Greenville Police Quash Mini-Riot in Falls Park
Though Greenville News “reporter” E. Richard Walton does his best to paint a clearly chaotic scene as just another day at the park, even the most liberally biased reporting can’t pretty up this picture.
From GreenvilleOnline:
One person was arrested and two teenagers were detained after scattered fights broke out near Falls Park on Saturday night in downtown Greenville.
A squad of 15 to 20 police officers brought the crowd under control near 11 p.m.
The two teenagers were detained shortly after the 10 p.m. curfew, when anyone younger than 18 and unaccompanied by an adult must be off the streets in the downtown area.
Greenville Police Lt. Mike Hudson said one woman was arrested.
Hudson said he ordered every officer who “wasn’t on a (911) call” into the area.
15-20 officers aren’t needed to “bring a crowd under control” due to “scattered fights” and a few rowdies in a downtown don’t usually prompt whoever is in charge that evening to order every cop not dealing with an emergency to flood an area. Sorry Mr. Walton, but I’m thinking this incident was more serious than you’re making it out to be.
Being a homebody I’m rarely downtown these days, but I’m told that there’s a rough element out and about. Falls Park is popular at night for both the atmosphere and the drugs. The plaza next to Spill the Beans is known to be a “corner” for dealers and the park itself provides plenty of unlit areas where kids like to get high among other things. Parents are apparently still in the habit of dropping off their spoiled brats with a wad of cash in the downtown on the weekends, and frankly we should be charging them for the damage those kids are causing.
At the very least the parents of the children involved should be forced to pay for the hours our police weren’t able to deal with other crimes while babysitting their ill-spawn brood.
Three Generic Men in Black T-Shirts Rob Li’l Cricket on White Horse Road
If you own a convenience store on the White Horse you should probably think about closing up before dark. Just putting it out there.
From Greenville News:
Three men armed with guns and wearing ski masks robbed a Li’L Cricket Store on White Horse Road on Tuesday night and fled on foot, authorities said.
All three wore black T-shirts when they robbed the store at 6008 White Horse Road at 8:10 p.m., according to Greenville County Sheriff’s Lt. Scott Wilson.
No shots were fired, and no one was hurt.
He said the three “were dressed in all black” and investigators suspect they had a vehicle nearby.
They were all wearing black t-shirts with their all black outfits? Good to know. Thanks for making sure we get it, E. Richard Walton. It’d be nice to know some more about them though. Were they young? Old? White? Black? Is it too much to ask that a report about dangerous criminals include actual descriptions of the criminals?
But I guess you’ll recognize them from their black t-shirts.
Needless to say, if you have information on this gang of black t-shirters call Crime Stoppers at 23-CRIME.
Poorly Worded Headline of the Day: “Law enforcement driving crackdown brings 40 tickets”
Of course our winner is E. Richard Walton writing for The Greenville News. Is law enforcement driving a crackdown? Or are they cracking down on driving? It can’t be the latter since driving isn’t illegal. Hmmm. Let’s see if Mr. Walton can clarify this for us in the body of his piece:
A police traffic safety task force focusing on DUI and speeding wrote about 40 traffic tickets in Greenville County late into Friday night, bringing the total for the month to about 140 citations, a commander said.
The task force was comprised of about a dozen officers from Fountain Inn, the Greenville Police Department, the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, the Highway Patrol and Maudlin police, according to Sgt. Robbie Robertson, a spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.
The officers set up two stationary checkpoints, one on Taylors Road, and one on Chick Springs Road; the hours ran from about 8:45 p.m. to 11 p.m., he said. Then the officers spent another hour patrolling various parts of Greenville County.
While there were just five speeding tickets, the other citations included seven tickets for driving without a valid license and six for tag-related violations, Robertson said.
Two people were issued summons for having marijuana in their vehicles after officers smelled it coming from the cars, and another pair were ticketed because they were watching TV when they encountered the task force, he said
Oh. I see. In other words, there was a road safety task force setting up police checkpoints to screen for DUIs and other violations. I guess a headline like “Task Force Issues 40 tickets in DUI sweep!” was too pedestrian for The Greenville News. Or how about punching things up with “Drug Bust at DUI Checkpoint!” if you were going for something more like newspaper reporting and less like a reach around to the bureaucrat whose job it is to justify these sweeps to budget conscious city and county officials.
You see, Mr. Walton, the number of tickets during your so-called “law enforcement driving crackdown” is only interesting to the people doing the accounting for the cities involved. The stoners endangering our lives by driving around high or the “unlicensed drivers,” some of whom may be illegal aliens or better yet (in terms of interest), people who have already had their licenses yanked for DUI is what people read the news for. This is what will have an effect on their lives, what they need to read about. Unless the number of tickets is unusually low (meaning the program made the roads safer), the number of tickets handed out is not the lead.
But hey, E. Richard Walton is the “real journalist” here so maybe I’m wrong.
El Nino Bakery Robbed on New Year’s Eve
The El Nino bakery at 1127 Cedar Lane Road in Greenville was robbed Thursday evening just after 6 p.m., GreenvilleOnline.com reports.
At least, we’re assuming it was in Greenville. What E. Richard Walton actually reported is that a bakery in “Grenville” was robbed, but perhaps the spell checkers at the Gannett offices succumbed to the little known Y2K10 bug.
Walton would also like you to know that the suspect (of indeterminate height, weight, and race, natch) was wearing a black jacket with white on the sleeves and carrying a weapon of some unspecified type. That ought to narrow down the field of suspects.
Exclusive Greenville Dragnet prediction for 2010: The Greenville Snooze will continue to provide plenty of fodder for our “Rotten Reporting” category.
Driver Flees Scene After Crashing into Downtown Greenville Apartment Building
An apartment in downtown Greenville sustained significant damage when a 2004 Ford pickup truck plowed into the Mulberry Court Apartments late Wednesday night. Police say no one was injured, but the driver fled from the scene, leaving behind his truck. GreenvilleOnline.com reports:
Sgt. Dan Fuller, a Greenville police spokesman, said the driver fled after the truck went about 3 feet into an apartment at 101 Mulberry St. at 11 p.m. The unidentified resident was in another section of the apartment and was unhurt, he said.
Police arriving on the scene, which is just off Washington Street, found the pickup but no one else, he said.
Fuller said investigators had checked to see who the vehicle was registered to, but he declined to release the person’s identity.
The truck has been towed from the scene, and the resident of the apartment is reportedly staying with family until the damage is repaired. Greenville police are still searching for the driver.
Just as an aside, kudos to Greenville News staff writer E. Richard Walton for doing a good job collecting the facts on this story. He might want to consider running an in-service training for his fellow “reporters” at the News.