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BCSO Blotter: The dangers of working road construction
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From Bryan County Sheriff’s Office reports:

Hit and run: You think traffic is bad driving in it, try being out there working around drivers. Deputies were sent to Toni Branch Road where it intersects with Carlos Cowart at some point between 1:18 p.m. and 2:44 p.m. March 28 regarding a construction worker who got hit by a pickup. When deputies got there they found the man being attended to by EMS, but it wasn’t serious. The victim said he was working traffic control when “a vehicle drove very fast and struck the sign he was holding which caused the sign to strike him and knock him down in the ditch,” the report said. 

Another worker then followed the pickup, and got a tag number. A Georgia State Patrol trooper got the owner’s name and called, and the owner said she had been in downtown Savannah all day with the vehicle. 

Later, witnesses said the driver who hit their coworker was an older man who “stopped and said  ‘I might have just hit someone’ before driving away at a high rate of speed.”

Mental evaluation: Deputies were dispatched to a South Bryan address around 10:45 a.m. March 28 regarding a “suicidal person with a handgun.” 

Deputies met with the couple who made the call. They said their neighbor walked over with a handgun saying he wanted to harm himself. The husband took the gun and locked it up. The deputy then saw the man who wanted to hurt himself. He was laying on his neighbor’s floor and “saying that he was not feeling like himself. (The deputy) observed that (the man) was breathing heavily and appeared to be in a state of panic.”

The man was taken by EMS to Memorial Medical Center in Savannah. The 9 millimeter Beretta was left with his neighbors.

Cruelty to children: An Ellabell man was arrested after a 4-year-old girl was found wandering in a convenience store parking lot around 4 p.m. March 28.

Witnesses said the girl lived across the street, and deputies went there to see if anyone was home. No one was, so two deputies searched the home and found trash and drug paraphernalia inside, as well as bunk beds taken apart to block the hallway entrance. 

After turning the girl over to DFCS caseworkers, deputies found her father walking down the road. He told them he put the bunk bed there to keep his daughter in the house and said he’d left her to do some shopping in Pembroke. 

Theft: A deputy was sent on a report of theft to a Highway 17 address the evening of March 30. There, he heard that “on this same date at about 4 a.m. in the morning someone hit this metal storage shed. (Georgia State Patrol) worked the accident. On this date the daughter … came by to look at the shed and then left to get some materials to repair the big hole in the side of the shed. When (she) returned she noticed someone had taken the two listed lawn mowers and a weed eater.”

The case was turned over to a detective. 

Matter of record: Same day, but much earlier. Deputies and Bryan County Fire and Emergency Services were sent around 1:23 a.m. to a Highway 17 address “in regards to a mailbox on fire,” a report said. 

It was no prank call, a deputy reported. “Upon arrival, I discovered a fire within the mailbox at this address.”

It was “paper debris within it which was on fire,” and Bryan firefighters put it out. There was some damage to the mailbox and the deputy checked around, but no one was in the area. In addition, the residence “appeared to be secure but vacant. It appears as though this residence has no inhabitants.”

Matter of record: Staying on Highway 17, around 3:40 a.m. March 30 a woman reported she was driving south when “all of a sudden a tire came into her lane in front of her, she was not able to miss the tire and it hit the front lower bumper on her vehicle.”

It did some damage to the radiator, and the woman wasn’t able to tell what vehicle was in front of her. Her car was towed, the deputy gave her a ride to a truck stop. 

Criminal Trespass: An Ellabell woman reported March 31 that she got home from the hospital around 5:30 a.m. she “found her trash can lying in the ditch. There were tire tracks coming from the house at the end of the road that appeared to swerve to hit the trash can,” the report said, and the woman named a person she believes hit the can intentionally “due to their ongoing feud.”

The can “had a slight break in the metal handle on the front. The trash can as a whole was still intact.”

Damage to property: A man reported he was driving east on Highway 280 around 9:50 a.m. March 31 when “a tire came off the trailer that was being towed (in front of him) and it struck his car.” 

There were no injuries and the man’s car was drivable. 

Civil matter: Deputies were sent March 31 to the Dollar General in Ellabell regarding stolen property. There, they met a woman who said her dog was stolen two years ago and her sister had spotted it on Facebook. The woman wanted deputies to escort her to a home in Ellabell so she could speak to the homeowner, so they did, but the homeowner wasn’t there. A deputy talked to the homeowner by phone, however, but she refused to give the woman permission to identify the dog because “they have been harassing her for months about the dog.”

The homeowner said she’d gotten the dog about two years ago from a friend of her husband, who said he got it from someone who happens to live in the area where it was reported stolen.   

The woman showed deputies photos of the stolen dog, and it looked similar to the dog at the home. The woman also said her dog’s name was the same as the one at the home. She was told to call the investigator from the initial report, who might then be able to identify the dog as hers and take action. If not, the woman was told she could “pursue a civil case,” against the homeowner. 


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