Mobile home wrecker
MORRISON – On paper, “recreational vehicle” plus “drive-thru” looks like a perfect marriage of convenience. At 1 o’clock in the morning following a festive Friday night, it was more like the perfect storm. Pulling even with the microphone in his great, big RV, the hungry fellow placed his order and then asked the unseen attendant if he should pull forward, what with the great, big RV and all. “You’re fine,” the scratchy voice assured him. “Drive on around.” He did, snagging a great, big bag of chow at the delivery window and ripping a great, big awning off of the side of the building with his great, big RV. Deputies caught up with him about a mile away, driving with one hand and eating with the other, blowing through red lights, and shedding hunks and shreds of erstwhile awning all over the highway. “I heard a couple of big noises,” he told the officers, “but I didn’t think anything of it.” To be perfectly fair, it’s not easy to think about things when you’re half lit, much less to get through a roadside sobriety test. Deputies cited the man for DUI, leaving the scene of an accident, failing to report an accident, careless driving and, of course, blowing through red lights. And if his great, big RV is equipped with a microwave oven, he may have yet enjoyed his late, late supper after 12 hours in detox, albeit for late, late breakfast.
Fan friction
SOUTH JEFFCO – Dissatisfied Customer walked into the Big Box retailer seeking “Spanish fans.” When a store employee could locate only two such articles in stock – neither of which met with the customer’s aesthetic approval – Dissatisfied demanded that the staff immediately begin tele-canvassing all of the business’s sister stores in metropolitan Denver until fitting fans could be found. Their plates already heaped, the staff instead supplied Dissatisfied with a complete list of those businesses, their addresses and phone numbers, and unrestricted access to a store telephone. “Are you (foolishly) kidding me?” howled Dissatisfied. “This is (foolish) (baloney)!” She continued in that earthy vein for a while – to the obvious discomfiture of other patrons, young and old – before the store manager finally invited her to leave. She accepted the invitation, deliberately smashing the store’s only two Spanish fans and going General Franco all over a metal sign by the front door on the way out. As luck would have it, one employee went to high school with Dissatisfied, which is how deputies came to knock on her door a few hours later. “He said he wouldn’t help a (gender-specific epithet),” said Dissatisfied, by way of excusing her outburst. Officers pointed out that none of many witnesses recalled hearing the insult. “He didn’t say it loud, and there was nobody around us,” she countered. Officers pointed out that surveillance footage showed that she and the manager were more or less surrounded at all times. “I was on my cell phone with somebody,” she said, taking one last shot, “and they heard it.” Again, and awkwardly, deputies explained that the video clearly refuted that claim, also, and handed her a pair of hand-written invitations to the Taj Mahal. “Why don’t you charge (the manager) with a crime?” bellowed Dissatisfied, defiantly. “I’m going to sue that store.”
Loser ID
EVERGREEN – It was late on Dec. 8, and watching the woman pile her shopping cart high with expensive merchandise without once glancing at a price tag, Big Box security personnel figured she was either a big spender or a crime in progress. Turned out they were right the second time, and deputies were summoned after she tried to remove 72 individual pieces of plunder out the door without paying for them. Exasperated and impatient, she flipped the officers a Nebraska driver’s license. Trained in the arts of observation, deputies discerned that the woman looked exactly nothing like the Cornhusker pictured thereon and asked her to recite her date of birth. She did, and it was exactly nothing like the one on the license. “Oh,” she said, dismissively, “is that not my birthday?” Officers suggested she turn over her real driver’s license. “OK, fine,” she huffed. “Can we just get this over with?” Deputies were down with that, but first wanted to know why she was carrying around somebody else’s driver’s license. “I don’t know,” she shrugged. Despite finding a half-dozen active warrants dogging the bellyaching bandit, none of them were actionable in Jeffco and officers could do little but slap her with summons and send her packing.