Police Beat

by Noell Wolfgram Evans

A quick shortcut across the neighborhood, a poorly timed magic trick, a man carting around a fortune in recycling and an argument for not helping friends were just some of the things officers of the Brecksville Police Department had to contend with in August.

Now you see it, now you don’t

Aug. 8 — It started as a routine traffic stop (it always does) and ended with a magic trick and an arrest. A Brecksville police officer pulled a vehicle over for having expired tags. Inside the car, the officer saw three women and also noticed a bag of marijuana on the back seat. After questioning the driver, the officer realized the bag had vanished. Unfazed, they simply announced, “I already saw it.” When the officer next looked in the back seat, the bag had magically reappeared. The officer then asked if there were any firearms in the vehicle. All of the women said there were not, and yet when the officer opened the glove compartment, there was a handgun. And no one yelled “Ta Da!”

The shortcut

Aug. 28 — A resident of Highland Drive called the Brecksville Police Department after seeing a damaged car in front of his house. When the police arrived, they noted that the car had damaged tires and cracked glass. The officer asked the driver if they had been in an accident, but the driver couldn’t recall any issues. It was then that they noticed tire tracks across several yards in the neighborhood. When this was pointed out to the driver, they were more mystified than apologetic. The officer decided that perhaps a field sobriety test would help shed some light on the situation. To make a long story short, it did.

No good deed

Aug. 12 — A Painesville resident thought they were helping out a friend by popping into the Brecksville Police Department to pick up their car. The friend’s car had been towed and they were there to drive the now-released vehicle home. But the car wasn’t released as much as it was part of a prisoner swap. It seems that in order to hand the car over, some paperwork needed to be completed and it was during this process that it was discovered there was a warrant out for the friend.

A recycler’s dream

Aug. 12 — A Brecksville patrol officer had concerns about a driver on I-77, and when the driver failed to use their turn signal, the officer had cause to pull the driver over. The concern could actually have stemmed less from the driver’s actions and more from the sounds emanating from the car. And how could the car not have sounded a little odd with an open bottle of tequila, a half-empty bottle of gin, one empty 16-ounce beer can, an open 24-ounce beer can and nine open or empty bottles of beer rattling around.

The old dine-and-dash

Aug. 8 — A store employee visited the Brecksville Police Department to report a theft. It seems that a cashier discovered a self-checkout machine was sitting on the payment screen and yet there was no abandoned cart of associated groceries nearby. Management decided to, as they say, roll the tape and found security camera footage of a man pretending to pay and then casually walking out of the store with his groceries. A second camera showed him walking around the building and then the trail went cold. The suspect must be preparing for a party because officers discovered that three other stores had the same theft experience recently. Eventually, using camera footage, police were able to identify the suspect who is currently being sought.