Underage possession of alcohol

Dec. 15 – At roughly 8 p.m., police were dispatched to Ga. 405 near Richmond Hill to look for a white Ford Ranger with Florida plates. When the vehicle was spotted, the radar clocked the Ford going 83 m.p.h. in the 70 zone.

When the officer initiated a traffic stop and approached the car, he wrote the citation for the speeding offense and reported smelling alcohol. The driver at first said he had not been drinking but then said he had been drinking the previous night. He took a breathalyzer which showed the presence of alcohol in his system, and was arrested. The passenger was also given a test, and arrested for underage possession of alcohol by a minor. A handle of Captain Morgan was reportedly found in the vehicle, more than half empty and the offenders were transported to the Bryan County Jail.

DUI

Dec. 15 – At about 8:30 p.m., a white Ford pickup failed to maintain its lane while traveling west on Harris Trail Road, and reportedly blew through a red light at the Hwy. 17 intersection. The truck was approached by police when it stopped at the Denny’s entrance. The driver switched from “park” to “drive” as the office approached the vehicle and began rolling forward until the deputy asked him to put it back into “park.” When asked for his license, the man reportedly acted very confused and told the officer the truck belonged to someone else. The report noted the man’s speech was very slurred. The driver was asked to step out of the truck, but reportedly had difficulty staying steady on his feet and seemed disoriented. When asked about drugs or alcohol, the man said he was currently taking blood pressure medication. He said he didn’t know where his license was and reportedly said he could have taken too much of his medication. EMS was called to the scene and found that the man had high blood pressure and could have been under the influence of something else. The standard field sobriety tests were given and man failed all three. He was taken to the Jail after several samples of blood were drawn for analysis.

Theft by taking

Dec. 15 – A Florida woman reported someone entering her vehicle and stealing her purse while at the Exxon on Hwy. 17. The woman said her husband went into the store while she took one of her credit cards to pump gas. She said she saw a group of five black men standing around another car a couple pumps away, which she said prompted her to activate the alarm on her key chain to lock the vehicle. When she finished fueling and went to put her credit card away, she found the purse missing and the group of men having already left the gas station.

She said there were two credit cards in her purse. She cancelled them both and found nothing had been charged on either of them. The purse also had $200 cash, her driver’s license, social security card and her cell phone. She could not describe the men that she felt could’ve been the suspects, nor their vehicle. She was given a case number.

Controlled substance (cocaine)

Dec. 15 – While parked at the RHHS, an officer noticed a Honda Civic drive out of Casey Drive with a passenger holding an infant in her lap, with no child safety restraints. The car was pulled over near the Ashton Apartments and the driver said he didn’t have his license on him, or registration for the car. When asked for his social security number to verify his identity, the man said he didn’t know it. The officer asked the man if he had provided his correct name, to which he hesitated. When backup arrived, the other officer said he was familiar with the driver, who reportedly refused to give his name a dozen times. The other officer said he was also familiar with the driver’s Georgia license number and ran it, which came back saying the driver had a failure to appear in court. He was arrested and searched; police found a small baggie of a white powder in his watch pocket and $690 cash in another pocket.

The passenger, who did have a driver’s license, was told to put the child into the vehicle’s safety restraints and was free to leave. Based on a field test, the substance was positively found to be cocaine. The man was charged with a child restraint violation under the age of five, giving a false name and birth date to an officer and driving with a suspended license, in addition to the possession of drugs.

Public drunkenness

Dec. 15 – Police were called out to the T/A Truck stop at about 10 p.m. in reference to an intoxicated person on the premises. “Upon my arrival I observed a black male standing by the front door using the wall as a leaning post,” the officer’s report began. “As I exited my vehicle, the subject exited off the wall and almost fell onto his face, using a nearby trashcan to catch himself.” When asked for ID, the man took several minutes to find it, even though it was in the front flap of the wallet, the report said. He was given a breathalyzer, which came back with a .198 BAC, so he was arrested and brought to the Jail.

Simple battery

Dec. 15 – A Whipporwill Lane resident called police about a domestic violence incident. The homeowner said her neighbor had just come over to her house, saying her boyfriend had attacked her. The officer reportedly found the woman lying on the floor in the fetal position, crying, shaking uncontrollably and unable to speak. The officer was able to calm the woman down and got her to sit on the couch. She said her boyfriend has lived with for the last 10 months and attacked her because he thought she was cheating on him.

The woman alleged that when he started yelling at her, she locked herself in her bedroom but he kicked the door in and threw her on the floor. He then threw her up against the wall and into the dresser, then back down on the floor again where he started choking her and telling her he was going to kill her, the report said. She said she broke free and ran to the neighbor’s house. EMS arrived and found severe bruising on the complainant’s shoulders, upper underarm area and left wrist and abrasions on her knees. She refused transport to the hospital.

Police went to speak with the boyfriend, which they reportedly found to be under the influence of alcohol. He said they had gotten into an argument because he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him. He did not respond to questions about whether or not the argument had become physical and when questioned about the bedroom door being kicked in, replied, “I live here,” the report said. The report noted the door had a large hole and the back side of it had been damaged.

The man was arrested for simple battery under the Family Violence Act and taken to the Jail. The girlfriend gave a voluntary statement and was given a victim notification form.