Toxic spill
CONIFER–Just about the time the swift-rising sun began warming the cold pavement beneath it, a sharp-eyed resident noticed a stranger stop his car in front of her house and start picking numerous items up off the street. Keen to know what treasures were so readily available for the taking on her block, she sidled outside and asked the man, who showed her a large stack of mail addressed to a home a few doors down. Saying he was late for work, the stranger unceremoniously pushed the mishandled mail into her hands and drove away. She summoned a JCSO deputy, who determined that most of the correspondence was of the hated “bulk” variety, and that while a couple of pieces appeared to have been opened, nothing appeared to be missing from them. As the mail’s intended recipient couldn’t be easily contacted of a week day morning, the officer left a business card and delivered his dispatches to the JCSO evidence vault until called for. The case remains administratively open while authorities try to learn how all those Realty mailers and credit card come-ons wound up in traffic.
Scores to settle
CONIFER – Late on Christmas Eve, Bonnie Beemer parked her black 2020 X5 in the driveway next to her silver 2018 Z4.Three weeks later, she deduced that holiday hooligans had left what amounted to a double-helping of coal in her stocking, leaving 4-inch scratches on the X5’s driver’s door and the Z4’s passenger-side door. As it happened, Bonnie thought she knew who lay behind the unseasonal sabotage. “I can’t prove it, but I think (Joe) or his son (Li’lJoe) did it.” Turns out The Joes are Bonnie’s least-favorite neighbors and have provoked her to hard stares and strong language on more than one occasion. “I just want it documented,” Bonnie said. The officers documented the dings, then tried to raise one of the Joes at home, but to no avail. Until new information comes to light, the Case of the Blighted BMWs is running on fumes.
Raising cane
EVERGREEN –Walter’s promising New Year got off on the wrong paw when he strolled down to the lobby on the afternoon of Jan. 1 and Jack’s dog “tried to jump on me.” Walter remonstrated Jack for his poor dog-handling skills. Jack “waved his cane” at Walter. “I’ll (pup) you up!” Jack growled. Jack didn’t actually (pup) anybody up, and the dispute simmered nonviolently until a few days later when Jack called JCSO with news that Walter “tried to kick my dog.” Jack didn’t necessarily want charges brought to bear, but he needed a police report because the building managers wouldn’t address the issue unless one was attached. Witnesses statements and surveillance video confirmed that Walter merely “kicked at” the dog without striking it, which isn’t a crime, and the deputies said so in their report, which they provided to Jack along with a timely word about properly restraining one’s pet.
Do the math
EVERGREEN– It’s like this, the grounds keeper told deputies. He’d gone to all the trouble to erect an orange plastic temporary fence around a particularly hard-used and at-risk expanse of lawn, and scoff laws unknown cut a giant hole in it. So great was the damage, he groused, that the faux fencing could only be replaced, not repaired. On the hunt for suspects, officers tallied the following suggestive features of the case: One: an entire section of the temporary fence had been cleanly, efficiently and with deliberation cut away with a sharp and sturdy instrument. Two: numerous sled, ski and toboggan tracks pass directly through the wide breach thereby produced. Three: the endangered turf rests on a broad slope that rises up to a neighborhood street. Calculating whether it was better to potentially ticket an entire residential block, or to chalk it up as a mid-winter mystery, the deputies arrived at the following value: “There are no suspects at this time.”
Sheriff’s Calls is intended as a humorous take on some of the incident call records of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for the mountain communities. Names and identifying details have been changed. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty.