KUMBA YA! This week, it's nothing but excellent boyfriend material. In this first case, a 22-year-old woman was at Busch Gardens with her current boyfriend. Somewhere between the Serengeti and the hospitality tent, the woman's ex-boyfriend, a state trooper who works in Miami, approached the happy couple. The man leaned in and "whispered in her ear that he was no longer a trooper, he had a gun and she was going to go with him." The love triangle then made its way to the parking lot where the woman and her current boyfriend jumped in their car and tried to escape. The jilted lover "kicked the door, punched the glass and broke the door handle in an attempt to get at the boyfriend." The good news is that the couple was able to escape the rampaging ex. The bad news is that he got away, too. Internal Affairs and other police departments in Florida were notified.
DRUNK & DISORDERLY: Here are two separate cases of guys drinking a little too much and taking their antics to the streets. In the first, police responded to a report of an intoxicated man screaming in the middle of a trailer park in Tampa. The cops found the man on Lowry Court, drunk and threatening the other residents of the trailer park. After failing to calm the guy down, the officers tried to handcuff him, but he managed to squirm away. The man then "refused to be arrested," to which the cops replied with a short zap from the Taser. The man was then booked on charges of disorderly intoxication, resisting arrest without violence and violation of parole. Our second winner was drunk and fighting with his girlfriend in the front yard of his E. Hamilton Avenue home. Unlike the last arrestee, this guy punched one of the arresting officers in the face prior to being juiced by the Taser. After he was cuffed and the cops were loading him in the car, the suspect managed to kick another cop in the groin before Tampa's finest subdued him again and put him in leg restraints.
A CUT MOST UNKIND: Speaking of guys getting Tasered, police also used the device after responding to a report of a battery on 19th Street in Tampa. Per the report: "Upon arrival the def[endant] smashed a bottle against the wall and picked up a piece of glass. [The officer] gave him several verbal commands to drop the glass which he had to his own neck." The officers zapped the man and quickly had him in cuffs. Post arrest, the victim reported that the man had tried to choke her with "some sort of wire." Nice.
From the files of the T.P.D.
This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2007.
