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RHPD reports: Driver gives interesting excuse for going 111 mph
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From Richmond Hill Police Department reports:

Speeding, reckless driving: An officer was monitoring traffic on I-95 around 3:35 a.m. Sept. 13 when he spotted a silver SUV headed south at a high rate of speed. The officer activated his radar and “obtained a target speed of 111 mph in a 70 mph zone.” The SUV was pulled over when it ran across slower traffic and the driver was asked why he was going so fast. “(He) explained that it helped him stay awake,” the report said.

The man was arrested and cited for reckless driving and going way too fast.

Simple battery: Police were sent to a townhome around 4 a.m. Sept. 14 regarding a possible “physical disturbance.”

There, they found a man standing at a vehicle. He told the officer his girlfriend hit him in the face and attacked a friend.

Then, well, this: “Shortly after I observed a female emerge from the residence, with no pants on,” an officer wrote, adding the man said the female was his friend and she was so drunk she couldn’t talk and make sense or “stand straight without swaying in all directions,” the report said, also noting she had injuries “consistent with road rash” on her “face, nose, chin and left shoulder.”

The reporting officer called for EMS to check out the man and his friend, and the man said his girlfriend was still inside.

She told police her boyfriend “came upstairs and woke her up saying that she was going to be mad at him. She asked why she would be mad.

“He then walked her out of the bedroom and showed her an unknown, intoxicated female in her house,” the report said.

“Due to him being her fiancé, she got very upset and started asking questions about this situation.”

The girlfriend claimed her boyfriend started yelling at her and put his hands on her, but “she quickly removed them.”

The girlfriend said the other woman then “tried to punch her, however missed due to her intoxication.”

The argument continued downstairs, and, evidently, outside, because that’s when the “intoxicated woman fell and hit her face on the pavement,” according to the report.

The girlfriend’s daughter was also home, and said she was OK, but the officer “observed her eyes to be watery and red, consistent with crying,” and “I reassured her everything is OK.”

There were varying stories about how the woman with no pants got her road rash. She refused treatment, despite the fact the officer “had (her) lean up against a fixed object to prevent her from falling once again,” the report said.

At the end of the day, the boyfriend and the woman with no pants agreed to go to a motel. No charges were filed, but the boyfriend “was found to be the primary aggressor for his overt actions of causing this argument to start by bringing an intoxicated female into the residence,” the report said. A report was also filed with Child Protective Services.

Matter of record: A woman in an Ashleigh Place apartment reported around 4:45 a.m. Sept. 9 that “she was hearing a loud noise from the upstairs apartment that, according to her, sounded like weights being dropped on the floor. She was annoyed enough with the noise waking her from her repose that she attempted to speak with the residents of the upstairs apartment about the matter in person. When she tried to speak with them, they apparently denied her claims and advised her to leave.” The woman said the noise can be heard throughout the day, “however it only bothers her at night.” 

The officer checked it out. “While on scene, I did not hear any noises other than a running air conditioning unit. I went upstairs in the elevator and stood in the hallway near (the apartment). There was a deafening silence throughout the hallway,” the report said. “No contact was made with the residents (at that apartment) as the hour was early and I could not determine that the supposed banging noise was in fact coming from that apartment.”

The officer did, however, note that “when I partook in the elevator ride, I did notice that it was rather noisy and once it got to the top floor, it would slightly drop causing a thud type noise.”

He suggested that might be making the noise the woman was complaining about, “but (she) was adamant that it was not. She was positive that it was coming from (the apartment above hers).”

The officer went back upstairs and again “only heard the sound of silence.” He also wrote that another officer responded on a similar call “where he too was unable to hear any such noises.” The woman, meanwhile, “indicated that she has taken her vexations to the management who have yet to resolve her dilemma as she could not provide proof of the noise coming from (the apartment above hers).” She asked for a report so she could give that to the management.

Disorderly conduct: An officer was at municipal court around 3:30 p.m. Sept. 10 when a man “completed his dealings with his case for the day but was apparently unhappy with how the proceedings unfolded,” a report said, noting the officer heard the man “speaking loudly in a disgruntled and hostile tone.” The officer noted he didn’t hear it all, but did hear the man spout a profanity or two “while in the lobby and in the presence of several bystanders.” The man was then warned “about his disorderly behavior” and went out to the parking lot, the report said.

Two officers went outside to make sure the man, who had a Pooler address, “departed the area in a civil manner,” but he didn’t, according to the report. “We both heard him yell (an even worse profanity) very loudly. It should be noted that his vehicle was over 100 feet away from where we were standing and his profane language was yelled in the presence of several people in the parking lot and park area.”

The man was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Matter of record: An officer was sent to the Bryan County Schools “bus barn” on Constitution Way around 4 p.m. Sept. 16. There, the officer met with a school system representative who said a bus driver turned in a white powder that might’ve been drugs.

It wasn’t, according to a number of tests.

“The white powder reacted to an oxycodone test kit actually the same as sugar from the break room,” the report said.

Still, “contact was made with all of the children on the school bus at the middle school on Sept. 17, 2019. All children were advised that if the sugar packets originated from one of them, it was dangerous to continue such activity as it could get them into trouble with the school and the police department,” the report said.

Wanted person, speeding, underaged possession of alcohol: An officer running radar on I-95 around 11:47 p.m. Sept. 16 clocked a car doing 98 mph in the 70 mph zone. He caught the car in Chatham County near mile marker 92. A check of the woman’s license showed she was wanted in Chatham “for several drug related offenses.” She refused to give consent for a search of her car, but a RHPD drug dog tested positive for pot and the 20-year-old woman had a bottle of Fireball whiskey in her purse. She was arrested.

Marijuana possession, speeding, no insurance, failure to use turn signal, etc: An officer running radar around 11 p.m. Sept. 17 on I-95 near mile marker 90 clocked a southbound sedan going 91 mph. He pulled the car, which had a “transporter” license plate, and the driver said it had recently been purchased in Rhode Island and he and another man in the car were taking it to Florida. The driver, however, didn’t have a bill of sale, proof of insurance or the title to the car. That seemed suspicious to the officer, as did the fact the man had a lot of cash.

“I began to suspect that they may be transporting illegal narcotics,” the officer wrote. He asked dispatch to run a background check on both men, and “was advised that both have serious felony charges on their respective history and (the driver) specifically has several convictions for possessing illegal narcotics.” The vehicle’s info showed it had canceled registration in Rhode Island.

The driver was arrested and less than an ounce of marijuana was recovered. The car was towed.

Verbal domestic: Police were dispatched to a Mulberry home shortly before 4 p.m. Sept. 18 because a 20-year-old man had locked himself in his room with a knife because “his mother was throwing things around the residence and screaming.”

The officer who got there said the woman wasn’t screaming, “but was not surprised to see police at her door.” She was “unsteady on her feet and stumbling around,” the report said, and smelled of alcohol.

Police then went in to find her son, who “was still shut in his bedroom,” the report continued, noting he “stated that his mother came home intoxicated and began yelling at him about his clothes being in the laundry and dog feces on the bathroom floor.”

The son said his mother “has been known to become violent in the past when she has been drinking,” and that she might be under the influence of something else because she’s had problems “in the past.” The son also said he called his dad, and grabbed his dog to keep it from his mother. He said he was scared of his mother “because of past experience.”

EMS was called and everyone agreed the woman was on something in addition to alcohol. The father arrived, and said his ex wife “has been like this in the past and gets violent,” the report said, noting the couple’s youngest son lives with him “due to a DFACS order.”

The man said his ex-wife had substance abuse problems in the past and she wasn’t getting better.

The woman wasn’t arrested, however, since “past incidents cannot be used against her for her actions today and (police) confirmed that she did not hit or throw anything at her son,” nor was there any property damage, the report said. DFACS was called. A friend of the mother’s took her elsewhere.

Suspended license, littering: A Savannah man was stopped on Highway 17 around 9:19 p.m. Sept. 18 after an RHPD officer’s in-car License Plate Recognition system alerted him the man had a suspended license. When the officer pulled alongside the car the man threw a cigarette butt out the window. He got charged with both suspended license and littering.

Wanted person: A Richmond Hill woman wanted in Chatham County turned herself in Sept. 19 because “she was having bad anxiety due to her living conditions and possibly ‘leeches’ or ‘worms’ in her stomach and behind her eyes,” a report said. “She also informed us she takes medication for her mental conditions, however, had run out and needed a refill. She wanted to get this warrant out of the way and try to get her mental health straight.”

Matter of record: You never know what you might run into on I-95. A Midway man reported Sept. 19 he was heading north near mile marker 83 when “his vehicle struck a piece of metal debris that was thrown into the roadway by a GFM mower.” That metal piece was about a foot long and six inches wide, the reporting officer noted, and it made contact with the front bumper and punctured through into the engine compartment.”

Suspended license, etc: A Rincon man was arrested Sept.21 after a license plate reader alerted on his expired tag as it drove past on Highway 17. What’s more, the man’s driver’s license had been suspended in 1997 due at least in part to two convictions for no insurance and a DUI. The car was turned over to his wife.


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