From Richmond Hill Police Department reports:

May 1
•An officer was sent to an Alexander Way address regarding a fight that apparently resulted from long-simmering tensions over a cat.
The officer talked first to a complainant, who said he got into a fistfight with a neighbor who lives two houses away.

The complainant said the neighbor “approached him at the end of his driveway to speak with him about an argument that occurred earlier between (the man and the neighbor’s wife). (The man) stated that during an earlier argument with (the neighbor’s wife) he called (her) a ‘black whore,’” the report says.

“(The complainant) stated he that he knew he should not have used such language, but it was fueled by anger from an incident that occurred the previous day,” the report says. “(The complainant) stated that his wife and (the neighbor’s wife) were exiting their respective driveways at the same time and almost struck each other’s vehicles. (The complainant) stated that there was a verbal dispute between the wives before they left the area. That incident occurred (the day before).”

The complainant said he was still upset about that and was working in his yard when he saw his neighbor’s wife in her yard “and almost immediately, (his neighbor’s wife) ‘flipped’ him off. (The complainant) stated that he became enraged and began yelling at her,” and at some point he called the woman the name.

Her husband showed up shortly afterward, apparently, and “the two (men) began arguing and a fist fight began. (The complainant) stated that after the fight was over (her husband) began walking back to his residence. (The complainant) stated that he followed (his neighbor) and the two of them began yelling at each other again,” the report says, and the officer noted that the complainant had a swollen upper lip and looked like he had been in a fight.

“During our conversation, (the complainant’s) nose began to bleed. I offered to call an ambulance … but he refused,” the officer wrote.
The officer then talked to the woman’s husband, who said there had been an ongoing problem for about two years that started because the other couple’s “cat used to defecate in their yard and in the front of the door to their residence,” the report says. “(He) stated that he asked (the complainant and his wife) to control their cat. (He) stated that the (complainant and his wife) eventually relocated the cat with another owner … since then, there has been tension between the two households.”

The neighbor’s version of the fight was virtually the same, and he also showed signs of having been in an altercation. Neither party wanted to prosecute.

“I recommended both households ignore each other to avoid any further altercations and asked that they contact police if needed,” the officer wrote.

A separate report was filed by the complainant’s wife on April 30. It noted that she and her neighbor’s wife both tried to back out of the driveway and wound up in a verbal dispute. The woman said she was afraid the neighbor’s wife “will try to confront her in the future,” and asked if an officer could be present when she went to take her child to school the next morning.

• Police were dispatched to a Sterling Creek address around 7 p.m. “in reference to people fighting,” a report says. But before officers arrived, “two of the individuals involved in the fight drove off in a black Honda with a Papa John’s Pizza sign on the top,” the report says.
The vehicle was spotted on Timber Trail at Highway 144 and pulled over, and the men admitted there was a fight over ongoing issues with two brothers, but it had been broken up.

Police also talked to the brothers, who said the two men in the pizza delivery car “got out of the car and came up to their property yelling, this is when they all started fighting.” A witness backed up part of that story by noting the men in the car got out and “started shouting in a threatening manner” at the brothers, though the witness couldn’t say who threw the first punch, according to the report.
Police advised all of them to stay away from each other.