Cops Corner

May 24
Warning sign
8:04 a.m. — 1700 block of Ringling Boulevard. Suspicious Person. A law office was scheduling a pest-control visit. The company planned to spray all over the building and even underneath it. There was a problem, though. A homeless man had been living underneath the law-office building, and the business owners were afraid he would be poisoned. Police checked underneath the building. The homeless man was not there, but his belongings were. The items were removed, and poison signs were placed around the building.

Love struck
8:41 a.m. — 2200 block of Arlington Street. Criminal Mischief. A man walked out to his driveway in the morning and discovered someone had slashed the four tires on his Jaguar, two tires on his Acura and two tires on his Chevy. The man said he believes he knows who did it. The man recently started dating his ex-girlfriend again, and he thinks her ex-boyfriend is responsible.

King of the urban jungle
5:30 p.m. — 600 block of Central Avenue. Theft. A furniture-store owner told police that someone stole two cast-iron lion's heads that were mounted to the front of his building. The heads were attached to metal brackets with silicone adhesive, and the brackets were mounted to the building. The lion's heads are valued at $1,500 each.

May 25
Flight pattern
12:31 a.m. — Clark Road and Gantt Avenue. Fleeing to Elude, Leaving the Scene of a Crash and Resisting Arrest. A deputy was responding to a robbery report, when he noticed a car on Clark Road was not pulling over to get out of the way. It began accelerating and eventually started to pull away. A high-speed pursuit continued down Clark Road to Stickney Point Road to Siesta Key and back onto the mainland. The driver eventually lost control and crashed into a landscaping boulder in someone’s yard. After he began running away, a K-9 tracked him down and bit him on the leg. The driver had no connection to the robbery.

Cone heads
5 p.m. — 2300 block of Bahia Vista Street. Petit Theft. Someone stole two orange traffic cones from a school crossing. They had been placed in a fenced area and were stolen sometime over the weekend. There are no suspects.