Denton police blotter – “some dude”

Thanks again,  Donna Fielder! You handled this story perfectly.  Denton’s essence emanates from every sentence. Especially the last one!

Blotter: ‘Some dude’ fails to abide by roadside transaction

12:15 AM CDT on Saturday, March 19, 2011

By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer

Police questioned a story a man told about being robbed Thursday night, and he eventually said he had lied and told them another story about losing $100 to a man he called “some dude.”

Officers first responded to the 900 block of Collins Street, where the man told them that a relative of his girlfriend had offered to take him to pick up his car and then pulled a gun on him, demanding his cash. He said he left his friends waiting in his car back at the house.

The officer asked how they were waiting in the car if he was on his way to retrieve it. He acknowledged that the story didn’t make sense.

Meanwhile, other officers were speaking to the man’s friends. They said their friend drove them to a motel parking lot in the 700 block of Fort Worth Drive about 9:30 p.m. after making a telephone call to “some dude.”

He was meeting the man to buy K2 from him, they said. The synthetic marijuana is now illegal, and he planned to pay $100 for 7.5 grams. They pulled up beside the car, which was occupied by three men, and the men told their friend to get in with them and ride around the block to make the sale.

The men left behind said that after a few minutes, the car returned, and their friend rolled down his window and shouted something they couldn’t understand. Then he bolted from the car and got behind the wheel of his own car and quickly drove away. He took evasive actions up and down city streets, they said, before driving home.

The victim then admitted that he was trying to buy the K2, and the man he called “some dude” pulled a gun on him and told him to “rabbit ear” his pockets. “Some dude” told him he had the reputation of carrying a lot of cash and was “getting jacked,” he said.

He showed police the contact list in his cellphone and the number of the suspect, listed in the phone as “some dude.”

Tree Stump End Tables – Phase II – Sanding and Staining

Damn it. I was so close. I got all excited about Phase II of my Tree Stump End Table project until about 20 minutes ago when I realized that I’m a moron and didn’t stir the polyurethane/stain combo before slathering it all over my pretty stump.

After spending a fair amount of time sanding my stump (what?), I opened a Tecate, cranked up the KHYI, and started staining/glossing my favorite one.  The wood I’m working on has the potential to be beautiful (see arty photos below), but I screwed it all up by NOT STIRRING THE PAINT. I’ve been working with clear poly acrylic on other projects for so long that it completely slipped my mind to stir the gloss/stain I was working with today. The shined wood looked beautiful until the can was about 3/4 of the way empty. I dipped my brush in and salmon colored goo came out. The goo was the settled stain that should have been stirred into the gloss from the get go. Funny thing . . . I just WENT with it out of curiosity, knowing that it would look bad.

Plumber Steve

Have you ever been really upset with someone and typed a rude email, and just before hitting the “send” button had a moment of clarity where you thought, “You know, I’d better wait and cool off before I send this,” BUT SENT IT ANYWAY????

That’s what I did with the salmon goo at the bottom of the can. I thought to myself, “You know, I’d better wait and slow down before I paint with this weirdness.” I PAINTED WITH IT ANYWAY.

I need to work on that.

Sooooooo, I guess I’m going to let it dry and sand it again and start over with 100% clear gloss. Forget the stain. This wood is too pretty.

Special thanks to Steve for the use of his sander, and to Frank and Zoe for keeping me company.

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Tree stump end tables

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve written on this blog. I’ve been in a slump. Work. Sleep. Clean. Work. Sleep. Work. Clean. Sleep. Eat. Clean. Work out. Walk the dogs. Work. Sleep. Eat. Walk the dogs. Work. Work out. And so on.

I need a break. A real break. I need one of those vacations I’ve heard about where people go and recharge. A vacation like that isn’t possible because I’d be worrying about how to pay for food and shelter the whole time, but. . . I think I found a way to do that without going anywhere! At least for now.

This may sound weird, but I got a really big (re)charge out of 8 little tree stumps that I found the other day. It’s true! I found 8 perfect tree stumps. I’m going to turn them into end tables and sell them, keeping the best one for myself. I’ve always, always, always, wanted a tree stump end table but can’t afford one. Do a Google search. They range from about $135 – $375 a piece and are NOT in the Poverty Diet price range.

Anyway, I’m in Project Heaven now and have spent the past two evenings out in my garage at my work table, peeling bark off catalpa trunk sections and loving it. I’ve been drinking a bit of  sake and listening to really bad 1970′s country music via The Range. I’m not gonna lie – it’s been a little slice of heaven.

My dogs, Frank and Zoe, keep me company. Zoe, the little one, has had to go back in the house now that I realize that not only does she chew the bark I flick off onto the floor, but also EATS it. Swallows it. She’s weird.

Check out my photos. Of course, I’m documenting the entire thing. Here’s phase one!

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Not that I advocate baby throwing. . .

Thank you, Denton, for a scene taken straight from television police dramas.  Why doesn’t this stuff happen when I’M at Walmart?? Oh wait. . . I don’t shop there. Anyway, thanks again, Donna Fielder, for making it sound much more interesting than it probably really was. You gotta love the visual of a Walmart shopper gone berserk, baby throwing, and a hostage crisis.

The last sentence is my favorite. Oh, sweet Denton. . .

Blotter: Shoplifting suspect attempts to make getaway

12:20 AM CST on Saturday, January 8, 2011

By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer

A woman suspected of shoplifting tried to commandeer another driver’s car to get away after being approached by a store security officer, according to a Thursday police report.

An employee of the store in the 1800 block of South Loop 288 saw the woman, who had a small child along, printing several photographs. She then shopped for picture frames and later tried to leave the store without paying for the photos, according to the report.

The employee approached her in the lobby and told her he was going to call police to take her to jail. She slapped him while holding her car keys, according to the report, and cut his face. Then she ran outside the store into the parking lot.

She tried to commandeer one car but the driver took off. She opened the back door of another car and threw her small son in and then jumped in herself. She yelled at the startled driver, “Drive me to the RaceTrac,” but the woman did not leave the parking lot.

Witnesses and store employees were yelling at her to drive to them, and the suspect began yelling for the driver to roll up the car windows, slapping her in the back of the head and saying they were trying to hurt her baby, according to the report.

The driver drove toward the employees and stopped. She started to get out of the car and the suspect threw her son into the front seat and began trying to reach the car keys. The driver prevented her from grabbing them and took them from the car.

The suspect then grabbed her child and ran to her own car and fled the parking lot. Witnesses obtained the car’s license plate number. Officers drove to the house listed as the owner’s residence but no one was at home.

An investigation is continuing into charges of assault and shoplifting on the woman, whom the employee recognized as a frequent shoplifter in the store, according to the police report.

Happy Holidays from the Denton police blotter!

Family reports visit from suspicious Santa

12:17 AM CST on Wednesday, December 29, 2010

By Lowell Brown / Staff Writer

A Denton family got a visit from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, but not a welcome one.

A family filed a report with Denton police claiming that a man dressed as Santa appeared to be casing their house at about 6 p.m. Friday. The man, described as white and in his mid- to late 50s, rang the doorbell and motioned trying to get into the house, but he fled when the family wouldn’t let him in, according to a police report filed by the family Monday.

The costume-clad man hopped into a blue 1970s-era, two-door sedan with green neon lights underneath and left the neighborhood before anyone could get his license plate number, the family reported.

Denton police spokesman Ryan Grelle said Tuesday that he was unaware of any similar complaints on Christmas Eve and that no investigation was under way.

Woman reports damage from snow globe

11:48 PM CST on Wednesday, December 29, 2010

By Bj Lewis / Staff Writer

A breakup and argument over property may have led to an angry ex-girlfriend vandalizing the home of her former boyfriend’s mother.

Denton police responded to a call from the 700 block of Woodland, where a homeowner reported several instances of damage done to her property.

Officers noticed that items were strewn all over the front yard and lawn furniture was tipped over. Several solar lights had been ripped out of the ground. One of the house’s front windows had a hole where something had been hurled through it, according to a police report.

The victim led an officer around to the backyard, where more damage had been done. A garbage can was tipped over and trash spread across the yard, a table built into a fire pit was broken, a piece of wood from a woodpile had been used to break a back window, and a coaxial cable had been yanked from where it ran into the house, the report stated.

The object thrown through the front window reportedly was a snow globe the victim’s son had given her grandson for Christmas, according to the report.

The victim said that she and her son were asleep when they were awakened by the sound of the window breaking. The son ran outside and recognized his ex-girlfriend, who yelled an expletive at him as she sped off, according to the report.

Shortly before police arrived, the son received several text messages taunting him, the victims said. According to the report, the last message read: “By the way, I’m not done.”

Wow. I love you, Denton, TX!

A special gold star award of appreciation goes to Donna Fielder for making a story that should be so wrong . . .  so very, very right.

Blotter: Report: Man’s behavior turns strange

07:35 AM CST on Tuesday, December 21, 2010

By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer

Paramedics took a man to a hospital for evaluation Sunday after his friend reported to police that he was talking in tongues, declaring himself God, threatening her with a knife and doing other things that were out of character.

The woman said her friend asked her to accompany him to a movie, but she suggested they watch a movie at her apartment instead.

They were having a conversation about God, she said, when he suddenly declared that he was God.

He announced that they were going to have sex. She told him that was disrespectful and he insisted that they were going to have a sexual encounter and picked up a pair of scissors, according to a police report.

She ran into the bathroom, and he threw the scissors across the room and ran into the living room.

She was fearful for him and followed. She reported that she saw him “levitate” for about 10 feet across the room. She feared he was going to go over the balcony, so she shoved a table across the door.

He picked up a knife and she defended herself with a curtain rod, she said. Then she grabbed a baseball bat. He began chanting “Red, green, go” over and over and “flying” around the room, she said.

He was flailing his arms and hit her, the report states. She struck him with the bat, she said. He began speaking in a language she didn’t understand. She called 911 at that point.

She told police that her friend uses steroids and GHB, called the date rape drug, but that he did not appear to have taken anything when he first arrived.

Later she reported that he was texting her from the hospital that he was not sorry for what happened.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Denton police blotter! Woo hoo!

This holiday season, I’d like to express my appreciation of Donna Fielder and her knack for highlighting the worst of Denton through our always entertaining police blotter .

Blotter: Police investigate report of purloined Thanksgiving meal

By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer

Denton police are investigating a report from a man who said someone came into his apartment and stole his Thanksgiving meal Wednesday night.

The man said he was cooking a turkey, a ham, a cherry pie and a pumpkin pie in the apartment in the 3400 block of Joyce Lane. When he left the residence, on the table were a slow cooker full of cider and another filled with dressing, he told officers.

There was no sign of forced entry, but when he returned from being away for a while, the food was gone. He showed the officer discarded meat packaging.

He valued one of the slow cookers at $400 and the other at $200, according to the report.

900 block of Emery Street — Someone smashed a car windshield with a frozen turkey, according to a report at about 3 a.m. Thursday.

A neighbor said he was up working on his computer when he heard a popping sound and a male voice yelling “woo hoo!”

The neighbor went outside to investigate and saw the 15-pound turkey lying in the street. The windshield of the car parked in the street was smashed.

The owner of the vehicle said he did not know who might have wanted to smash his windshield.