Cops Corner

July 26
What did we do to you?
12:03 a.m. — 6500 block of South Tamiami Trail. Criminal Mischief. A supermarket manager got a call from the store’s alarm company, saying there was some kind of problem at the store. The manager tried calling the supermarket, but the phones did not appear to be working. He went to the store and called the phone company to report the outage. A phone technician noticed the problem right away. The wires inside a junction box behind the store had been cut. The phone technician said most people would not know what that box was or how to open it. The tech said the phone company just laid off some employees, so the suspect may be a disgruntled ex-worker. But why he would take his frustration out on the supermarket is unclear.

July 27
High-speed chase
1:33 p.m. — South Tamiami Trail and Blackburn Point Road. Fleeing to Elude, Habitual Traffic Offender, Car Burglary, Carrying a Concealed Weapon, Possession of a Controlled Substance, Tampering with Evidence. If a car burglar had just been able to stay in his lane, he might have gotten away. A deputy was responding to a call of a reckless driver. He remembered just a few minutes earlier hearing a radio call about a car burglary with the same suspect description. He found the reckless driver, who couldn’t stay in his lane and was throwing various items out the window. The driver would not pull over for the deputy and began driving faster. He was going about 70 mph past Laurel and Albee roads. At Colonia Boulevard, the deputy noticed a lot of traffic, so he backed off the pursuit. His backup, though, picked up the chase further down Tamiami Trail, and the suspect was finally stopped in North Port. He had a stolen purse, with prescription drugs in it and had a knife in his pocket. Oh yeah, he also had a suspended license.

Rear window
3:01 p.m. — 5800 block of Midnight Pass Road. Criminal Mischief. A woman getting ready to climb into her car saw that someone had smashed its rear window. The crime happened sometime overnight, but there were no suspects or witnesses.

Crime takes no vacation
4 p.m. — 6700 block of Sarasea Circle. Burglary. A resort manager said someone entered her locked office and stole $30 from a cash box and six card-type master keys. The keys don’t open guest rooms, but do allow guest keys to be made.

July 28
Sommelier in training
12:15 p.m. — 8400 block of South Tamiami Trail. A supermarket employee walked into the store’s bathroom and saw a customer pouring a bottle of wine into plastic drink containers. When confronted, the woman said the seal had broken on one of the bottles she just bought and was leaking, so she was pouring it into the other containers. She had six wine bottles, but her receipt showed she only paid for four. The manager said if she paid for the other two bottles, he would not press charges. She coughed up the $15.98 for two bottles of Corbett Canyon chardonnay and left.