Mug Shots

The following were taken from actual incident reports filed last week by the City of Charleston Police Department. These are not convictions and the names of businesses, complainants, and suspects have been left out to protect the innocent. All suspects are  innocent until proven guilty … of course.
April 8
Motor vehicle theft
A Fieldfare Way woman told police that she received a phone call in the middle of the night from her son, saying someone had stolen his car from their driveway, and that he was in pursuit of the stolen vehicle in his stepfather’s truck. The son later told police he saw someone hanging out in the yard, then jump into his car and tore off. He followed his car out onto Ashley River Road, where the driver ran over a speed limit sign,parked it on the side of the road, “jetted” out of the car and ran into nearby woods on foot. Police were unable to find footprints leading away from the car even though it was quite muddy.
April 12
Robbery, firearm
A man walked into a Savannah Highway restaurant, saying he’d just been carjacked on nearby Sequoia Street. The man told police that another man walked up to him bearing a gun, and took his car, a Buick.
April 12 Simple assault
A woman told police that she was showering at the 5th Avenue home of her boyfriend, waiting for the cable guy to show up, when she heard someone at the front door. She went to the door, opened it, and in came the man’s ex-wife, who physically attacked her. When the ex-wife went into the kitchen, the woman went outside until the ex-wife left. She told police it felt like a “set-up.”
April 12
Burglary, breaking and entering
Police reviewed security footage at an Ashley River Road convenience store where the burglar alarm had been triggered. On the tape was a “possible white male” forcing his way into the closed store through its locked front doors, proceeding to the cooler, removing a single drink, and then exiting the building.
April 14
Forgery, counterfeiting
A man reported to police that more $19,000 had been charged on a credit card with his name on it in less than three days through more than 70 transactions. The man became suspicious when his credit card was rejected when he was shopping at a West Ashley hardware store. A call to his bank revealed that a stop had been put on his card due to suspicious activity. The bank found that someone had acquired a card in the man’s name, and had taken out 38 cash advances of $483 each, as well as 36 cash withdrawals of exactly $14.45.
April 14
All other larceny
Security video at a West Ashley Circle convenience store showed a man using bolt cutters to enter an outside cooler, and remove 147 bottles of Pepsi and Mountain Dew. The total value of the theft was estimated to be over $260.
April 14
Drunkenness
Employees at a Citadel Haven auto parts store called police to report a drunken man stumbling on their property at 7 a.m. as they were coming into work. The man told police he was in town to visit his brother, and “all he remembers doing was drinking” the night before. The man, who had a German identification card but no passport, didn’t know where he’d been, where he was at the time, or where his brother was.
April 14
Vandalism
A Hazelwood Drive woman reported finding a cinder block in her front room and her apartment window being shattered. The woman said she was in her bedroom in the middle of the night when she heard the window shatter, and by the time she got to the front room, she heard a car tearing off.