BURNER PHONE A 57-year-old south Charlotte man filed a police report after someone snatched his phone from his hands, then used it as a weapon. The man told police that he was looking at his phone while riding the LYNX light rail in Uptown, and when the train stopped at the 3rd Street Station, a man grabbed the phone from his hands and ran off into the station. You would think that’s a simple enough case of theft, right? Nope, because as soon as the suspect left the train, he threw the phone at the first woman he saw standing there and kept on running.
NO FUZZ, NO FUSS Police responded to a Family Dollar on Eastway Drive in east Charlotte recently after a man became violent when he learned he wouldn’t be able to use the store’s merchandise for free. According to the report, a man walked into the store and immediately began using a lint roller from the shelf. When an employee asked the man to leave, the suspect became violent, swinging some clothing items at the employee, striking him in the face. The suspect fled the scene before police arrived, and the employee suffered only minor injuries and did not need medical attention.
PEGGED One officer was in a straightforward mood when he filled out the police report for a shoplifting call on Woodlawn Road last week. When the officer arrived to The Reddoor, he was told that the two suspects had walked out of the store with “adult items” that they hadn’t paid for. When he listed the stolen merchandise, however, the reporting officer was more direct: “a realistic looking cock and harness.”
IF YOU GOT ’EM Someone stole an entire shipment of cigarettes from a QuikTrip on Woodlawn Road last week, although the report does not make clear how exactly they did it. Officers reported to the convenience store on a recent afternoon to learn that someone had stolen $1,730.46 worth of cigarettes of all different types. The report was listed as shoplifting, but it’s unclear how the hell someone even holds that many cigs on their way out the door.
FOOL ME ONCE A 23-year-old Apple Store employee at SouthPark Mall was recently scammed out of $500 and he didn’t even know what the hell happened. Neither do we, to be honest. According to the report, the victim was approached by three people he had never met before, and they “forced him to get $500 cash from the nearby ATM.” The trio of suspects left when they got their money, and that’s when the victim realized something was up. “This was part of an elaborate scam and the victim did not realize at the time that he was losing cash to the suspects,” the report reads. *insert shrug emoji*
DAMAGE CONTROL A 30-year-old man in the Hidden Valley neighborhood invited a lady friend over for a drink recently, but he would quickly regret it. By the time he called police on the woman, she was breaking the front windows of his home, one by one. The man later told responding officers that the woman had come over and gotten extremely intoxicated, and when he asked her to leave, she became upset and started smashing the windows. All in all, the woman did $200 in damage to his home, and much more damage to the relationship.
FRIENDS LIKE THESE A 47-year-old woman won’t be doing any more favors for one former friend after recently learning that her house guest had been stealing from her over the span of a two-week stay. The woman reported that the guest admitted to her one night that they had been slowly stealing things and bringing them to the pawn shop throughout their stay at her house, and in the end, the stolen items amounted to $11,000 worth of shoes and $6,000 worth of purses.
AGAINST THE RULES Everyone knows you can’t use your hands in soccer, but apparently the rules aren’t as clear cut when it comes to what happens after the game. Police responded to a park near Evergreen Cemetery in east Charlotte after a man allegedly assaulted a fellow soccer player. Other players told officers that the man was ejected from the game, so in response he punched another player in the mouth before leaving the park.
LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER In Issue 5, we reported on the accidental theft of an urn holding a grandmother’s ashes, but this week’s crematory criminal knew exactly what he was doing. According to staff at Tribute Cremation Society on Monroe Road near Oakhurst Park, the suspect came into the business to ask about some paperwork regarding his deceased father, but was told he didn’t have a right to the files, so he stole them. According to the report, the man made off with his father’s entire cremation file, which includes the cremation authorization, the death certificate, and the record of death, which sounds like it may just be the same as a death certificate.
HAPPY ENDING In a column so filled with criminal misbehavior and just plain stupidity, I’d like to wrap this one up with some heartwarming news out of Northwest School of the Arts, where they’re solving problems in a way that adults have completely forgotten. We’re not sure exactly what happened leading up to this report, but at some point, a police officer decided to file a non-criminal report describing how two students had solved their bickering in a mature manner. We’ll let that officer take it from here: “Two high school students had a meeting to discuss their different interpretation of an event that occurred on Monday on school campus and how their resulting actions affected more students on campus in a negative way. Both students were able to come to a peaceful resolution and apologized to one another for their own actions.” Wow. I don’t know what the hell that cop is talking about but it certainly gives me hope for humanity.
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