Well, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. And that means here at the City Paper, our thoughts turn to — what else — man’s inhumanity.
What did you expect, Good Morning Lowcountry?
Every week, a crack member of our staff — or is it a staff member on crack? — heads down to Charleston Police headquarters and sifts through the goodies and incident reports the cops put out for us.
We clean them up a little, maybe tack on a joke or a cartoon, and serve them up fresh and good.
There was so much funny (and sad and disgusting) crime this year that our Blotter stockings are o’erflowing.
So, pull your favorite easy chair in front of the fire, put on some knitted socks, grab a mugful of piss and vinegar, and enjoy.
(Oh, yeah, these reports aren’t a court of law, no one has been proven guilty, so please don’t bother suing us.)
Threats
Ask anybody and they’ll tell you, those nuts over at the City Paper love it when someone abuses an innocent verbally. It just takes us back to our childhood, and our fathers who couldn’t control their drink:
• “You’re on the news next!”
• After being evicted in June, an identical twin told his downtown landlord, “I’m going to get you. Your name is on my nuts! You should handle this like a gangsta!”
• “I’m going to take that baby,” said by a man to his ex-girlfriend in August, who was only three months pregnant at the time.
• Ecclesiastical Threat O’The Year: “If you bring your fucking ass to church, I’m going to kick your black ass across the church.” Apparently, the Rev. Ike Turner has brought the First Church of Ass-Kicking to the Holy City.
• In August, a woman threatened her ex-boyfriend, saying she would cut up his new girlfriend “and throw her over the bridge.” Wow, people just can’t stop talking about that new bridge!
In May, a dreadlocked man with “Thug Life” tattooed on his chest and a revolver tattoo on his bicep pointed a real-life pistol at a woman at a Beaufain Street public housing complex, saying, “I’ll kill you bitch.” It’s a wonder he didn’t cut a rap album while he was at it.
In September, an apparent redneck threatened another man by saying, “I’ll blow you away … I’ll come get my truck and run over your butt.” And then what? Stab him in the heart with a rebel flag?
Quotes
Sometimes, a person’s mouth isn’t a weapon — unless it’s pointed back at their own head! If you’re lucky, people will say the darnedest things to cops, or where they can be overheard during processing.
• A 25-year-old woman arrested in February for possessing a stolen truck told police that “only God can tell me to quit smoking crack ’cause it tastes so good to me.”
• “I know where you live!” shouted a would-be assailant from inside his victim’s bedroom in August.
• “Don’t be saying that [deleted] isn’t my child — that makes me angry and I’m thinking about violence.”
• “Could you tell me where this arrow is pointing?”
• “What are these pretty little girls doing here in cuffs?” asked an elderly cop about a pair of high schoolers in the property room. Creepy.
• Blotter Cop Quote O’The Year: “I love the Blotter. That’s the only part of the City Paper I read!” Wait a minute … cops can read?!
Misspellings
Who said cops were literate? Here’s the top-10 list of words they stumbled over this year:
10. cooky
9. wellfare
8. grabed
7. phins
6. latter (instead of ladder)
5. Disturbence
4. handwritting
3. saught
And a tie for the top spot:
1. “tatoos” and “cheast,” which were pulled from the same sentence in the same report.
Kids These Days
Some say children are our future, that we should teach them and let them lead the way. Of course, the lady who sang that also smokes crack and is married to has-been Bobby Brown. Judging from these kids’ behavior, maybe we should dispose of them all in a mass grave.
• “You lucky I didn’t slap you face,” said by a student, 12, to his teacher in November after she took away his cell phone during class. That boy’s on the “un” plan — as in “unlikely to avoid prison.”
• In September, an off-duty police officer spied a young man swinging wildly from a George Street tree. When the cop asked him to leave the area, the man screamed, “Your [sic] committing police brutality!” College students — you can coax them out of trees and teach ’em the language, but you can’t get them to act like humans.
• In June, it appeared that someone poured a box of soap flakes into the pineapple fountain at Waterfront Park. We’d love to tell you what really happened, but can’t — ancient Chinese secret!
• Authorities checking on the welfare of a Lockley Drive child in April discovered that his residence had no running water and had trash strewn throughout the house, empty beer cans thrown everywhere, clothing and trash littering the floors, pots and pans filled with dried food, and fecal matter covering the bathroom walls. Man, that sounds like every college apartment we’ve ever been to.
• On July 4, cops arrested a man and his baby mama after they found a 3-foot alligator running loose in a room adjacent to one where a 2-year-old child was sleeping.
Blotter Father O’The Year: The dad who threatened his 19-year-old daughter in July after her mother bought her a new car, saying, “You’ll pay for this … You’ll not have that car if it’s the last thing I do. Watch out, you shouldn’t feel safe. I’m going to shoot the car and cut the fuel line.”
Shoplifting
God bless the child what gots its own — or isn’t afraid to take matters into their own hands.
• In May, a man narrowly escaped sexual assault by a pack of hotties when he was caught trying to sneak five bottles of Axe body spray out of a downtown grocery store.
• In April, a man with a crack pipe in his pants was spotted trying to shoplift 11 sticks of deodorant from a King Street grocery. At least there’s one crackhead who knows he’s sweating profusely.
• In April, police arrested a 16-year-old boy at a local Target after the boy put a Tony Hawk Underground video game in his front right pants pocket and tried to exit the store. Say, is that a nose-to-front air grind in your pants, or are you just happy to see us?
• In May, police arrested a man at a King Street grocery for attempting to shoplift four packs of Dutch Masters. Obviously not a baller, the guy doesn’t know that White Owls burn far slower than Dutchies, making for fewer runs and a mellower high.
• Police arrested a 44-year-old man at a King Street grocery in July after he was seen trying to put two cans of Raid insect killer into his pants. Dude, you need to lay off the whores.
• A Folly Road grocery store employee called police in August after two men stole 78 batteries. Authorities tried to arrest the suspects, but they kept going, and going, and going …
• “I’m crazy don’t stop me, I’m fucking crazy, don’t come near me, I gotta feed my baby,” screamed a woman in August as she grabbed and ran off with four bags of chips, four cookies, three brownies, and two Bundt cakes from a West Ashley store. Now, that is going to be one fat baby.
• In October, employees at a downtown grocery store caught a man stuffing a package of Mrs. Lee Country Pudding down his pants. Mmmm … pudding pants!
Weapons
Every few years, Charlestonians are able to turn an ordinary household item into a weapon — sort of like cons do when they turn a toothbrush into a shank. This year, the weapon du jour was — drumroll, please — liquid bleach.
• Someone threw liquid bleach on three girls during a Sepember melee at a West Ashley playground. Also used in the fight: pepper spray, knives, a hammer, bats, wooden boards, and a crowbar. Who the hell brings detergent to that fight?
• A man in his early 20s broke into his ex-girlfriend’s Orange Grove Road residence in June, put all her clothes in the bathtub, poured bleach and broken eggs over them, and then cut them up with a steak knife. Is that what “getting your salad tossed” means?
• In April, a 23-year-old woman threw Clorox on another woman who, she claimed, “pulled her hair” during a fight. Which reminds us: How does Snoop Dogg keep his whites so damn white? Ble-otch.
Assaults
Sometimes, the quickest route between two hearts is a straight line. You know, like the flight trajectory of a bullet fired from a gun.
• On Nov. 7, a couple was arguing downtown when the woman struck her ex-boyfriend several times with a broomstick. Looks like a certain “witch” was a week late for Halloween.
• A group of teenagers driving down Oyster Point Row in a red sports car in March pulled over, rolled down a window, punched an 11-year-old boy in the arm, and then sped away. This may be the city’s first-ever drive-by punching.
• In April, “Teeny,” a 35-year-old woman, slapped a 10-year-old boy in the face on Playground Road and then told her son to also hit the boy. Teeny then told the boy she “would beat his ass if he hit back.” And people used to think Martha Stewart was the biggest bitch in the world.
• Two grown men got into a fight at a West Ashley watering hole in which a candy machine was smashed, causing gumballs to go flying all over the place. Who choreographed this fight, Scooby Doo?
• A man was dining at an all-night downtown restaurant in June when another man walked up to the window and made an obscene gesture at him with his mouth. The man left his food, went outside, and promptly started scattering, covering, and smothering the other man.
• In August, a man used a baseball bat to beat in the door of a Sequoia Street apartment, whereupon he smashed the resident in the left side of the face with the bat. Raging with a baseball bat?!? Who does this guy think he is, Barry Bonds? … Jose Canseco? Sammy Sosa? Mark McGwire? Rafael Palmeiro?
Thefts
The Lord may love a workin’ man, but we here at the City Paper have a certain affinity for one who steals without guilt.
• In March, 30 4-foot-by-2-inch pieces of lumber were stolen from a Daniel Island Drive home. Police should be on the lookout for a small deck.
• Someone stole a pickle jar filled with $50 in change from beneath the bed of a Dogwood Road woman’s home during the afternoon of March 1. The culprit bypassed the woman’s stereo and large-screen TV in doing so. Cops should be on the lookout for a thief with a green, shriveled hand.
• In June, police arrested a 47-year-old woman who was seen stealing money out of a cancer charity’s donation jar after they tracked her to a West Ashley bar and grill, where she was picking dollars out of the tip jar. Let’s hope her hands were cut off with a scimitar and she contracted stub cancer in both wrists.
Somebody broke into a car parked at a downtown funeral home in March. See what happens when you ask if this day could get any worse?!
Isn’t it weird that a guy nicknamed “Toes” got caught in April with his hand in the cookie jar for pilfering nearly $1,100 from a neighbor’s checking account?
• In what may have been the state’s first case of “intrauterine identity theft,” a North Chuck woman found out in August that a girl from Rock Hill had been using her birth certificate and Social Security Number to get OB/GYN care.
• On Halloween, someone stole a baby stroller from a South Battery driveway that included a plastic pumpkin filled with candy. What’s better than stealing candy from a baby? Stealing candy from a really rich baby.
• On Nov. 14, $85 in cash was stolen from a “home essence” kiosk located inside a West Ashley mall. Please contact police if you come across any currency that smells like sandalwood, patchouli, or nag champa.
Sex
Take a lesson from the insurgents: produce more criminals than the government can fight.
• In February, cops charged a 23-year-old man wearing a cow costume with disorderly conduct after he “caused mental distress and panic” to a woman and her 11-year-old daughter in a downtown grocery after walking up behind them in the checkout line wearing a sweatshirt that covered all but one of the costume’s udders, which the mother “perceived to be his penis.” Word of advice: Eat Mor Chikin.
• A woman fell into a sewer in March while walking down Line Street after she stepped on a manhole cover, flipping it up. Huh-huh-huh, we said “manhole.”
• Police arrested a convicted sex offender in May as he was trying to score some patches and trophies from a local Boy Scouts office. Police also discovered that the man already had a Santa Claus costume, a military uniform, and an abundance of toys at his home. In a related incident, Michael Jackson moved to Bahrain, where he can finally mount a revival of Where the Boys Are.
Drugs
Some Charlestonians claim to make contact with a “higher” power this time of year. Whatever, dude, just don’t bogart that eggnog bong.
• In May, police pulled over an 18-year-old driver at a downtown Hardee’s who was carrying a pistol in his pants, as well as two grams of cocaine and seven crack rocks in his shirt pocket. And that’s the story of how the last place you’d go for a burger became the first place you’d go for dangerous narcotics and firearms.
• A police dog sniffed out 108 grams of marijuana in a trash can on Strawberry Street on Feb. 28. Somewhere, Snoop was shedding a tear.
• After helping a man hanging by a rope back into his boat in Charleston Harbor on May 16, cops gave the dude a big fat ticket when they found out he also had his 17-month-old child and 10 empty beer cans on board.
holiday Messages
What better way to celebrate the Yuletide (or Kwanzaa-tide, or Secular Humanism-tide) than with some inspirational messages left throughout the year?
• “Kiss my ass, suck my dick bitch, gonna beat your ass bitch.” This little bon mot was left on an elementary school answering machine in March.
• “Holland is fucking gay and he sux dick for $10.” This note was written on a West Ashley softball field. Does anyone remember the good ol’ days when the sport of softball was pure, and only lesbians played the game?
• A Charleston man told police in July that he believed his cousin may have vandalized his van after hearing a message on his answering machine from the cousin, stating, “Check your van Mother Fucker!” No shit, Sherlock.
• Blotter Phone Threat O’The Year: “I’m going to gut you,” a niece told her aunt this year after she was left off as a “loving daughter” on her father’s headstone.
• Blotter Answering Machine Message O’The Year: “It’s no wonder your goddamn son committed suicide.Goodbye. Bitch.”
Blotter Incident O’The Year
• The award goes to the former College of Charleston varsity tennis players who pulled the ultimate “double fault” this fall when they told cops they had been “forced” by a knife-wielding black man to smoke crack with them for four hours one night, even though he hadn’t threatened them with the knife in hours. The two, one of whom has since been charged with filing a false police report, called police after they realized they had a drug test the next week.
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