Blotter o’ the Week: A man asked to use the phone at a West Ashley gas station, but instead rushed to the back and stuffed six cartons — not packs — of cigarettes under his jacket. When the store clerk confronted him, the man told her, “Sorry Patty, I have to do it.”
A homeless man taking shelter in a downtown parking garage claimed that his religion prevented him from interacting with police.
A man walked into a West Ashley gas station, tore open several cases of water, and threw the bottles into the parking lot for no discernible reason.
An employee at a local gardening company has been harassing a property owner with multiple messages, including a voicemail that featured “music playing in the background and a male party moaning and repeating [the property owner’s] name.”
School employees found a jar with “trace amounts” of THC wax during a random car search of student vehicles at James Island Charter High. They’re lucky that’s all they found while looking into kids’ cars in the middle of the school day.
An employee at a shoe store in the Citadel Mall sold and “returned” eight pairs of Nikes worth a total of $2,000, enough to run far away from your problems, or at least from your former employer.
A downtown woman told officers that someone broke into her house and stole side tables, a fake plant, a boombox, and a box of condoms.
A Johns Island driver leaned out of his window and yelled obscenities back at a patrol car trying to stop him. When he finally pulled over, he asked an officer, “You want to wrestle? I got something in my bag for you.”
Two girls walking home after school noticed a man sitting in his car, looking at them, and “actively masturbating.”
Standing behind a downtown discount store, a man downed the rest of his 16-ounce beer as an officer approached him. “If I’m going to go to jail tonight, I might as well finish the beer,” he proclaimed. Luckily, all he got was a citation.
Charleston’s dry cleaning turf wars seem to be escalating as one of the owners of a downtown dry cleaner was found asking strange questions and casing the location of another downtown dry cleaner, whose processing plant was destroyed in a fire a little over a year ago in what the owners suspect was their rivals’ doing.
A woman took chocolate, coffee, and a rose from a Harris Teeter a.k.a. cutest shoplifter ever! Also, she apologized so whatever, right?
A man smeared feces on the floor, and paradoxically, Comet powder on the ceilings and walls of the men’s bathroom of a North Charleston RV Park.
Three people worked in tandem to distract employees of a downtown Sunglass Hut long enough to jack a $780 pair of Chanel Pearl sunnies, which are apparently sold at the Sunglass Hut.
Today in How To Avoid Self-Incrimination 101, don’t say this: “Yes, this is my car. I want to be honest with you I have marijuana inside my book bag. It’s just a few nuggets.” Love Best of Charleston? Help the Charleston City Paper keep Best of Charleston going every year with a donation. Or sign up to become a member of the Charleston City Paper club.