Cops Corner 02.11.10

Feb. 1
What’s in your wallet?
2:38 p.m. — 4000 block of South Tamiami Trail. Fraudulent Use of a Credit Card. A woman received a call from her credit-card company alerting her that her card was used to purchase $1,745 worth of items at an electronics store. The store manager said he would check the surveillance video to see if the thief could be identified.

Feb. 2
Extra! Extra!
6:55 a.m. — 1400 block of First Street. Petit Theft. A coffee-shop manager said she’s been having a problem with a man who comes into the store and just sits at a table without buying anything. When she asked him to leave during his latest visit, he took two of the shop’s newspapers with him. The manager later learned that he often takes newspapers and tries to sell them on the street. She said she didn’t want to press charges but wanted police to issue a trespassing warning.

Supermarket sweep
7:40 a.m. — 900 block of Beneva Road. Burglary. A man parked his car on the driver’s side of a woman’s car in a supermarket parking lot. The woman came out of the supermarket, opened the driver’s side door and placed her purse on the front seat. She then began loading grocery bags in the back seat. The man jumped out of his car, leaned into her car and grabbed the purse. He ran back to his car and drove away. The man was captured a short time later and was arrested.

Stalled at the store
9 p.m. — 4000 block of Cattlemen Road. Miscellaneous. A discount-store employee called the sheriff’s office to report a customer had been in the bathroom for a half-hour. The employee said the man went into the bathroom with two other people. The deputy knocked on the stall door, and the man said he was in there so long because he was constipated. The man left the stall, and it was apparent that he was intoxicated. He walked into the parking lot and told the deputy that the two other men who were with him in the bathroom must have taken the car. Because the man was so intoxicated, the deputy was unable to determine if the man allowed his friends to take the car.

Can’t spare a square
12:18 — 1500 block of First Street. Criminal Mischief. The manager of the bus station reported that someone tore the toilet-paper dispenser off the wall in one of the bathrooms.

Black out
11:53 p.m. — 6100 block of South Tamiami Trail. Suspicious Incident. A sheriff’s deputy stopped a car, because its windows appeared to be too darkly tinted. The deputy was correct and asked the driver and passenger for their driver’s licenses. The two were acting suspiciously, so the deputy called for a drug-sniffing dog. The dog discovered a cigarette box in the glove compartment. Inside the box were several unmarked pills. The driver said, “Whatever you find, I take full responsibility for.” But later he said the pills belonged to his “old lady.” The deputy submitted the pills to the sheriff’s office chemist for testing.