No Charges Filed Against High School Basketball Brawlers
Remember the brawl that broke out at a Southside High School basketball game in February? The fight that even had some parents throwing punches?
Turns out the appalling behavior will go without official punishment.
The Greenville County Sheriff’s Department has declined to file charges against any of the brawlers from Southside High School or their opponents at Abbeville High.
Greenville County Sheriff’s Lt. Shea Smith said the decision was reached because no victims came forward to file assault reports and administrators at both schools assured investigators the students involved were appropriately punished.
Abbeville suspended eight players from school for five days. Southside disciplined three players.
Sounds like an appropriate punishment for your basic schoolyard fight. But for a melee that nearly devolved into a riot? Not so much.
These kids might not be hardened criminals (yet), but having to stand before a judge might have made them think twice before throwing punches on the basketball court.
Two Greenville AT&T Stores Burglarized
Customers were left hanging after a band of thieves broke into two AT&T stores in Greenville early Thursday and made off with all the phones.
The Cherrydale store and the store on Haywood Road were wiped out.
The thieves used crowbars to break through the windows and went straight into storage rooms, leaving the phones connected to security wires alone, investigators said.
Approximately $33,000 in merchandise was stolen, $13,000 worth from the store at 77 Haywood Road and $20,000 worth from the 3209 N. Pleasantburg Drive location.
News Channel 7 has security footage that shows at least three suspects clearing out the inventory of one of the stores. Authorities say a silver four-door SUV may have been involved.
Candy Marie King is a Moron
After being on the run for a few days the world’s dumbest check forger has been caught. Don’t be too impressed with the detective work though, Candy Marie King forged checks to herself using her real name:
Greenville sheriff’s deputies have arrested a 40-year-old Greenville woman who they say forged child support checks and took other checks that she wrote to herself.
Investigators said between Feb. 22 and March 5, King acquired the routing and account number of the Greenville County Family Court Child Support account, and manufactured illegal documents resembling Family Court checks.
Employees from Family Court found the discrepancies during a daily internal audit and notified the Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies said King made the checks payable to herself, added Clerk of Court Paul Wickensimer’s name, and cashed them at area businesses.
King faces three forgery charges related to falsified documents from to the Greenville County Family Court account.
King faces an additional eight forgery charges in connection to other incidents dating back to Sept. 24, 2009.
I’m surprised this took so long to come to light. But using her real identity to run a check scam wasn’t the only dumb thing she did:
Investigators said King obtained other checks belonging to two separate victims, one of whom she knew, and made the checks payable to herself, cashing them at area businesses.
They should give her extra time for stupidity. This scam was like robbing a bank by demanding the teller put all her money in your account.
Series of Coyote Attacks Have Greenville Neighborhood on Edge
As the number of sport hunters in this country continues to decline and urban sprawl continues to encroach on wild areas, people are increasingly experiencing interactions with wild animals that are acclimated to humans. Whereas it was once typical for coyotes to shun areas of human settlement for fear of the rifle’s crack, in recent years more and more suburban areas have seen populations of coyotes that not only have no fear of humans, but have learned that our garbage cans are easy pickings and our pets are easy prey.
Now one Greenville neighborhood is practically under siege by the “American jackal” and residents are at a loss on how to solve the problem:
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Residents of a Greenville County neighborhood say their pets are being attacked and even killed by unexpected predators, and they are warning others to protect their pets from the danger.
People who live in the neighborhood along Crestline Road say they feel like they’re under attack.
The fear began with the death of 15-year-old sheltie named Maggie. She was attacked and killed in her own driveway.
Maggie’s owners said they found their dog’s body covered in puncture wounds just ten minutes after letting her out one night in late February.
Neighbor Ruth DeVorsey said, “The idea that it was killed by coyotes is terrible.”
A border collie up the road was also mauled, but its owners heard the attack and intervened in time to save the dog.
DeVorsey said, “That’s two animals within four houses attacked on the same night.”
Apparently the coyotes are so settled in the area that people have heard the howl at night. Coyotes are not unusual in South Carolina, but our exploding population of transplanted urban folk not used to dealing with these varmints is exacerbating the problems associated with these animals. Trapping and hunting coyotes is necessary to control their populations close to civilized areas. Unfortunately the Disneyfied view of nature Americans now have changed the fundamental understanding of our relationship with predatory wild animals. Even the local experts are giving out bad advice:
Wildlife experts say coyotes are afraid of humans. Small pets are most at risk.
Tell that to Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old Canadian folk singer who was mauled to death by a pack of coyotes less than a year ago. Lone coyotes may indeed be afraid of humans and target small animals, but a pack will attack large animals including humans if an opportunity presents itself. An injured person alone, a person taking a nap by their favorite stream, a couple of teens hiding out in the woods to get high, all of these are targets of opportunity for the increasingly fearless coyote packs. Coyotes fear humans because we kill them, if we stop killing them in a couple of generations we see that fear dissipate and our contacts with these predators become more violent.
The same goes for many animals. Seattle, for example, has had a rash of raccoon attacks on dogs, cats, and people. In a recent case three raccoons came into a woman’s yard to attack her mini-pincher and when she screamed rather than flee one began attacking her. It was not rabid. Seattle has inadvertently created a raccoon population that does not fear humans, largely through so-called animal lovers encouraging the animals to live close to them by banning the harvesting of these creatures.
My advice to the Crestline Road area is to get yourself some dog food, snare wire (para-cord works in a pinch) and a book on trapping animals (like Dale Martin’s The Trapper’s Bible) and handle this problem before one of these coyotes kills one of your children.
At least we don’t have New Jersey’s black bear problem. Scientists there are warning that the population cannot be controlled without hunting, but who hunts in Jersey anymore?
Police Find Stolen A.T.M. in Abandoned Pick-Up Truck
Bad enough that they’re thieves, but littering too? Throw the book at them!
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Greenville police said that an automatic teller machine that was ripped from the ground at a bank in January was found in the back of a truck on Wednesday morning.
Police said that the truck was found parked in a wooded area off Verdae Boulevard just before noon.
Investigators said that the ATM appears to belong to a Wachovia Bank on Woodruff Road that was hit on Jan. 18.
How was this crime scene found you ask? Well according to WYFF it’s a funny story…
Brian Jenkins said he was taking a short when a deer darted in front of his car on Hilton Street.
Jenkins said, “It was a big deer. I hunt, so I stopped and said, ‘I’m going to see where this deer is.’”
Jenkins followed the deer about 80 yards into the woods.
“There were deer bones. It was crazy. Then I could see the back of a truck,” he said.
Jenkins said he hollered for his brother-in-the law and together they approached the truck.
Yeah. Sounds reasonable.