRIP It’s unclear what caused a run on beer at local QuikTrip stores at the end of September, but we found 17 incidents involving people running out of five different QuikTrips with arms full of beer between Sept. 20-29, with most coming on the last weekend of the month. On Sept. 28 and 29, there were 13 instances in which someone walked into a QuikTrip and ran out holding as much beer as they could. In those two days alone, QuikTrip lost at least $1,330 worth of beer.

COMING IN HOT A police officer patrolling near the Hidden Valley neighborhood in north Charlotte didn’t have to look hard for a drunk driver on one recent weekend, he was attracting them like a bug zapper. It was 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when the officer stopped at a red light, only for someone to suddenly slam into the back of his car. The suspect was found to be impaired and quickly arrested for driving under the influence.

NO VACANCY A 33-year-old man in north Charlotte will be locking his doors from now on after watching someone come in and out of his house on one recent afternoon. The man said he watched the suspect walk right into the back door of his home at around 12:30 p.m. one day and only stay for “a brief moment” before wandering back out again. He told officers the door wasn’t locked but the suspect didn’t have permission to come in. Nothing was stolen during the break-in, if you can call it that.

NOT A VICTIM A concerned mother called police rather than rely on her daughter to tell her the truth about what happened at a sports bar on a recent night. The woman told police that her 28-year-old daughter must have been involved in some sort of altercation or assault on the previous night, because she had scratches and bruises on her arms and legs. The mother believed that a certain suspect must have assaulted, drugged and kidnapped her daughter. That’s quite a conclusion to jump to, so police investigated, only to find that the woman was involved in an incident at Bulldogs Bar and Grill from which she got all those bruises and scratches, but whatever happened, it was not criminal, according to the report.

HELP YOURSELF A 20-year-old woman got a surprise when she came home late one recent night and found two intruders rifling through her stuff. The woman told police she returned home at about 11:30 p.m. to find two men who had broken into her house. The men left as soon as she arrived, but before they ran out the door they grabbed her vacuum, some pots and pans and a bunch of silverware for their trouble.

WHAT A MESS Police responded to a home in the Hampton Crest neighborhood of east Charlotte after a 25-year-old woman reported that someone vaguely threatened to make a real mess of things in her home.
According to the report, the woman told officers that “the suspect threatened to come over and kick the door in to mess stuff up.”

DON’T PET THE ANIMALS A Highland Creek woman may have jumped the gun when she called police about someone playing with her dog in her yard on a recent afternoon. The 39-year-old woman told officers that an unknown suspect came into her yard and attempted to steal her dog, and it’s unclear exactly what this so-called suspect did with the dog, but according to the report, “officer investigation showed that the neighbor had no intent to permanently deprive the victim of the dog.” Probably miffed or embarrassed that she called the police for someone playing with her dog, the “victim” continued to pursue trespassing charges. That will probably get her invited to all the block parties.

SET AN EXAMPLE Police file plenty of reports for deadbeats who come into restaurants and walk out without paying their bill for alcohol and/or food, but one woman in south Charlotte took dine-and-dash to the next level on a recent Sunday afternoon. According to the report, the woman went to a Chuck E. Cheese on Pineville-Matthews Road and ordered a birthday bundle for $250 that included food, drinks, tokens and tickets. After being there with all the kids from 4-7:30 p.m., the woman gathered the children and got the hell out of there before paying for the package.

NO MUFF A 52-year-old woman living in the Hidden Valley area will now have a car that people can hear coming from a mile away after falling victim to a theft at her home recently.
She told police that at some time around midnight recently, an unknown suspect stole the muffler right off her car, doing $500 in damage.

I HEART HARASSMENT Sometimes you just want to hear your song on the radio and you won’t take no for an answer. Staff at a local media company filed a police report recently after a fervent fan continued to call and tie up the phone lines. The reporting person told police that a known suspect made over 60 phone calls to the iHeartMedia offices in southwest Charlotte in just 11 days and was making it so nobody else could call to request their jam.

TAKING YOUR TIME An 88-year-old woman called police recently after someone broke into her home and stole her guns and took her time. The woman reported that the unknown suspect broke into her house in north Charlotte and took a shotgun, a pistol and two rifles, with a total value of $2,325. Just for good measure, the thieves also stole multiple grandfather clocks from the home, valued at $500.

All Scanner entries are pulled from CMPD reports. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.