The Scanner: Do The Dew

NO FEAR It’s usually Panthers fans who make an embarrassment of themselves by starting fights and taking part in other hooliganism at Bank of America Stadium, but on Dec. 7, it was a Clemson fan who said, “Hold my beer.” Despite Clemson winning the game 62-17, the fan was either too angry or too drunk to care about the presence of a police officer when he attacked a Virginia fan. One officer who was working security at the game in full uniform wrote that just after 10 p.m., “I witnessed an assault occur directly in front of me. The suspect ran up behind the victim and struck him in the back of the head.” The victim, a Salem, Virginia, resident in town for the game, was hospitalized with a minor injury.

 

BRANCHING OUT A 34-year-old man filed a police report after he was also attacked without warning while walking near his home on East W.T. Harris Boulevard. The man told police that it was around 10:30 p.m. when he was suddenly attacked by “a suspect wielding a tree branch,” who struck him with the branch and stole his wallet, his phone and $80 in cash. The victim was hospitalized with minor injuries.

 

ROAD TRIP A 23-year-old man had a terrifying experience on a recent morning in South End, but was luckily able to escape before things got worse for him. The man told police that he was standing outside of the bars near the Bland Street light rail station at around 12:30 a.m. when four men he had never met before suddenly started beating him up, then threw him into the trunk of a car. The men then drove him around the city for nearly four hours until he was able to escape the trunk and run away to call police at around 4 a.m. He suffered minor injuries and was able to get treatment from Medics who responded to the call.

 

DO THE DEW There was apparently no love lost between management and a former employee at a Pizza Hut in northwest Charlotte. According to a police report, the ex-employee walked into the restaurant on Mount Holly-Huntersville Road and stole a $2 bottle of Mountain Dew, walking right out of the store with it. Management wouldn’t stand for that, and filed a report for larceny, proving that when you leave Pizza Hut, the perks are over!

 

LET ME THROUGH A 51-year-old woman in the Plaza Midwood recently had a run-in with an enraged driver in front of her home, or maybe it would be more accurate to say the driver had a run-in with her. According to the report, at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, the suspect intentionally damaged her gate by climbing on it and jumping around. That apparently didn’t do the trick, though, as the suspect then got into his car and began ramming the woman’s gate, also doing damage to a nearby fence belonging to Nova’s Bakery. Then, the man allegedly realigned his car so as to get back to damaging the woman’s property that he was targeting, backing into it and continuing on his early morning spree of vandalism. The man then drove away, though the entire incident was caught on tape, meaning he will thankfully need to answer for his idiocy as soon as they track him down.

 

I’M THE BOMB A woman at Charlotte Douglas International Airport knew just how to get the attention she craved while visiting the airport on a recent evening. According to police, the woman told an airline worker that she had an explosive device while she was in the airport at around 5 p.m. on a Friday. According to the report, “The statement was proved false,” but that certainly gave the workers something to talk about for the evening.

 

BRASS TAX You just can’t trust anyone anymore. A 30-year-old man living in the Belmont neighborhood can’t even leave his hose outside without people trying to strip it for parts. The man filed a police report recently after a known suspect allegedly came to his house at 3 a.m. to steal the brass coupler off the hose sitting outside his home. Perhaps more inexplicable than the fact that the thief wanted the coupler was the fact that he was unsuccessful in stealing it.

 

THREE-COURSE MEAL A shoplifter in east Charlotte was able to get most of his meal down before police arrested him on a recent morning, but dessert was not in the cards for him. Police responded to a QuikTrip on Eastway Drive recently in response to a call about a man who walked out of the store with a cup of coffee, a cheeseburger and a piece of cake that he hadn’t paid for. By the time officers found the man, he had already eaten the burger and drank the coffee, but officers were able to recover the slice of banana cake from his pocket before he could enjoy it.

 

TAKING OUT THE GARBAGE Another thief also stole some burgers on a recent morning, though they’ll have to cook the products they made off with. According to the report, the thief broke into The Garbage Truck, a local food truck that specializes in serving the “Trash Plate” made famous in Rochester, New York. The hamburglar stole $150 worth of burger patties and bacon, plus a tool bag full of ratchets and wrenches.

 

FALSE ALARM Homicide detectives brought a CSI team out to a wooded area in the Derita neighborhood of north Charlotte after someone discovered a grave stone that they feared maybe marking human remains. They dug up the grave only to find to everyone’s relief that the grave site was for someone’s pet dog.