The Scanner: Jacket Season

AIM BIG The weather gods have begun to tease us with crisper days, reminding us all that it’s time to go jacket shopping. One ambitious shoplifter in south Charlotte decided one jacket won’t be enough for this winter, however. According to a police report, the man was caught trying to steal 23 jackets (yes, at one time) from an Old Navy store in the Carolina Pavilion shopping center.

MOMMA’S BOY A 54-year-old man filed a police report after he was threatened through a third party on the campus of Druid Hills Academy in north Charlotte one recent morning. It’s unclear whether the man was threatened by a student or another full-grown man, but whoever was doing the talking wasn’t willing to back it up with action. According to the report, “the reporting person advised that the listed suspect threatened to have his mother shoot him with a gun” at 8:36 a.m.

WE’LL SEE YA It’s every parent’s nightmare to leave their kids with a babysitter who’s not going to take proper care of their children. What’s worse than that? How about a babysitter who quits halfway through the job? Police responded to the Timber Crest at Greenway apartments in southeast Charlotte on a Monday afternoon after neighbors called about a 3-year-old boy and his 6-year-old brother wandering the complex with no supervision. Responding officers were able to reach the kids’ parents and find that, at some point between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., the babysitter who had agreed to watch the kids had simply abandoned their post.

LEAVE YOUR MARK Staff at a car dealership in southeast Charlotte arrived to work one recent morning to find that they’d been robbed, and that the suspects had left behind some inexplicable damage while they were at it. According to the report, the suspects entered the parking lot at Furrst Class Cars on East Independence Boulevard overnight and stole two subwoofers and all of the 24-inch wheels off of four cars, with total losses valued at more than $23,000. Then for some reason, the suspects poured buckets of red paint over two other cars in the parking lot before leaving, doing $1,500 in damage.

GIVE ME EVERYTHING Armed robbers and scammers are usually two completely different types of people; with the former often being rough-looking goons and the latter tending to be white-collar hacker types. One east Charlotte suspect decided he would not be pigeonholed into any of those stereotypes when he played both roles recently. Police responded to an armed robbery call in the Hickory Grove neighborhood one afternoon and found a 20-year-old woman who told them that a man had taken money from her under the guise that he was the landlord of a property that he didn’t actually own. When she became hip to the scam, he pulled out a gun and robbed her for her money anyway, and took her debit and credit cards, too.

HAIR OF THE DOG A person was arrested for a DWI in the Shamrock neighborhood of east Charlotte at 7:21 in the Goddamn morning recently, and the officer that filed the report got the Captain Obvious award for the week.
The report states that the “listed defendant was arrested for DWI after leaving the roadway on Palm Avenue and coming to rest in the front yard of a residence.” The officer then had to clarify for the record that the suspect also showed visual signs of impairment, although I’d say that the car parked there in the yard was the first visual sign of impairment.

DUDE, YOU LOST A DELL A woman recently helped a friend bring a new baby into the world, and she will now forever view that baby as the reason she once lost a great job. The woman who filed the police report stated that she is an employee of TIAA, for which she has a business-owned laptop. She said that at some point during a 24-hour span she lost the laptop and believes it might have been lost while she was working in the waiting room of Presbyterian Hospital as her friend had a baby. When she was finally able to see the baby she apparently got so excited that she just left the laptop there and never went back to get it.

UNKNOWN, UNSEEN Police responded to a McDonald’s on Monroe Road in southeast Charlotte recently after some sort of mystery ghost suspects began raising a ruckus in the restaurant. According to the report, and I quote because I have no idea what this means, “Unknown/Seen suspects” began screaming profanity at employees inside the McDonald’s at around 6 p.m. one evening. This behavior continued for 20 minutes, with the suspects, described yet again by officers in the report as going “Unknown/Seen,” jumped behind the counter and began throwing sugar, salt and pepper packets on the floors. How the whole time can you go unseen when you are screaming at people right in front of you and throwing shit on the floor?! Also, on a personal note, I’d like to say that if this was all a reaction to the ice cream machine supposedly going down, I stand in solidarity with these suspects.

THE REAL THING It’s all about consent, fellas, even when you’re giving out bro hugs. Police responded to an assault call in east Charlotte and found two men, aged 29 and 31, traumatized by a hug they had just received. According to the report, “the listed victims stated that the listed suspect grabbed them and wrapped them up in a bear hug like embrace without their consent” during an argument inside of a home. That’s what he gets for trying to apologize and take the high road: an assault charge.

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