Riding shotgun

CONIFER – The deputy could hardly fail to notice the car parked in the middle of the intersection at 4 a.m. with its headlights ablaze. Feeling there might be a story behind that unusual circumstance, the officer waited until the vehicle finally got back underway and then pulled it to the curb. Approaching on foot, the deputy noticed a shotgun sitting behind the driver’s seat and swiftly placed the driver in custody. The shotgun turned out to be unloaded, which was just as well because the driver wasn’t. Asked how much liquid ammunition he was packing, the well-lit fellow seemed to be at a loss. “One 25-ounce beer?” he slurred. “Maybe three beers? (Heck) if I know!” Not only was he well over the legal libation limit, neither he nor his shotgun were licensed or registered. In his own defense, the man told deputies he’d been on the way to meet a certain unsavory character named “Marina” whom he believed to possess critical information regarding a recent convenience store robbery. He said he’d purchased the firearm the night before to take along as “protection.” Officers transported the man to detox and the shotgun to the JCSO evidence vault.

Trash mob

SOUTH JEFFCO – Although she knew perfectly well that her neighbors were sunning on a Caribbean beach, she could plainly see from her front window about 10 kajillion teenagers milling around on their front lawn in the wee hours of the morning, and she suspected unsanctioned partying. She tipped off JCSO and, apparently tipped to the tip, the teens all scattered before deputies arrived. But the officers caught a break when a late-comer in a silver SUV drove slowly by before driving up onto a nearby lawn to scope the scene and try to figure out where the party went. The SUV’s youthful driver admitted hearing about a major bash scheduled for that night at the vacant address, prompting deputies to enter the home through an unlocked door and investigate. Inside, the presence of tools and the fact that the carpets had all been torn up suggested that the owners had commissioned remodeling work to be done in their absence. Likewise, the presence of thick drifts of empty beer cans and the fact that the place smelled like the frat-house floor suggested less prosaic interior designs. The reporting party said she’d try to get a message detailing the night’s events to the homeowners in their surf-side palapa. With nobody left to arrest, and pending the owners’ confirmation that an actual crime had been committed, deputies secured the house and skedaddled.

IckyLeaks

MORRISON – The mortified hotel guest called 911 at 2:11 to report a serious breach of the social contract. A strange young fellow was standing outside her room with his breeches around his ankles, she complained, and she believed he might be urinating on her door. Deputies didn’t have to look far for the cheeky rascal, who was passed out in the corridor next to his irregular latrine. Rousing the souse to semi-consciousness, officers were able through dogged perseverance to determine that he’d spent the balance of the evening at a Red Rocks concert, during which interval he’d consumed an unspecified – but presumably considerable – quantity of “Fireball and Coors.” Of precisely what he’d been up to in the hallway the pants-less perp had no memory, but he assured the officers it would be most unlike him to relieve himself on anything but a JCPH-approved sanitary receptacle. The complainant reassured deputies that he very definitely had, and that she was very interested in pressing charges. Officers cited Wee Willie Winkie for indecent exposure and let him sleep it off on the floor of a hallway in detox.

Sheriff’s Calls is intended as a humorous take on some of the incident call records of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for the mountain communities. Names and identifying details have been changed, including the writer’s name, which is a pseudonym. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty.