Cops Corner

Oct. 3
Easy there, Arnold Palmer
12:12 a.m. — 3400 block of Fruitville Road. Reckless Driving. An apartment resident said a teenager was speeding through the complex on a golf cart and almost hit a child. Of course, one question is why is a small child standing in a parking lot at midnight?

MEEE-OWWWW!
6:13 a.m. — South Jefferson Avenue. Suspicious Incident. A homeowner said he heard a noise every few minutes that sounded like screaming. However, he didn’t know if it sounded like a person or an animal. It turned out to be an animal — a cat in heat.

Oct. 4
Happy hour
4:10 p.m. — 1600 block of Fruitville Road. Suspicious Person. A business owner reported a woman sitting in a parking lot and drinking a beer. She was asked to leave a few times, but kept returning to enjoy her beverage of choice.

Airing their dirty laundry
9 p.m. — 700 block of South Tamiami Trail. Family Disturbance. A car wash manager was arguing with her daughter, who also works at the car wash. During the fight, the daughter grabbed the keys to the business and took off.

Oct. 5
Not-so-honest Abe
2:53 a.m. — 1800 block of South Tamiami Trail. Counterfeit Currency. When a customer tried to pay for fuel, a gas station employee became suspicious. The man handed the clerk a $5 bill, and the clerk inspected it. He determined it was counterfeit and called police. The customer said he got the bill as change at a Mexican restaurant earlier in the day. He was not arrested.

Group effort
12:10 p.m. — 3700 block of Countryside Road. Burglary. A father and son returned home from work to find the son’s TV and video-game system stolen. A neighbor saw a strange car in front of the victim’s home and provided a detailed description of it. The son said that sounded like the car of someone he knew. The car’s owner lives with one of the son’s friends, and that friend would have known about a small window in the victims’ home that doesn’t lock. A third friend of the car owner happened to call the son earlier that same day to ask him if he was at work. That was a pretty big tip off for police, because the son doesn’t know that guy very well.

You’ve entered the Twilight Zone
2:45 p.m. — 4700 block of East Camphor Avenue. Suspicious Incident. A homeowner said he’s been receiving mail for 21 years addressed to the same woman, with his address. He’s never heard of the woman. He marks all mail as “return to sender,” but it keeps arriving. Armed with the woman’s name, the homeowner decided to call 411 to see if he could find her phone number. The phone number listed for her was … his number! What would be even weirder is if he called his own number and she answered.