Crime beat | Crime | Summerville Journal Scene

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Crime beat

Published Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:43 PM

By Jim Tatum
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Public intoxication

An officer on patrol late one evening spotted a white female who appeared to be very intoxicated stumbling around the corner of a building in Ridgeway Plaza, near an establishment called the Ivory Moon. As he approached her, he noticed a very strong odor of alcohol coming from her and she had trouble standing. Then another white female came up and told the officer she was an employee of the Ivory Moon and that the intoxicated subject had just walked out without paying her tab.

The officer asked the intoxicated subject if she was going to pay her bill, but she did not respond. Instead, she became belligerent, mumbled something, and tried to walk away. The officer grabbed her, put her in handcuffs, and told her she was under arrest for public intoxication and put her in his patrol car.

The bartender said she wished to press charges so the officer charged the subject, in addition to public intoxication, with petit larceny and transported her to the Dorchester County Detention Center. Because of her belligerence and level of intoxication, he took her straight to the Detention Center without processing her.

More public intoxication

Officers on foot patrol in connection to an armed robbery in the Holiday Drive area of Summerville came across a subject walking across the parking lot of the Economy Inn. The officers started a conversation with him; the subject said he had gone to a nearby convenience store for a pack of cigarettes and was coming back to his room at the motel. They asked for identification, which he provided. While they were running a warrants check, they noticed a smell of burning marijuana coming from his person and asked about it. The man replied he had “smoked a blunt in the woods about 30 minutes ago.”

When asked if anyone was in his room with him, the subject told them no and further stated that his girlfriend and another girl had left to go to the Kush Lounge.

An officer walked down to the room and came back and again asked who was in the room. Officers told him the subject had said no one was there, but the officer said he heard people inside.

As it turned out, several people were there, including several juveniles. There were several open containers of beer in the room as well. The adult subjects were arrested and transported to the Detention Center; the juveniles were transported to their homes and turned over to the custody of their parents.

Alert officer?

A 19-year-old Summerville woman reported that an officer who she believed had acted inappropriately toward her had stopped her. She said she had left her home and had turned onto Tupperway Drive from Boonehill Road when an officer driving an older Crown Victoria with a light bar on top stopped her. She said he approached her and identified himself and told her he worked for the county, then asked her if she knew why he had stopped her. She told him she did not and he told her she was distracting other drivers.

At the time, she was wearing a bikini top and shorts.

She said she muttered, “What the hell,” to herself, and he told her she couldn’t ride around town with a top like that and her comment was disrespectful to an officer. When she asked the officer if he had an identification number, he told her she was lucky he was letting her go without a ticket.

She said he did not ask her for license or identification at any time, nor did she notice neither any identifying emblems on the car nor identification on his shirt.

Later, when shown pictures of Summerville Police Officers, including an officer whose name was similar to the name the man who stopped her gave, she did not recognize any of them.

She described him as a very pale white male with short buzz cut medium brown hair, about 6’1” tall and 170-180 pounds, and between 40-45 years old.

She said she would definitely recognize him again if she saw him.

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104 East Doty Avenue | Summerville, SC 29483 | 843-873-9424 office | 843-873-9432 fax