Passersby Tidies Up After Sloppy Slithy Tove – February 4, 2012
• Wednesday, January 11 8:07 p.m. A kid in “bum-looking clothing” did his best to affirm negative stereotypes against skateboarders in Valley West, yelling at innocent burger customers for imaginary misdeeds. Police found the loose-lipped lad lounging near a motel swimming pool and sent him on his way.
• Thursday, January 12 2:16 a.m. A man called to say that he has a large collection of antique military uniforms, swords and decorations. Included in the collection is an object that worries him – a German hand grenade which might be live. He isn’t sure that it’s safe or even legal to own the thing. The HCSO Bomb Squad was notified.
4:23 p.m. A patient in a hospital gown strolled out of med-surg and went a-wandrin’ toward the elementary school next door.
4:37 p.m. A $250 bicycle at the school was reported having been stolen the previous day. It hadn’t exactly been a paragon of security. The lock’s combination was written on a sticker under the seat, and anyway, it hadn’t been locked.
5:22 p.m. The patient who had fled was sitting at a bus stop in front of the hospital, refusing to allow the IV to be removed from his arm. Before police could arrive, he got into a gray car which zoomed off northbound toward Giuntoli Lane.
7:44 p.m. The visual screen on the fence between the Larson Park tennis courts and the freeway had to be removed because, during its short life, it was endlessly graffitied. Now the tennis courts were being used for a soccer match. The soccerists were moved along so as to make room for the next likely phase of park usage, cats and dogs living together.
9:41 p.m. A report later deemed unfounded included fragmentary datums regarding a woman waiting for her husband outside a school gym, a pledge that “he is willing to go to jail,” and a youth who was banned from participation in a sporting event. “Parties were separated,” and one left in a vehicle.
10:04 p.m. A Valley West resident said that a stray dog had climbed a fence to get into his yard. It was now barking and looking lost.
11:02 p.m. Two vehicles piloted by drivers without valid driver’s licenses, one with warrants, somehow became entangled with the dangling plot thread of the runaway hospital patient at the bus stop. Or maybe it was a different one, as things sometimes happen in clumps. In any case, the peripatetic patient was walked back to the ER. Someone, maybe him, underwent medical clearance and went to Sempervirens.
• Friday, January 13 11:25 a.m. A sloppy slithy tove gutted a truck at 15th and I streets, leaving the entrails strewn in the street. Those would be a blue and white cooler and the vehicle registration, all of which a passerby placed in the bed of the truck.
9:51 p.m. A strange, strange smell again emanated from a Bayside Road apartment, just as it had weeks ago. The home was inhabited by two college-age males, so it could have been anything. For once, it wasn’t pot, or even a sage smudge. An officer went and talked to the lads and the problem was “mitigated,” whatever that means, though the exact nature of the collegiate stench was not disclosed.
• Saturday, January 14 12:34 a.m. A skinny-looking guy drove recklessly eastbound on Giuntoli Lane.
12:40 a.m. A driver blazed past an officer at Seventh and K streets at ridiculous velocity, yelling something. The car wasn’t found.
12:44 a.m. Jessica Court, Wyatt Lane and Stromberg Avenue are the racetrack for at least one gas pedal-mashing buffoon whose DNA line could meet a crashing end there.
2:46 a.m. A person was found deceased in a Ninth Street apartment.
10:53 a.m. Eight suspects at a Valley West motel were detained in connection with a vehicle with a punched ignition in the parking lot.
5:36 p.m. The kids, ages 10 and 8, were locked in the bathroom/safe room and calling police while a parolee battered their mom with a remote control, trying to get her keys away from her. Police came, detained him, called his parole officer and then arrested the man.
11:35 p.m. A man and his friend were walking on the 14th Street freeway overpass when a couple approached them. The male told the passing pedestrian that the woman had thrown his car keys and he thought that they had landed in the passerby’s pocket. He said he wanted to search the guy for the keys. The passerby and friend tried to walk away, but the couple followed them until they were able to elude their pursuers near the university. A bit later a woman called, saying that she had lost her car keys during an argument with a male friend. The dispatcher then called back the passerby and told him that the circumstances of his complaint were “possibly somewhat legitimate,” but by then he had moved on with his life and didn’t wish to pursue the matter further.
• Sunday, January 15 1:07 p.m. Clothing, a tackle box, cell phones and a camera had been left in a car in the 1000 block of Ninth Street.
2:14 p.m. A man in knee-high rubber boots asked a stranger at a Valley West shopping center if he smoked marijuana.
• Monday, January 16 1:29 p.m. A Shetland Lane resident reported having accidentally fired an AR-15 assault rifle inside his home, but he couldn’t find the bullet hole.
• Tuesday, January 17 10:05 a.m. A tattoo-faced camper slumbering amid cut logs at an M Street lumber yard almost got smashed when employees moved the timber. The man departed with considerable haste, leaving behind a backpack.
1:16 p.m. A dreadlocked woman habitually steals cigarettes at an H Street donut shop, then repairs with her sleeping bag to the adjacent alley to suck ’em on down.
2:15 p.m. A bus passenger reported that somewhere between Long Beach and Martinez, someone stole his blue and yellow backpack valued at $987 out of the luggage rack. He needed a case number for the reimbursement claim.
4:32 p.m. Someone was concerned that “feeder” rats – the ones used for food for other animals – at a pet shop were not getting adequate food or water and being eaten on an empty stomach.
5:58 p.m. A caller said that when a neighbor kid got a new bike, he threw the old one in a dumpster. This was retrieved by the caller’s child and a friend for their use, but the apartment complex’s security guard then seized the bike and wouldn’t return it.
• Wednesday, January 18 10:20 a.m. A woman at the Transit Center said that when she confronted a man over the way he treats women, he punched her in the face. He said that his was a defensive maneuver – that in blocking a punch to the face thrown by her, he may have made contact with her face. When security video of the fussy face-off was reviewed, it confirmed the man’s version of the story. Asked why she had struck the man, the woman said, “We were just playing,” then flitted away.
11:27 a.m. A Davis Way resident reported a weird box having been attached to a corner of his fence. It looked like a bird house but had a video camera with a flashing red light inside.
3:55 p.m. A creepy dude sat in an SUV near a Wyatt Lane school bus stop, possibly taking pictures of the kids getting off the bus.
