Following fellow freaks filly
ASPEN PARK — The call was urgent: A sinister character in blue jeans, a blue shirt and a white hat seemed to shadowing a young lady in a menacing manner. Deputies quickly tracked the problematic pedestrian at a busy grocery and, when queried for comment, he immediately asked them if “that girl called in.” Pleased at finding him in a forthcoming temper, the officers suggested that he elaborate. While innocently walking to the store, he explained, he’d fallen in behind a teenage girl. Apparently objecting to his oppressive proximity, the skittish miss doubled her pace and started speed-dialing her cell phone like the first 10 callers got two free Lady Antebellum tickets. Perceiving the girl’s distress, he’d sought to ease her mind. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get you,” he called out. “I’m just walking to the store.” Rather than thanking him for the kindly reassurance, the leery lass took off at a dead run, and that was the last he’d seen of her. Deputies noted that the accused seemed nervous during the interview, and repeatedly asked what kind of ticket he would be getting and how much it would cost him. Since his accuser hadn’t stuck around to bear witness, the awkward encounter cost him only a few minutes of his time.

Shred letter day
CONIFER — Mr. and Mrs. Post called JCSO to report that their neighbor, Mrs. Parsell, was stealing their mail. According to their report, an angry Parsell had accosted them in broad daylight, accusing their children of swiping mail from the community mailbox. At the time, Parsell had a handful of the Post’s mail, which she refused to hand over. When the Posts threatened to call the cops, Parsell may or may not have “opened” one of their letters and snapped a picture of its contents with her phone before giving it back. Parsell waited with the Posts until authorities arrived and, in her own defense, told deputies that in the course of walking her dog she’d come upon the Post children removing mail from the community mailboxes and ripping it into confetti. Parsell said she’d confronted the Posts with their own rescued mail and the stern admonition that their ill-bred brood had committed a federal crime. While she admitted photographing one of the Posts’ letters “for evidence,” Parsell maintained that it had already been torn open by their own children. The Posts and Parsell agreed that the community mailbox poses an attractive nuisance to neighborhood children, and listened with interest as deputies floated the possibility of mounting a camera on it whereby they might more accurately assess both the nature of the alleged crimes and the identity of the alleged perpetrators. Since all parties promised to behave henceforth in a neighborly way, deputies left them alone to work out the details of community surveillance.

Ballistic tests were inconclusive
EVERGREEN — Her pique was transparent. Washing dishes at about 1 p.m., she’d surveyed the world through two clean panes of glass. Two hours later, she discovered a dime-sized hole shot clean through the outer pane and the offending BB resting comfortably against the inner pane in the previously insulating space between. Although she’d been at home and alert during the interval, she told a sympathetic deputy, she’d neither seen nor heard the attack, which she found particularly galling because the 30-year-old kitchen window was the last original casement in the house. As to suspects, she said her neighbor swore the shot hadn’t come from his yard, and further told her that he’d lost a window under virtually identical circumstances only two weeks before. Given the wounded window’s orientation and the BB’s failure to penetrate both panes, the complainant inferred that the shot had originated some distance away. The case remains open pending further intelligence.