Card catalogue
CONIFER — Retrieving an errant wallet from the roadway on the afternoon of Oct. 1, the good citizen first tried to locate its owner. Failing in that, he turned the abandoned billfold over to JCSO deputies, who first took careful inventory of its contents. Within it they identified two Wells Fargo credit cards, two Chase credit cards, one Delta Sky Miles credit card, one Pinnacle Bank debit card, one Sutton VIP card, one “Justice” gift card, one Target Red Card, one United Health Insurance card and one Lincoln City library card. Since all of the plastic was issued to the same woman, deputies were optimistic when they found that name in the Colorado database and dialed the associated cell phone number. Surprisingly, the woman on the other end of the line said she’d moved out of the state years ago and her plastic is all present and accounted for. Fresh out of ideas, officers booked the wallet into Jeffco’s lost and found.
Border crossing
BEAR CREEK CANYON — Riding fences on the afternoon of Sept. 28, the homeowner was displeased to discern ATV tracks leading onto her property through a large gap in her palisade, plus a pair of travel trailers visible in the trees on the other side. Mildly concerned that “squatters” could be fixin’ to set up camp somewhere on her sizeable spread, Homeowner asked JCSO deputies to find out who owns the adjacent acreage and whether or not they’d been crossing the line. Amiably apologetic, the neighbors readily admitted driving their ATVs onto Homeowner’s property, explaining that Homeowner’s fence had been down when they bought the place and they simply hadn’t known they’d been riding somebody else’s range. For good measure, they asked officers for Homeowner’s phone number so they could apologize to her directly, a neighborly gesture welcomed by Homeowner, who was relieved to find her fief squatter-free.
Golden parachute
EVERGREEN — Young Peter Pinchpenny got a job cashiering at the Gas-o-Mat. About two weeks into the gig, he asked his boss for a few days off. When his boss told him he hadn’t worked long enough to accumulate personal days, the lad announced he was quitting at the end of his shift and they wouldn’t have Peter Pinchpenny to push around anymore. That might have been the end of Peter’s sorry service station story, except that the following shift reported that two of five scheduled cash-drops had never been performed, and the un-dropped cash had dropped completely out of sight. Surveillance tapes showed Peter stuffing rolls of cash into his pocket with elaborate – even comical – slyness, and several phone calls to Peter ran straight into a wall of recorded messages. Store security notified JCSO, and promised to prosecute young Pinchpenny if he could be brought to heel. Deputies caught up with Peter at home, and the sheepish thief seemed to be expecting the visit. Peter said he didn’t take the money “on purpose,” but rather took it home in his trousers “by accident,” having merely forgotten to turn the thick bundles of bills over to the head cashier at the end of his shift. Peter assured the officers he still had the innocently misappropriated funds and went inside to get them. Several minutes later he returned, announcing without explanation or elaboration that the money was “gone.” As the law doesn’t provide for the punishment of honest forgetfulness, deputies cited Pinchpenny for theft, instead.