Allen Park
Guns, electronics, drugs taken from roommates
A resident in the 7100 block of Winona returned to his house about 3:30 p.m. Monday and found the garage door wide open and several valuables missing.
The side door to the house also was damaged; the metal frame was bent and the lock and deadbolt were pushed open.
The man had left for work about 6:15 a.m. and his roommate left about 12:45 p.m. Missing items included a laptop computer valued at $600, a video game console ($300), a shotgun ($200), a rifle ($900), a set of golf clubs ($200) and about 40 prescription pain pills.
Wedding rings stolen from messy and locked house
Upon returning to their house in the 15000 block of Anne about 10:30 p.m. Aug. 1, a man and his family noticed things seemed “out of place.”
The man said all windows and doors were locked and the alarm system was armed when they had left about 3 p.m., but he came home to discover his $800 gold wedding ring and his wife’s diamond/gold wedding ring ($2,000) were missing. The rings were in a black box on a desk in the northeast bedroom.
Police were unable to locate any evidence or entry or exit points among the scattered clothes and personal items thrown about, which the man said were always that way.
Dearborn
Red-handed thief: ‘I didn’t do anything’
A 36-year-old man who police say has a history of theft was arrested July 14 for allegedly trying to steal money from a car in the 6400 block of Reuter.
According to a homeowner who witnessed the incident, the man was riding a bicycle along the street when he noticed the passenger window on a 1997 Ford Contour was rolled down.
The witness, knowing the man’s reputation as a thief, watched him slowly circle until he stopped next to the car. After looking around, the man stuck his body through the window and began rifling through a wallet that was sitting on the front seat.
At that point the witness came outside and yelled to the car’s owner, a 57-year-old woman who was in her backyard across the street. “I didn’t do anything,” the man allegedly said, as he pulled his torso out of the window and dropped the wallet.
As the witness and car owner approached the man, he tried to flee. But the witness blocked him from getting back on the bicycle, telling the man he was going to have to wait for police to arrive. The man tried pushing the witness away before deciding to leave his bicycle and flee on foot.
Due to the man’s previous contacts with police, officers were able to locate and arrest him shortly thereafter. The car’s owner told police no money was missing from her wallet.
Dearborn Heights
Bully takes bicycle
A 16-year-old boy was arrested for strong-arm robbery on Aug. 2 after he allegedly pushed another boy off of his $800 bicycle and then rode away with it near Ford Road and Berwyn.
The victim, also 16, told police he was riding in the alley behind Ford Road when the suspect and another boy, both of whom he knows, approached him. The altercation occurred and then both of the boys fled down the alley, the victim said.
An attendant at a nearby gas station witnessed the incident and corroborated the boy’s story. The attendant also provided police with surveillance footage that captured the robbery.
It is unclear from reports if the bicycle was recovered.
‘Stupid’ vandal busted
An 18-year-old man was arrested at the Canfield Ice Center about 12:30 a.m. Aug. 2 for allegedly keying a 2010 Ford Mustang in the nearby residential neighborhood.
Police were dispatched to the center after the car’s owner called to report the incident, saying she had chased the suspect in that direction. When police questioned the man about why he did it, he allegedly replied he was “just stupid and not thinking.”
But the car’s owner told police a story that suggested the suspect at least was thinking. She said she became aware of the vandalism after her son received a phone call from the suspect, who said he had just keyed the car. The woman’s son was a friend of the suspect and said he was unsure why the suspect would have vandalized the car.
An 18-year-old man at the scene of the crime, in the 26200 block of Doxtator, told police he was driving the suspect when the suspect told him to stop in front of the house where the car was parked. The driver said he wasn’t sure why the suspect wanted to stop, but that after watching him key the car, the driver decided to stay put for the police. The driver was not arrested.
Lincoln Park
Computer swiped
A laptop computer was stolen Monday from a house in the 1700 block of Rose.
The resident said she left at 8:30 a.m. to go to her mother’s house and returned at 3:30 p.m. to find it missing from the kitchen table.
She told police she had locked all the doors to the house, but no sign of forced entry was found.
The computer is valued at $2,000.
Melvindale
Sister steals TV, rips door off hinges
An argument between two sisters apparently ended in theft and apartment damage last week.
A woman who lives in the apartment in the 300 block of Gale Boulevard told police about 11:15 p.m. July 31 that she had an argument earlier in the day with her 20-year-old sister, who also lives there.
The woman left for a few hours and said that when she returned, her sister was gone, as were some DVDs and a flat-screen television.
The woman’s bedroom door was ripped off the hinges and was lying on the living room floor.
The woman said that during their argument, her sister had threatened to tear up the woman’s clothes and car.
Riverview
Bottle thrown through window during fight
A 20-year-old former Lincoln Park man was standing in his new Riverview residence in the 17400 block of Fort Street about 2:45 a.m. when an alcohol bottle crashed through his apartment’s front window.
The man ran outside and saw two black men and a white man fighting with a 27-year-old man before jumping into a sport utility-type vehicle and drove off on Huntington.
The resident said they were the same people he had seen in the complex earlier that day, and that he had had a run-in with them previously over a woman. He believed the men were from Ecorse.
The 27-year-old man said he was assaulted by the other three men, but was extremely intoxicated and did not provide a full report at that time.
Would-be thieves leave mark on truck
After returning to his vehicle in the parking lot of Meijer, 16300 Fort St. in Southgate, about 1:30 p.m. July 31, a 59-year-old Riverview man discovered damage on the passenger-side door of his black 2000 Ford pickup truck that is consistent with a breaking and entering attempt.
The man was not sure if the failed attempt took place at the store or while the truck was parked at his townhouse in the 14600 block of Shenandoah between 10 p.m. the previous night and the next morning.
Southgate
Vandals paint devilish messages
Street signs and two statues were damaged sometime last week at Sanctuary at Maryhaven, 11350 Reeck.
An employee arrived about 10 a.m. July 31 and found a swastika spray painted on the north side of one street sign and the word “satans” spray painted on another. The face of a statue of the Virgin Mary was painted red and a St. Christopher statue was knocked over and broken.
The words “satans aliens” were spray painted in the middle of Reeck Road near the entrance to the complex.
Bike, tools taken from garage
A bicycle and a box full of tools were taken last week from a garage in the 15700 block of Scott.
A combination lock on the garage door had been removed, police said. The owner said the tool box was heavy and likely had to be carried away by two people.
The bicycle is valued at $475 and the tool box and tools at about $1,000.
Trenton
Attorney intercepts tax refund check
A Marian Drive resident said last week that an attorney her son had hired last year might have absconded with her tax refund check.
She said she had co-signed some paperwork to retain the attorney but could not produce any for police because she never received copies from the attorney. The woman said she had not missed any payments, and that the attorney had collected them all.
In February, she said, her federal income tax refund check for about $8,800 never arrived. Internal Revenue Service officials assured her it had been sent, but advised her that her son’s lawyer held power of attorney, and therefore the check was sent to the lawyer.
She told police the attorney cashed the check and sent her a check for about $5,900, but said he had held out too much. When she tried to cash the check from attorney, she told police, he had stopped payment on it.
The woman contacted the IRS again and was told that the attorney should not have cashed the check without her permission, and that the agency would conduct an investigation along with the U.S. Secret Service.
Roof job ends in violent threats
Last week a Brownstown Township man unhappy with work on his house allegedly threatened to kill the owner and employee of Holbrook’s Roofing, 2266 Grange Road.
The man called an employee’s cell phone just after 4:30 p.m. July 30 complaining that his roof still leaked despite work done by the company in June. The owner said his company had been trying to fix the problem when the man called demanding a new roof or a refund of the $2,800 job cost.
The employee said the man called him and threatened to “put a bullet” in the employee’s head. Telling the employee the company office was easy to find and that he should “watch his back,” the caller again demanded his money back.
A few minutes later the Brownstown man called the company’s office demanding to speak to the owner. Another
employee told the man the owner was on another line; the man called her an obscene name and hung up.
Shortly afterward, the owner called the man, who said if he didn’t get his money in three days, he would come to the office and shoot the owner and his employees.
Taylor
Car relieved of laptop
A laptop computer was stolen between 9 p.m. and midnight July 27 from a vehicle in the 9500 block of Birch. Police did not list a value for the item.
Storage unit cleaned out by thieves
Several items were stolen between noon July 24 and noon July 29 from an apartment storage unit in the 13200 block of Princeton.
Among them were a new 37-inch, flat-screen television, a gas grill, sweaters, jeans, shoes, a Christmas tree and ornaments.
The items, which were covered with a tarp, were inside the locked unit. Other items also may have been taken.
Wyandotte
War antiques taken from library study room
Officers were dispatched to Bacon Memorial Library, 45 Vinewood, about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday on reports that someone had stolen several Civil War artifacts from the Max Schwartz Room during the past two weeks to one month.
Cannonballs and lanterns were on display in the room. Each is attached to wooden bases on top of various bookshelves. Whoever stole the items removed the lanterns from the bases, but took the cannonball bases with them.
The room is open to the public, and many library patrons go into the room with backpacks. Detectives dusted the scene for fingerprints.
Man takes money from woman’s purse
A young couple with a child had a dispute about 2:30 p.m. July 29 that brought police to their apartment in the 900 block of James.
A 21-year-old woman had $150 in her purse in the bedroom earlier in the day when a 25-year-old man was complaining about not having any money. About 2:30 p.m. the woman saw the man sitting on the living room sofa counting several $20 and $50 bills. She checked her purse and found all of her money missing before confronting the man and demanding he return it. She then called police for assistance.
As the altercation continued, the man shoved the woman and spat in her face while completely denying the entire incident. He said the woman had mental issues due to a current pregnancy.
The man gave the woman $112 before leaving the area. After he left, officers learned there were several fugitive warrants for his arrest outstanding, but they had advised the man not to return and start another fight.
(Compiled by Chris Jackett, J. Patrick Pepper and Tom Tigani.)