If stupidity were illegal

By Doug Page | Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 01:00 PM

In the wee hours of a Monday morning, an Englewood police officer spotted a car with an expired license plate.

Stopping the car, the officer found the gentleman had neither his drivers license nor proof of insurance on him. He did, however, have the smell of alcohol on him. Checking his license history, the officer also found the gentleman did not have driving privileges because of numerous open suspensions. Not particularly good thinking.

When asked, the gentleman said he thought he’d taken care of that trivial matter. The officer then had the gentleman perform a field sobriety test. Part way through the test, the gentleman had another thought and told the officer he was going back to his car.

It was at this point, the gentleman was arrested and cuffed. A search of the car turned a dope pipe, which the gentleman claimed as his, according to the police report. The gentleman also refused to take a breath test and refused to tell police his address. Good thinking.

While in the back of the squad car, the gentleman managed to slip his handcuffed hands from behind his back to his front. More good thinking. He was recuffed and placed in leg restraints.

En route to the county lockup, the gentleman began berating the officer with profane language. Upon arrival, a corrections officer opened the squad car’s back door to free the gentleman’s feet. The gentleman then tried to kick the corrections officer. More stellar thinking.

As a result, the gentleman was cited for operating a vehicle under the influence, expired registration, drug paraphernalia and failure to disclose personal information — all misdemeanors.

Were stupidity illegal, he might be facing a felony

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There’s more disturbing here than just the music

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 02:19 PM

Englewood police had been called before to the neighborhood on complaints of loud music. The neighbors claimed a gentleman would park his car in front of their houses and play his music at high volume.

They also claimed the gentleman monitored a police scanner so when neighbors called police he would turn off the music.

Police had warned the gentleman two days prior to an officer pulling up four houses away from the gentleman’s residence on a quiet, peaceful October morning.

The officer reported he got out of his cruiser and was standing on the sidewalk when he saw a vehicle slowly back out of the gentleman’s driveway, do a U-turn and back into the driveway. The driver then turned off his headlights and “proceeded to turn the stereo up to a level that I could hear four houses away,” the officer reported.

This at 6:30 in the morning.

The officer approached the vehicle and asked the driver to identify himself. It was the gentleman police had warned.

The officer explained that numerous neighbors had complained about his behavior. Then the officer added that he had heard the stereo played at “a disturbing level.”

The gentleman “became irate and demanded to see our ‘loud o’ meter’,” the officer reported.

The gentleman was cited for loud music and ordered to appear in Vandalia Municipal Court.

The gentleman might have mis-remembered the Robert Frost verse. Perhaps he thought the poet wrote, “Good sound walls make good neighbors.”

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The tale of the Good Car Fairy

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 02:44 PM

It all started with a call to Englewood police from a local towing service.

In the dark hours the night before, someone had entered the locked tow yard and driven off with 1991 Buick Regal, exiting by driving the car through the tow yard’s chain link fence. The business provided police with a copy of the security tape, the car’s plate number and the address of the car’s owner. Earlier in the month, the car had been towed to the business after the owner had been arrested and jailed when he attempted to drive off without paying for the gas he pumped. His mother paid his bond, and he was later released.

Two days later, Englewood was notified the car had been found. The owner was in the vehicle, going nowhere because of a flat tire.

An officer was dispatched to arrest the gentleman and bring him back to Englewood for questioning.

The owner told detectives, yes, his car had been towed, though he didn’t know where and was unconcerned about retrieving his car because he was getting rides from friends.

When asked how the car came back into his possession, the gentleman said he found it on the street near his father’s house.

Asked his father’s address, he responded “I don’t know.”

Asked how the car might have gotten there, the gentleman said perhaps a friend.

Asked the friend’s name, he responded, “I don’t know.”

Finally a detective asked if the “good car fairy” returned his car to an unknown address out of the kindness and goodness of the fairy’s heart, according to the police report.

The gentleman responded he had no idea.

Asked if he had paid for the tow to get his car back — and documents to prove it — the gentleman reiterated he had no idea how the car showed up on the street.

Detectives once again informed him that the car was stolen for the tow yard and driven through the chain link fence, and that he was in possession of the car. He, therefore, would be charged with receiving stolen property.

“I’m going to jail?” the gentleman asked.

“I advised him,” the detective wrote in his report, “that he was. Even though the good car fairy returned his car to him, (the fairy) stole it in order to do so.”

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The answer is … Yes

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 12:50 PM

It was a Friday morning when Englewood police were called to an apartment to check on the welfare of a woman.

When officers arrived, the woman said she was fine and had no plans to hurt herself. “What? Do you think I’m stupid?” Officers reported the woman appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and was upset about a visit from police the night before.

During that visit when the woman complained about harassing text messages, officers had arrested her boyfriend on an unrelated warrant.

After officers returned to their cars and began leaving, one saw the woman break out the front window of her apartment with her hand. She then dialed 9-1-1 and “screamed and cursed at the dispatcher regarding her displeasure with the police department”, according to the police report.

As officers were returning to the front door, they saw the woman break out the remaining glass in the front window with a metal baseball bat. She then piled chairs in front of the front and back doors of the apartment and walked upstairs.

Officers used a master key to open the apartment and ordered the woman to come down the stairs. She did with a cigarette in one hand and cell phone in the other as she spoke on the phone, ignoring orders to place her hands behind back.

When officers tried to cuff her, she resisted. Eventually, one officer Tazed the woman so she could be cuffed. She was evaluated by EMTs, but declined further medical treatment beyond treatment for a cut on her arm, apparently from breaking the window. She was cited for disorderly conduct and criminal damaging, both misdemeanors.

While on the way to the county lockup, she used the backseat of the police cruiser as a restroom. She remains in the lockup on $3,000 bond.

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TV assaulted. Police believe it was an innocent by-stander

By Doug Page | Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 03:54 PM

The live-in boyfriend called Englewood Police in the early morning hours of a recent Monday to report a domestic dispute.

When officers arrived, the girlfriend said she wanted the boyfriend gone from the home they shared. The girlfriend said her boyfriend’s name was not on the lease so she wanted him out.

An officer explained because the boyfriend had been living in the home, he had established residency there. If she wanted him gone, she would have to start eviction proceedings. According to the officer’s report, the girlfriend acted as if she were drunk.

The officer also noticed a LCD TV in the living room had a crack in the screen. When asked what happened, the girlfriend replied the TV belong to the boyfriend, and she had thrown a lighter at it, cracking the screen.

Officers got the girlfriend to agree to sleep in the bedroom and stay there, and the boyfriend on the living room couch.

Not quite 30 minutes later, the boyfriend called again. The girlfriend had come out of the bedroom and had been haranguing him. Police cited the girlfriend for disorderly conduct, but before they were able to cuff her, she hurled a cell phone at the TV, “causing additional damage to the screen,” according to the report.

The boyfriend told police the girlfriend was upset because he was staying up late. (Perhaps watching too much TV?) In addition, the boyfriend claimed his girlfriend had consumed half-a-bottle of vodka.

No word, however, on the TV’s condition.

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Errors in judgment and other things that matter

By Doug Page | Monday, October 5, 2009, 10:34 AM

Errors in judgment are facts of life.

I made one of those some 18 months ago. Errors, no matter how grievous or wrong-headed, can be corrected. Apologies go over well with wives and mothers.

Wives and mothers do not often apologize. That would be because they are seldom wrong.

Be that as it may, gentle reader, I note with great relief that the Clayton basketball goal imbroglio is on the back burner, at least for a while. If the gods are indeed good, it might even fade away.

Continue reading "Errors in judgment and other things that matter"...

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Oh, yes he is

By Doug Page | Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 11:00 AM

A gentleman, perhaps believing his home was his castle, dared officers to write him a citation for playing his music too loud.

For his efforts, the gentleman not only got a citation but a free ride to the county lockup.

It started at 2:45 on a Tuesday morning when neighbors called Englewood police with a loud music complaint. Officers responded to the gentleman’s apartment. They spent 20 minutes pounding on the apartment’s door and windows to get the gentleman’s attention. All the while, the music blared, according to the police report.

Eventually, one officer discovered an unlocked window. The window was opened and officers attempted to rouse the gentleman who was sprawled on a nearby couch. They were unsuccessful.

An officer then tried the apartment door and found it unlocked. Officers opened the door and announced their presence. The gentleman on the couch some 6 feet away did not respond. When officers entered his apartment, however, the gentleman arose and ordered the officers to leave “or he would call 9-1-1,” according to the report.

Officers tried to calm the gentleman and asked if he had not heard their knocking and yelling. “You mean when (police) opened my window? Yes,” the man replied, according to police reports.

A sergeant then told the gentleman that one of the officers would be citing him for loud music. “No, he’s not,” replied the gentleman as he tried to push past the sergeant. When assured that it would indeed happen, the gentleman again tried to push past the sergeant, who advised him he was now under arrest and handcuffed him, according to the report.

The man continued to yell at officers and resist as they took him to a patrol car for his trip to the county lockup.

He was, in fact, cited for loud music.

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