The following were taken from Bryan County Sheriff’s Department and Richmond Hill Police Department incident reports.

Damage to property
This happens to just about everyone at one point or another in their driving career. Sort of.
Around 1 p.m. Saturday a BCSD deputy was sent to the Groveland boat ramp “in reference to a vehicle in the water.”
It was in the water, all right. “Upon arrival, I observed the listed vehicle floating in the river,” the deputy reported.
The deputy then spoke to the owner, “who stated that while picking up his fishing gear, he apparently failed to put the transmission completely in park and the vehicle rolled into the river.”
Worse, the man told the deputy the vehicle “knocked him over and drug him for a few feet,” so the deputy called EMS and the man was “ultimately transported for his injuries,” the report said.
In the meantime, the deputy called a tow truck, which was able to recover the vehicle, “which had been completely submerged,” the report said.
The deputy, who was thorough, checked and “once the vehicle was out of the river I was able to see that the shifter was in the neutral position.”
The vehicle was taken to a truck company for storage. The man’s wife was given a case number and told how to get a copy of the report. There was no word of how serious the man’s injuries were. We hope he’s OK.

Matter of record
The Zaxby’s employee in this report deserves a round of applause.
She called the Richmond Hill Police Department July 12 after spotting a couple in a pickup with “an infant laying in the seat between them.”
The complainant “said she didn’t know if there was anything we could do but wanted it reported for the baby’s safety,” the report said.
The reporting officer said he would keep an eye out for the pickup.

Damage to property
Deputies were sent late Friday night to “the area of the post office in (Pembroke) in reference to a truck hitting a wild hog.”
The truck driver told deputies he was heading north on Highway 119 near Fort Stewart when he came across several wild hogs and couldn’t avoid hitting them, damaging the front hood and radiator.

Damage to property
Some ditches are real. Others are metaphorical. This is a case of both.
A deputy was sent to a Richmond Hill location Friday around lunchtime “in regards to a vehicle that had ran off into the ditch while pulling into the driveway at the listed residence,” his report said.
There was no damage to the vehicle or the property, but things didn’t end there.
“When I ran the driver’s license of the driver, it came back as suspended for child support obligations with no serve date on record,” the deputy reported.
He promptly served the suspension notice and confiscated the man’s license.

Matter of record
Police officers pulled over a man around 1:30 a.m. July 6 on Highway 17 in Richmond Hill because the car’s license plate was “improperly illuminated.”
After stopping the car, officers noticed the man’s vehicle “had a strong and excessive odor of cologne or air freshener,” the report said, so the man was asked to conduct tests “to help determine if he was under the influence.”
The man did poorly on the tests, so a third officer was called to the scene to used what authorities refer to as a preliminary breath test to see if the man had been drinking.
He hadn’t.
“After a further interview of (the driver), it was apparent that he had not slept much if any in the past few days, and was an exhausted driver,” the report said.
Police asked the man to call friends to come pick him up and drive him and his vehicle on to Hinesville.
He was given a warning for the tag light.
This seems like a good time to mention that it’s important to remember folks are innocent until proven guilty.

Damage to property
Welcome to Georgia. Sorry about your car.
On Saturday, a Bryan County Sheriff’s Department deputy was sent to I-95 regarding a man who “stated he was driving (southbound) … at approximately the 84 (mile marker) when he struck a piece of rubber on the roadway. The rubber flew up and hit another car that also belongs to (the man).”
That car apparently sustained damage to the lower spoiler, and “also the front license plate issued from the state of Connecticut was gone,” the report noted.
A report was filled out so the man could explain why he came back to Connecticut with only one tag.

Criminal trespass
This took place over the July 4 holiday weekend, when someone got mad at the Red Box movie rental machine in front of Walgreens in Richmond Hill.
According to the RHPD report, an officer went to Walgreens around 8 p.m. July 5 and met with a store employee who showed him footage from the store’s security camera.
The camera “revealed an unknown white male standing at the Red Box machine,” the officer reported. “The suspect punched the screen and the machine with his right fist then fled the scene to a (make and model of car.).”
What’s more, someone had spotted the incident and provided the store employee with the tag number of the car — and a check through dispatch showed it was registered to a North Carolina woman.
The officer gave the store employee a case number and then called the Red Box customer service representative, who said he’d get someone there to fix the machine.
The Red Box rep said the screen was worth about $1,000 and said it would be up to the company’s loss prevention people on whether they’d press charges.
In the meantime, police tried to find the car but had no luck. Police did check other Red Box machines in Richmond Hill to make sure they were undamaged and this wasn’t part of a vendetta against the machines. They were undamaged.

Theft
Most people who don’t put them in the shopping  cart corral leave their shopping carts helter-skelter in the parking lot. Not in this poignant case.
An RHPD officer was sent Thursday to Food Lion reference to stolen buggies. There he met with a store employee who said ‘she received a phone call from an anonymous person who informed them about their shopping carts being left at a residence in Ashton Apartments,” a report said.
The store employee said she’d had a manger verify the carts were at the apartment complex and expects the carts returned or the store would decide whether or not to prosecute for theft.
The officer went to the complex and found five shopping carts on the patio at a certain apartment.
The officer was unable to contact the resident in the apartment, but was able to get hold of a family member who said the man was “extremely sick with cancer and had several upcoming doctor appointments,” the report said, noting the family member informed Food Lion management the carts would be returned.


Traffic offenses
Around 6 p.m. July 5 an RHPD officer spotted a car run a stop sign at Ivey Street and Highway 144.
The officer pulled the driver over. He was not only unlicensed, but “Furthermore stated he has never had a driver’s license.”
And he wasn’t the only one driving around Richmond Hill without
On July 9, an RHPD officer was sent to “the area of Savannah Tire” regarding an accident. The officer was told a pickup involved in the accident was leaving the scene, so the officer found the pickup and pulled the driver over.
“I asked him if he was involved in an accident,” the officer reported. “He advised that he was. I then asked for his driver’s license and proof of insurance. (The man) advised that he did not have a driver’s license.”
The man was arrested and taken back to the scene of the accident, but “(the officer) was advised by persons in the area that the second half of the accident made statements that he did not wish to make a report and that he left the scene prior to my arrival.”
Maybe that driver didn’t have a license either.
Finally, around 9 a.m. Sunday, an officer heading north on Highway 17 near the I-95 exit spotted a car improperly change lanes and nearly cause a wreck while getting on the interstate.
The officer pulled the driver over on 95 and “The driver … was unable to provide me with a driver’s  license. The passenger … had a Ga. driver’s learners permit.”
The man, meanwhile, “provided me with an expired Mexican drivers license and stated that he did not have a United States drivers license because he was, ‘an illegal,’” the reporter said.
The man was arrested. A check through dispatch revealed the man had been cited for the same thing in Pooler in February 2011.
All the drivers in these incidents were cited for various offenses, etc.

Verbal domestic
Technology changes. People don’t.
An office was sent to an Ashton Apartments address around 6 p.m. July 9 regarding a “verbal domestic dispute.”
There, he met a woman who stated the argument “arose when her boyfriend discovered a photograph on Instagram. According to (the woman), her boyfriend … did not like a picture she had posted on the site and wanted her to take it down. He advised her it was disrespectful to him.”
The woman told the officer she didn’t want to take the photo down, but eventually did to avoid the argument.
The man backed up the woman’s story and both said the argument ended at that point and never became physical.
The man said he’d leave the apartment to calm down and both were given case numbers.

Matter of record
An RHPD officer was sent to Love’s Truck Stop in Richmond Hill on Saturday around 6 p.m. regarding a tractor-trailer driver who said he was driving north on I-95 when “a hard shelled suitcase fell off the roof of the vehicle in front of him and struck his truck.”
The man showed the officer damage to his truck and gave a description of an SUV with Florida plates. The truck driver said the SUV got off the interstate at Exit 90, took a left, then got back onto I-95 heading south. Police also searched the interstate for the SUV and the suitcase and pieces of the truck, but didn’t find anyone.
The driver was given a case number.

DUI under 21
An officer was sent to the area around Falcon and Blue Heron drives about 12:22 a.m. Sunday to find “a possibly intoxicated motorist.”
The report said concerned residents had called police to report a red car leaving Piercefield Subdivision and driving up Harris Trail with no headlights on, then heading back into the subdivision and stopping on Falcon Drive.
The officer found the car in the middle of the road.
He also found the driver, standing beside the car “in a pair of shorts and a (bra), covered in mud,” the report said.
“I asked (the woman) if she had consumed any alcoholic beverages throughout the evening,” the officer wrote. “As she stood by her car and swayed back and forth, she had a rather dazed look on her face …”
The woman failed a number of field sobriety tests and reportedly blew a .344 on a preliminary breath test.
“Based on the accumulation of evidence present at the time, I believed that (driver) was under the influence of alcohol while driving,” the officer reported.”
The woman was arrested. She later blew .230 and .237 at RHPD and “was charged with the lesser of the two values and informed that she was nearly 12 times the legal limit of tolerated (blood alcohol content) for her age per the state of Georgia,” the report said.