THAT'S JUST MEAN: A Tampa woman was trying to wind down the day with a beer before bed when her boyfriend began banging on her window, "cursing and screaming" about wanting money and his cellphone. The woman didn't want to disturb her 83-year-old mother, who has heart problems, requires dialysis and was resting elsewhere in the home, so she asked him to leave. The boyfriend responded by saying "he would kill her and her mother's ass once he got in." He then broke a window next to the front door and attempted to pull his girlfriend through the shattered glass. After she got away, the boyfriend opened the front door, "beat on" the girlfriend, threw the mother (who had attempted to intervene) to the floor, grabbed the girlfriend's purse and then broke all the potted plants and several small glass figurines that were around the front door. The boyfriend told police he didn't hit anyone, but bruises on the victims told a different story and he was arrested.
JUDGMENT IMPAIRED: Police on patrol in Ybor City saw a man hassling two girls sitting on a bench at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 15th Street. The officers approached, but as soon as they made contact with the man he "became belligerent yelling obscenities." The cops smelled alcohol on his breath, and noticed impaired speech and bloodshot eyes, but they gave the guy a chance and simply asked him to leave the area. A friend standing nearby grabbed the man, told him he was drunk and also asked him to leave. The officer then reiterated the command to leave. Rather than comply, the man broke free from his friend, approached one of the officers, said, "I ain't leaving, you can go fuck yourself," and then pushed the cop. Much struggling and Tasering ensured, and the man slept it off in a Tampa jail cell.
WAY OFF BASE: A military officer guarding MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa observed a suspect vehicle headed toward the base's front gate. As the car made its approach it appeared to be swerving badly. Once the car arrived at the gate, the officer quickly got a sense that the man driving the vehicle was intoxicated. He had bloodshot eyes, badly slurred speech, no recollection of the current time of day, and "was attempting to travel to St. Petersburg and did not realize he was at a military base gate." Tampa police called to the scene were unable to perform a field sobriety test, as the man refused. His reason: "He was too cold."
From the files of the T.P.D.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2006.