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 27 | Shoplifting
Police arrested a woman at an Ashley River Road consignment shop after she tried initially to walk out the door of the store with a purse belonging to the store stuffed full of items apparently also from the store valued together at over $200. When stopped she said she was about to consign them with the store, but when several of the items found in the purse still had the store’s price tags on them, she changed her story: she was going to buy them.
January 27 | Theft from building
A West Ashley hotel worker called for police after a man allegedly stole a psychedelic blue and turquoise painting entitled “Miami Sunlight” from the lobby bathroom and made his getaway on a beach cruiser bicycle. The worker followed the man to a nearby diner, and took the painting back from him. Additionally, about $25 was stolen from the breakfast buffet tip jar at the hotel.
January 27 | Criminal domestic violence
A resident at an Ashley River Road apartment told police a neighbor had dragged his girlfriend “screaming bloody murder” up the stairs and into their second-floor apartment. When police arrived, they interviewed the couple. The woman said once inside, the man put her down and began gathering her juvenile children to leave the apartment right before police arrived. The two had been fighting about financial matters.
January 27 | Drunkenness
Guests at a Savannah Highway motel complained of people in the parking lot making loud “strange” noises. Officers found a couple near a dumpster; with the woman was dressed in only on a tank-top, sitting on the ground. Apparently intoxicated in addition to being nude, the woman said she had no idea how she got to the parking lot. The two had been drinking earlier at a nearby pub.
January 30 | Criminal domestic violence — assault with a firearm
A William Kennerty Drive woman told police that her former boyfriend with whom she was still cohabiting walked into the bedroom where she was studying with a shotgun, saying she “had 3 seconds to get up,” and then began “racking” the shotgun. She told police her boyfriend had been trying to go to bed, arguing that it was his bed as he had paid for it. The woman left the bedroom, and the boyfriend then put her in a chokehold in front a friend sitting on the couch. The tow had broken up a few days before over multiple relationship issues. The man had fled the area before police arrived.
January 30 | Criminal domestic violence — aggravated assault
Police responded to a neuroscience intensive care unit at a downtown hospital where a woman was receiving treatment after her former boyfriend had allegedly struck her in the temple with a glass bottle of tequila at his Mepkin Road residence. She returned home afterward, dizzy, and went to bed. At 4 a.m., the woman’s sister found her on the floor next to her bad and brought her to the hospital.
Shoplifting | January 30
Surveillance cameras captured video of a man shoplifting more than $1,400 in electronic gadgets from a Sam Rittenburg Boulevard department store. Footage showed the man with everything from security cameras to expensive digital thermometers on his person, standing in the jewelry department before running out the door and into a waiting car. Workers at another store identified the man, saying he shoplifts at their store often and then puts stolen items up for sale on an app called Offerup.
January 30 | Criminal domestic violence
An Ashley Hall Road man told police that his wife had bit him on the chest after he suggested they get a divorce. Police noted a “saliva ring” on the man’s coat, but not damage to his actual chest. Police also noted several household items strewn in the yard of the apartment, including a television, food, and clothing. The man’s wife admitted to having bit him.
January 31 | Burglary
A Sam Rittenburg man told police he returned to his apartment and found the front door kicked in, and missing was a host of guns and ammunition. Gone were two shotguns and an AR-15, as well as more than 200 rounds of ammunition, and a checkbook. The man told police he suspected a family member, or someone associated with them, as they were looking for drug money.purchase at yet another national chain store.
