Best of the blotter

Highlights, humor of Stegelin’s weekly cop’toons

The Charleston City Paper combs through dozens of area police reports every week to find some of the weirdest, dumbest or funniest situations in which law enforcement officers and residents find themselves.

We take those reports, summarize and try to write a witty punchline (sometimes we fail) for readers to enjoy in each issue.

But the art of cartoonist Steve Stegelin brings the weekly Blotter to life.

“It’s like improv,” Stegelin said, contrasting his typical award-winning political cartooning. “I have a long window of time to develop ideas and fine-tune the editorial cartoon. The Blotter can be a little more last-minute. So it’s trying to figure out which stories I can visualize quickly, and the work is very spontaneous. It’s all about fun and hoping that energy comes through in the illustration.

“I’ve developed my Trump and my McMaster — I know what they look like and what my take on them is,” he added. “But these are whole fresh fields. What’s Stegelin’s take on an excavator?”

Some of the Blotter entries he gets each week, he said, are funny enough on their own that a simple cartoon gets the job done. Others he likes to give “an extra oomph,” adding the joke in himself through the art.

“I love the shoplifting ones where there’s just this oddball collection of items that you normally wouldn’t see together,” Stegelin said. Just last week, for example, was a piece on a woman who reportedly took lamb chops, ribeyes and two Disney Princess bags.

“The Blotter gives me a chance to draw things I don’t normally do. I also try to find pop-culture tie-ins whenever possible. If I can stick a superhero in there, that’s great.”

Without further ado, here are the top 10 Blotter entries from the last couple years, as picked by the artist and our readers.

No.10
Best wishes

A West Ashley woman on Feb. 16 reportedly badgered employees at a Savannah Highway car lot, asking to sniff their butts and if they had any beer. Look, it’s kind of cute when dogs do it — we guess — but when it’s a drunk grown woman, it starts to get a little less cute. Officers arrested her for disorderly conduct and took her to jail, where maybe she had better butt-sniffing luck.

No.9
Who needs breadcrumbs?

Someone on July 11, 2025, apparently broke into a Mount Pleasant home on Foxwood Drive and tracked white paint through the backyard, garage and residence. Town police investigated, noting that nothing seemed to be stolen or out of the ordinary — aside from the white footprints all over the house. Well, at least it shouldn’t be too hard to find the culprit.

No.8
Needed a walk

A West Ashley man described as wearing red scrubs and having “feces all over himself” on Jan. 6, 2025 — the anniversary of the U.S. Capitol insurrection — reportedly stole a case of beer from an Ashley Crossing store, ripped the box open when outside, chugged one of the beers and walked off with another, leaving behind the rest of the case. There are times when we are left with more questions than answers, and right now, we’re pretty happy that way. Maybe an insurrection celebration?

No.7
Going for a swim

Charleston police on July 15, 2024, interrupted a downtown woman’s spa day when they found her bathing in the Waterfront Park fountain with a towel wrapped around her head. She was reportedly clothed, but passersby were “alarmed” and “unreasonably disturbed” possibly by what police noted as “feces” she was washing from herself. All right, then. Noted.

No.6
Well, you got your answer

A downtown Charleston man on Aug. 25, 2024, reportedly stripped naked during a police investigation to prove that he had nothing on his body. Police noted he was never asked to do this, and they were, in fact, investigating whether he was intoxicated. Yeah, so that’s a mystery, all right.

No.5
Keep us posted?

Mount Pleasant police received a call on March 15, 2025, from a woman claiming a man was trying to steal her house. But there’s more: She also said he had cloned her using “deep fake technology” after a dispute with a police officer in Canada. Even more: She then added that the man is involved with Dragon Con (a national pop-culture convention held in Atlanta), which she said was a cover for a human trafficking crime ring. Officers said they would document the information. OK. (But at least the paperwork was different this time.)

No.4
Blue ribbon

A Mount Pleasant man on Nov. 6, 2024, told police he was “working on a science project” after town police received calls about a suspicious person. The project in question: a jerry-rigged “mobile camper of sorts,” according to police, that was made of assorted parts and put on wheels from the man’s “stockpiles around Midtown,” he said. Takeaway: Maybe we should keep an eye out for this guy for a while.

No.3
Excavator escape (not)

North Charleston police on June 8, 2025, chased a construction excavator after it apparently destroyed the front of a U.S. Highway 78 business. The chase zipped down the highway at about 3 mph, according to a police report, The low-speed pursuit apparently kept officers busy for more than an hour — until the excavator got stuck in the Charleston County Fairgrounds. The driver was, of course, arrested. This one sounds like a pretty dirty job for the cops. Ba-dum-bum.

No.2
We get it, but …

Mount Pleasant police on May 27, 2024, responded to a U.S. Highway 17 department store after the manager told police a customer was “cussing and causing a disturbance” over his desire to build a treehouse on the store’s property. The manager reportedly told him he could build a treehouse on his own property, after which the man angrily left the area. Listen, we love treehouses as much as the next guy, but maybe try your own backyard instead.

And our favorite recent Blotter …

No.1
Stop while you’re ahead

A downtown woman on Dec. 3, 2025, reportedly stole a bottle of wine from a King Street grocery store — for the eighth time in the last two months. According to Charleston police, her method involved taking the bottle into the bathroom, emptying it into another container and leaving the empty wine bottle inside. Authorities say she would have gotten away with it the eighth time, too — if not for those meddling security cameras.