From Richmond Hill Police Department reports:
Theft of loss or mislaid property: Around 4 a.m. Jan. 6, officers were asked to be on the lookout for a gray SUV because the driver had stolen a wallet.
The SUV was pulled over on Highway 17 and the driver was identified and detained. Officers then talked to the complainant, who said he’d left his wallet in the TA truck stop and when he went back in to get it, he saw the SUV’s driver pick it up and “proceed to hastily leave the store,” a report said.
The complainant, who had a Virginia license, described the wallet and described the man who took it as “wearing a red Ohio State Buckeyes hoodie, sweat pants, gray socks, and slides,” the report said – a description which matched that of the SUV driver, who was wearing the OSU hoodie and “pink pajama pants,” according to police.
Long story short, the man who took the wallet was homeless and said he threw it somewhere when he saw police, but officers found some money is his car, which also apparently had a blanket for a window. It was towed.
Matter of record: A man reported Jan. 5 that his dad and his stepmother, both Florida residents, came to his house “this morning to discuss marital issues he’s been going through. He advised after talking with him for a few minutes, his stepmother inquired about some money that he had borrowed from them some time ago. During this conversation, (she) began policing up some of (the complainant’s) belongings. The belongings consisted of an XBox, a firearm and a gun safe.”
The complainant said they left around 8 a.m., and when the officer asked why he didn’t stop them from taking his stuff, the man replied, “’Because it was my Dad and my stepmother is short, stocky and strong.’” The complainant did say he asked them to stop. The officer got info and found the couple at a local motel. They told the same story, and the officer explained “the Civil process,” to them. The complainant, however, said “he didn’t care about the firearm or the gun safe, he just wanted his XBox back.”
The complainant’s stepmother gave the officer the XBox back, and he returned it to the complainant.
Terroristic acts, etc: Police were sent to an a home around 1 p.m. Jan. 6 because a man made threats and might’ve had a gun.
The man’s wife, who met police in the front yard of a neighbor’s house, said her husband smashed her work cell phone and threatened to shoot a friend before driving off. She said he’s bipolar and “often gets angry,” and keeps a firearm under the bed.
The rifle still at the home when the husband returned, and told police he was dying of cancer, and is described in the report as “very agitated and not very sure footed,” and “inconsolable,” and that he tried to control the conversation.
In addition, the man said he wanted EMS to check him out. They came and took him to St. Joseph’s, where the man was checked out and then brought back to Bryan County Jail.
Matter of record: A woman reported Jan. 6 she was followed from the Walmart in Keller back to Richmond Hill. The woman said she first saw the car, described as a “silver in color Sedan, with a white male and a white female with blond hair, behind her,” when she left the Walmart and went to Zaxby’s. There, the complainant said she “saw the same vehicle pull in as she was in the drive through. When she departed Zaxby’s, she headed south on Highway 17 to go home and observed the vehicle pull in behind her. She decided not to go home, but to continue on and saw the vehicle was still behind her.”
The woman said when she got to Richmond Hill the car was still behind her, so she turned right onto Highway 144 and drove toward Fort Stewart, and the car did the same. “(She) then quickly turned on Exchange Street at the last minute and the silver sedan continued west on (144).”
The woman was “visibly shaken regarding the ordeal,” the report continued. She said the car was a small sedan, “possibly a Nissan or Toyota.”
She was advised to contact Chatham County and Savannah police as well.
Matter of record: A woman reported Jan. 6 she went to get gas on her debit card at the Kroger station and her card was declined. She said she had money in the account and told the clerk, who said the manager would be informed.
The woman said she then called her bank and was told “the Kroger Fuel Station had taken $116.62 from her card,” the report said.
The woman showed the officer her phone app noting the debit on her account, and the manager told her and the officer he’d check why the station took her money. The woman’s bank also said it would refund her money.
That pump and the others at the station were checked “and no devices were found that could have been used to read (the woman’s) card.”
Marijuana possession: An officer stopped a pedestrian around 1030 p.m. Jan. 6 after he saw him using the crosswalk at highways 144 and 17 when the “’don’t walk’ symbol was displayed.”
The man said he wasn’t aware that was illegal and was given a warning and offered a ride home, but he had to be searched first, “to which he agreed.”
The officer found “a White Owl cigar package which is commonly used to smoke marijuana,” and the man then allegedly said he had less than an ounce of pot, so he was arrested, cited and taken to jail.
Speeding, etc: An officer running radar shortly after midnight Jan. 7 near the KOA on Highway 17 clocked a car going 84 in the 55 mph zone. He pulled the car over and asked the driver for a license and proof of insurance.
The man gave his license “but was advised that his insurance for the vehicle had lapsed some two months prior to the stop. He would further advise that his mother gave him the vehicle several months ago and he had yet to register in Georgia.”
The officer ran the man’s information through dispatch and learned his license had been suspended and he “had a couple of arrest reports involving narcotic activity.”
The man was arrested, but a search of his car by RHPD’s K9 turned up empty apart from “two cut straws (commonly used in the ingesting of illegal narcotics) around the drivers seat.”
The car was towed.
Possession of marijuana, etc: An officer on patrol around 10 p.m. Jan. 7 saw a car with a “missing rear tail light” on Harris Trail and pulled car over on Timber Trail.
The driver said he lived in Piercefield even though his license gave a Savannah address and “appeared to be very worn,” the report said.
The man said he had gotten lost looking for a friend’s house. A check through dispatch showed the man’s license had been suspended back in September 2018.
He was arrested and when police searched the car they found a small amount of pot, a scale and some rolling papers.
The man was taken to jail. His car was towed.
Warrant: Officers were sent to a Piercefield Forest address around 11:14 a.m. Jan. 8 to pick up a witness. While there, they spotted a car “associated with … a yet to be interviewed witness,” with a felony arrest warrant out of Augusta.
A woman at the address in Piercefield was asked if the man was in the home and she said no. “At this point she was informed she could be charged for obstruction if she was in fact harboring a fugitive which she stated that she understood.”
Shortly afterward, the man came out and turned himself in. He was taken to jail, apparently to await a ride to Richmond County.
Matter of record: Officers were went to J.F Gregory Park shortly before 8 p.m. Jan. 9 because “someone threatening two people and who was possibly in possession of a firearm.”
There, they met the complainant, who said a man had a gun and threatened him and his girlfriend.
The man who had the gun said he was at the park to meet the complainant’s girlfriend, and he’d gotten a text from her to meet him there. He also said he didn’t have a gun. He said officers could search his “person and vehicle,” and the search came up empty.
Then police talked to the complainant’s girlfriend, who said “there was not an incident tonight.”
She claimed the man her boyfriend said had a gun “has made sexual advances towards her at work to include inappropriately touching her,” but that she’s met with him in the past “where the two engaged in consensual sex.”
The woman said she invited him out, but “unbeknownst to (the man), this meet was going to become a fight,” and he threatened “to bring a firearm through text messages.”
After talking to all three, “every one left without incident,” the report said.
Stalking, battery, etc: Police were initially sent to the area of Bristol Way on Jan. 9 because of a “suspicious female carrying an infant who was hiding behind trees.”
They found the woman, who had been running around in shorts and no shoes, and noticed blood on her shirt.
She said it was her boyfriend’s, and said the incident began when he came home and accused her of drug use and being intoxicated.
The woman was apparently initially reluctant to talk to officers “without her lawyer present,” but then told them the blood was from where she’d injured him trying to get him off of her.
She also said her boyfriend “goes through an episode stemming from being adopted on his birthday and a past bad situation,” and has depression which causes him to act up.
Richmond Hill Fire Department and Bryan County EMS responded to treat the woman for her injuries, and at some point the woman’s boyfriend began texting her mother, then called her to ask why she was talking to police.
As the man talked to his girlfriend’s mother, police began searching for him and figured out he was driving his pickup around the neighborhood. It was spotted and the man was pulled over. He was visibly intoxicated, etc., but claimed the woman caused her own injuries and after hearing his story, the man was arrested for battery, cruelty to a child and interfering with a 911 call. He was described as uncooperative.
Disorderly conduct: An officer was sent Jan. 11 to an address that doesn’t exist regarding a domestic disturbance reported by a neighbor where the “male subject departed the scene in a blue car.”
The officer was flagged down by residents down the road and met with a woman who wouldn’t get out of her boyfriend’s car. “She advised she wanted to talk to him about him finding out that she cheated on him,” and at one point he “got out of the car, came around to the passenger side of the car and tried to ‘scoop’ her out,” the report said. “She admitted she then pushed him in the chest and he started yelling at her.”
The woman said her boyfriend then “went back around to the driver’s seat and tried to push her out. Eventually, he came back around to the passenger’s side and pulled her out of the car.”
He then drove home.
Police found him at home and he said much the same about what happened. Both he and his girlfriend were told how to get a warrant and how to pick up a copy of the report.
Reckless driving: An officer was sent to Sommers Boulevard around 12:30 a.m. Jan. 12 because there was a pickup “stopped in the roadway with driver apparently sleep behind the wheel,” a report said.
The officer found the pickup with “a male in the driver’s seat who appeared to be sleeping. I noticed the driver was not properly secured in a seat belt. After a few moments of hitting the window and shining my flashlight in his eyes, I was able to rouse him from his slumber,” the officer noted.
When the driver rolled down his window, the officer “was immediately struck by an odor of alcoholic beverage.”
The officer told the man to put the pickup in park and step out. The man was unsteady on his feet, etc.
He “indicated he was coming from Midway and when I asked him if he knew where he was, he replied, “Jacksonville.’” The man said he had drank some but didn’t know how much. A preliminary breath test registered below the legal limit. The man was arrested for reckless driving. His pickup was towed.
Matter of record: “On Friday, January 10, 2020 at approximately 2318 county units were dispatched to Ball Park Road in reference to male party pulling his daughter’s hair out,” begins a report in which the officer right away noted he was nearby and “was under the impression that the male was actively pulling the juveniles hair out on Ball Park Road.”
So, the officer went to help until the county could arrive. There, he met with a woman, and an “irate” woman later identified as (the complainant’s) sister.
“I began speaking with the irate female who stated that (the complainant) was at the basketball game and her hair was pulled. This account of events then turned into they were threatening her over the phone, bullying, suicide, then into screaming and yelling.”
The officer added, “When (the complainant’s) sister spiraled out of control and there was no longer any adult, productive, meaningful, or informational conversation taking place I turned to (a juvenile) and (the complainant) to inform me on exactly what transpired.”
The complainant “showed me the text messages from who she claimed as the person who started all this … It was these text messages that were deemed the ‘new threats’ that they wished to show as proof of the impending doom to arrive.”
The officer transcribed the text messages and at some length noted they showed the alleged offender didn’t “fight girls,” etc.
The brother of the girl who had her hair pulled told police the incident began while they were at the game when the offender “pulled (his sister’s) hair.” But before anything could happen school administrators and police showed up to make sure “no altercation took place,” and that they were told the incident would be handled (that Monday), since the alleged offender had already left.”
The reporting officer then called one of the officers at the high school.
“(He) attempted to explain the incident and how it was handled to both (the complainant’s sister) and I to no avail as she could not remain silent long enough to hear the explanation.”
The officer then told “responding deputies that it was a city call,” since it started at Richmond Hill High School, then “as (the complainant’s sister) could not represent her as her guardian nor could we carry a conversation it was determined that her mother lived (at an address) which was our next destination,” the officer continued.
There, he learned she’d already been contacted by the school.
Then, the officer was able to get hold of the offender, who said he was at Ball Park Road and would wait.
“Upon my arrival, (the teen) was very forthcoming in his responses,” and said it was meant as a harmless prank and he tried to get the girls and their brother to calm down but it “was too late as school administration and law enforcement were already coming to them.”
He said he later got text messages and phone calls from the complainants to meet and fight, and he said he was on his way “until he observed all the patrol vehicles and continued on to Parkers,” the report said.
The officer told the kid he could have been arrested if police had showed up at a fight.
The officer also said he didn’t see any threats in the teen’s texts to the girls, “however, they were very distasteful.”
The officer then told the teen not to have anything to do with the complainant, etc.