COPS CORNER: Generating some crime


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June 16

Generating some crime

10:30 a.m. Interstate 95 Palm Coast Parkway overpass. Larceny.
A project manager working on the Palm Coast Parkway bridge over Interstate 95 got to work with a construction crew June 16, set up a generator, and then found it missing a few hours later.

The crew had placed the generator at the top of the bridge by a barrier wall at about 7 a.m., according to a deputy’s report.

They didn’t notice anyone suspicious approach it while they were working, but by 9:30 a.m. it was gone, and a deputy wrote in a report that it “appeared that the generator was wheeled down to the bottom of the bridge and then possibly placed in a vehicle,” according to the report.

The generator was a rental worth about $1,000. The project manager told the rental company about the theft, and the deputy uploaded a description of the generator, along with its serial number, to a crime database.

June 17

You’ve got mail! Or not.

12 p.m. First block of Foxhill Lane. Theft.
A 92-year-old woman went outside her home one morning and found her mailbox gone.

The mailbox — black metal, with a hand-painted white handle — was worth about $20, according to a deputy’s report. The woman didn’t remember if the house number was printed on it.

A deputy searched the area but didn’t find any suspicious people toting a mailbox.

Jeep joyride

7:11 a.m. First block of Burning View Lane. Stolen Vehicle.
A young man left a Jeep Grand Cherokee — unlocked with the keys in the cup holder — in his driveway June 16 and walked outside the next morning to find it gone.

His sister drove by the house at about 5 a.m. and didn’t see the Jeep there.

The family called the Sheriff’s Office, and when a deputy entered the tag number into a crime database, he found that someone else had seen the SUV that morning — careening north on Interstate 95 in Duval County — and called the police to report the driver as reckless.

The caller hadn’t been able to see the driver well because of the car’s window tint, according to the Sheriff’s Office report.

Deputies entered the car into a crime database and advised other northern Florida counties to be on the lookout for it.

Smashed in or smashed out?

04:25 a.m. First block of Burnside Drive. Larceny, motor vehicle.
A woman called deputies saying that she was sitting in her kitchen when she heard her car alarm go off. She said she ran outside and saw that someone had smashed a window and taken her empty computer bag.

But a deputy investigating the crime thought that explanation didn’t add up: It looked like the window was smashed out from the inside, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

The deputy wrote in the report that the window of the woman’s white Cadillac was shattered but intact.

There was still dew on the outside of the window, and it didn’t’ look like someone could have climbed in through the shattered window because of the way the glass remained attached.

The deputy thought someone may have unlocked the door through the open window. The deputy tested it, and the alarm sounded, according to the report.

The deputy wrote that “the incident is suspicious and suspect information is unknown.”

June 19

Man can’t control his anger — or his mouth

2:50 a.m. First block of Patric Drive. Felony criminal mischief.
A man was inside his house with a woman when the two heard “loud crashing noises” outside the home, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

The man walked outside and saw a 22-year-old man in his driveway. He told the man to get away from the house, according to the report.

Instead, the young man took a swing at him. The victim tackled and pinned the attacker, and told him to calm down. When he let the young man get up, the young man got on a red motorcycle and pulled away, saying he’d done something — exactly what he said he did is redacted it a deputy’s report — to the victim’s car.

The victim went over to his car and found it “severely damaged,” according to the report, and called the Sheriff’s Office

The deputy wrote that the car had “multiple scratches, a dented roof that appears to have been stomped in and a slashed right rear tire,” and that the damage would cost thousands of dollars to repair.

The woman who was at the house said she knew the attacker, according to the report.

He was staying at her grandmother’s house and had sent her a text message before he’d showed up and trashed the car owned by the man she was with, according to the report.

He also broke the driver’s side mirror off her car and left it sitting on the roof. She didn’t want to pursue charges.

Deputies found the young man at his parents’ house. The red motorcycle was parked against the garage, and warm to the touch.

They arrested him on a charge of felony criminal mischief, in part because there were two witnesses saying he “admitted via text message and statement that he damaged the vehicle,” according to the report.
 

 

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