The following were taken from actual incident reports filed last week by the City of Charleston Police Department. These are not convictions and the names of businesses, complainants, and suspects have been left out to protect the innocent. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty … of course.
January 17 | GENERAL INFORMATION
An Ashfield Drive man told police that he’d received a call from a man claiming to be his pastor, saying he’d been arrested and that pastor needed him to bring a $2,000 giftcard to a local mall to get him out of jail. The man said the caller then handed the phone to “Officer Davis” from the police to confirm the situation. The man was unable to pull the money out of the bank, and a friend told him it was probably a prank. When police arrived, they called the pastor who told him he was fine and not under arrest.
January 17 | SHOPLIFTING
Police heard a worker at a Sam Rittenberg Boulevard department store screaming “SECURITY” after a man apparently grabbed $1,300 in purses off a display and ran out of the store. The man was spotted jumping into a car in the parking lot and speeding off. Four of the bags were valued at $185 a piece, and two at $295 a piece.
January 17 | PEEPING TOM
An Ashley Hall Road couple spotted a young man in a hoodie and “old school Jordans” using a flash camera on his cellphone to take picture of them from the bushes of their apartment complex. When the boyfriend saw the flash go off, he charged the window, causing the peeper to exclaim, “Oh [redacted]” before running off.
January 17 | TRESPASS
A Hazelwood Drive woman told police an individual had attempted to break into her bedroom through a window while she and her boyfriend slept. Her father rushed outside the unit, and saw a man jumping into a Jaguar and roar off. Police noted the bedroom window was ajar and the shades were “noticeably damaged.”
January 17 | INTIMIDATION
A Trailmore Drive woman told police that her boyfriend had begun threatening her after she called the cops on him for refusing to leave her alone. After returning a “dragon necklace” to him, the woman said he threatened her, saying, “since you called the cops your life is going to be hell. I am going to take everything from you, maybe even your life.” The boyfriend, who goes by the nickname “boogeyman,” called the woman while police were interviewing her, and said, “I can’t wait to see you, you’ve got big problems. I don’t care if you do not want to get in my truck, you’re getting in the truck.”
January 19 | CRIMINAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
A woman working at a Sam Rittenberg Boulevard restaurant told police that her boyfriend had threatened shooting her, adding that his “pull up game is strong.” When she texted him, asking if he was threatening her, he replied that he was and that “I’ve got my book bag and my gun.” The boyfriend later arrived at her work, and was restrained by two of her coworkers while yelling, “When I see you on the street I am going to shoot you in the [redacted] face,” according to a video taken on the scene. Police are searching for the boyfriend.
January 19 | SIMPLE ASSAULT
Police arrived near the intersection of Eutaw Battalion and Rivers Bee drives in response to a report of a physical fight involving a shotgun. When they arrived, they saw a man with no shirt retrieving a shotgun from a nearby retention pond. After the man complied and put the gun down, he told police that the day before he’d returned home only to find his live-in girlfriend had changed the locks. The next day, he returned and found the front door open, entered and began to make himself a bowl of cereal. At which point, he said his girlfriend confronted him, saying she didn’t want him there and that he needed to leave “because what’s about to happen is you’re really going to be hurt.” At which point, a man emerged from the upstairs, and the boyfriend told the man not to mess with him. The other man was allegedly carrying a shotgun. The girlfriend said he was carrying it because the other man thought the boyfriend would “be crazy when you saw this happen.” The boyfriend followed the other man down the street as he continued to carry the shotgun, capturing the moment on his phone’s video camera. Once the other man put the apparently unloaded rifle down in a truck, he turned and punched the boyfriend in the face. When interviewed by police, the other man said he worked with the woman, and that everything he’d done was “defensive.”
