Small Town Misfit

Brazoria, TX
A day after police found a 41?2-foot long water moccasin in the car of William Eric Johnson, authorities discovered a live, 6-foot alligator lounging in his back seat.

“It was like Crocodile Dundee, Brazoria style,” Brazoria Police Chief Neal Longbotham said.

Johnson, 30, had “several addresses,” including one in Tennessee but was possibly living at a trailer park in the 500 block of West San Bernard Street in Brazoria, Longbotham said. Johnson was charged with burglary of a habitation early Sunday after he was found with items missing from a trailer in the same park, Department of Public Safety Trooper Steven Stanfield said.

Johnson also was cited by a game warden for illegally possessing an alligator.

Johnson is accused of entering the trailer home of his employer’s son and stealing a Wii video game controller and a hair trimmer, among other items.

Longbotham said Johnson asked a neighbor to help him load some of the items into the Buick.

“A TV was too big for him to carry by himself, so he knocked on a door and asked for help getting it into his car,” Longbotham said. “The neighbor saw the man and the alligator and wanted no part of that.”

Johnson apparently drove toward Angleton on Highway 35 with the alligator loose in the back seat, police said. He caught Stanfield’s attention upon making a U-Turn near the intersection of highways 35 and 288.

“He made a second U-Turn and almost hit a car at a stop sign on the feeder road,” Stanfield said. “I pulled him over and, lo and behold, he had a 6-foot alligator in the back seat.

“He said he found it on the road and decided to get out and capture it,” Stanfield said. “It’s mouth wasn’t taped, it wasn’t bound. It was crawling around in the guy’s car. … He said he was taking him to a friend’s house.”

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Thanks Kathy!

Columbia, SC
A 37-year-old woman said she was visiting friends on Greene Street on March 29 when she knocked on a 48-year-old man’s door to ask for a cigarette. When the man opened the door he kicked the 37-year-old woman in the chest and closed his door. The man opened his door again and came at the woman with a knife, but another man was nearby and he hit the man with a chair before he could hurt the woman again. When officers showed up they could tell right away that the 48-year-old man was drunk. He was arrested and jailed on charges of drunkenness and simple assault.

Found in the Free Times

Atlanta, GA
A 36-year-old woman said she was driving to work one morning, and she stopped at the QuikTrip on Briarcliff Road. She said she was still in her car when a woman walked up and cursed and shouted at her. (She didn’t know this woman.) She said the woman grabbed her arm and tried to pull her out of her car. Then, she said, the woman jumped on the hood of her car. The woman was last seen driving away in a red Jeep. The 36-year-old woman wrote down the license plate number on the red Jeep. Police checked, but that tag number isn’t on file. The 36-year-old said she wasn’t hurt and her car wasn’t damaged.

Found in Creative Loafing

Rio Grande, NM
4:21 a.m. — A State Road 76 caller said a woman just passed Las Lomas Apartments with no pants on. He couldn’t provide any other information about her. Police couldn’t find a pants-less woman in the roadway.

Found in the Rio Grande Sun

Batavia, OH
A bridesmaid on her way to her sister’s wedding got sidetracked Sunday to the Clermont County jail after she was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs while her two young children were in the backseat, jail officials said.

Jennifer Wheeler, 28, is held this morning at the jail without bond until she appears at 10 a.m. before Clermont County Municipal Court Judge Gregory Chapman, court records show.

She arrived at the jail about 4:20 p.m. Sunday in a yellow bridesmaid dress, jail officials said this morning.

Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Bob Rose charged her with driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol on Bauer Road in Batavia, child endangering and drug possession, records show. She also is accused of operating a motor vehicle without a driver’s license and operating a vehicle without reasonable control.

Then, she was charged with drug possession and bringing illegal items onto jail grounds after guards found Xanax pills on her, officials said.

Found in the Cincinnati Enquirer

Thanks Luann!

Angleton, TX
Constant ammunition fire kept Angleton firefighters away for more than an hour Friday night as they watched a trailer home burn to the ground.

Firefighters responded to the fire in the 3700 block of CR 34 at about 7:30 p.m. Friday. As they pulled up, the heat was setting off ammunition inside the trailer, preventing them from getting near it, Angleton Assistant Fire Chief Hardwick Bieri said.

“I was told there were guns and ammunition all throughout the house,” Bieri said. “We backed away because it got too dangerous.”

Standing a few feet away was Ben Salazar, 52, who lived at the home with his son, Adrian Salazar, 16.

When asked where he would stay Friday night, Ben Salazar said solemnly, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Adrian Salazar told firefighters he was smoking a cigarette in his bedroom and went to the bathroom. When he came out, he noticed his room on fire, Bieri said.

“Next thing I know, there’s a flame by my door,” Adrian Salazar told firefighters.

Ben Salazar had lived in the trailer home since 1990.

“I was outside mowing,” he said. “He came running out of the house and it was on fire.”

Bieri said it was not known exactly what kinds of ammunition were in the trailer, but shotgun shells and small arms rounds were among them.

“We weren’t going to take a chance,” he said. “There were some high-powered shells.”

While firefighters monitored the blaze, insulation melted off an electrical wire, causing a transformer across the road to catch fire, Bieri said.

“There has not been a quiet moment,” he said as rounds of ammunition continued to fire.

Three Angleton fire engines and two Rosharon engines responded to the fire, and most of them had left by 9 p.m. Ammunition continued going off intermittently, and Bieri said firefighters stayed on the scene to monitor it late Friday.

No nearby structures caught fire and there were no injuries.

Found in The Facts

Thanks Kathy!

Nichloasville, KY
A central Kentucky man has pleaded not guilty to unlawful imprisonment and not having an operator’s license after he repossessed a truck with three children inside.

Police say 44-year-old David Mahaffey repossessed the truck in Nicholasville, but the owner’s three children, ages 9 months, 2 years, and 8 years, were still inside.

Police say Mahaffey drove off as the children’s family members chased the car, and screamed for him to stop.
Lexington’s WKYT-TV reports that Mahaffey says he didn’t notice the children in the back seat, or hear them screaming until a few blocks away.

Mahaffey told the station that he immediately stopped the truck and called his boss when he noticed the children.
Mahaffey is out of jail on a $2,000 cash bond.

Found in the Cincinnati Enquirer

Thanks Luann!

Cincinnati, OH
A 19-year-old Green Township mother is being held this morning at the Hamilton County jail after Cincinnati police charged her with taking her newborn baby along while she broke into a candy store.

Christine Ruther and three others are accused of breaking into Minges Candy Store, 132 W. Court St., downtown, shortly before 1 a.m. and swiping about $400 in candy, police said.

The group was arrested a few blocks away at Fourth and Race streets when police caught up with them by following the trail of candy and candy wrappers.

Arrested with Ruther was her seven-week-old daughter.

Ruther was charged with child endangering and breaking and entering, court records show. She arrived at the jail about 5 a.m. and will go before a judge Friday morning, jail officials said.

An 18-year-old woman and two men, 18 and 22, also were charged with breaking and entering, police said.

Found in the Cincinnati Enquirer

Thanks Luann!

Columbia, SC
A woman called police at 8 p.m. Saturday to report that her baby’s father wouldn’t help her with the child. The woman said the man wanted to go out drinking with his buddies instead of staying home to help her take care of the baby — and she needed the deputies to make him stay home.

Found in the State

Waynesboro, GA
According to a report filed at the Waynesboro Police Department, 38-year-old Angela Etterle was pulled over on East Seventh Street when an officer saw her weaving.

She was asked to take the breathalyzer several times but refused. The questioning ended when she told the female officer, “I’d rather bl** you than blow into that machine.”

Etterle was arrested for DUI (second offense) and driving with a suspended or revoked license.

Found in the True Citizen

Kalispell, MT
7:36 p.m. A 30-year-old man was caught stealing baseball cards and a G.I. Joe from ShopKo.

Found in the Flathead Beacon

Chattanooga, TN
Police were called to a store on Highway 153 after a female clerk said she was frightened by questions asked by two white males.

She said the men asked when she was closing, when was the last time she had been robbed, and did she have anything to protect her against a robbery.

Officers located the men in the 5400 block of Highway 153.

Police said one of the men was the suspect who “set a female’s hair on fire.” No further details were given about that incident.

Found in the Chattanoogan