Police Blotter
December 19, 2019
We handled 44 calls for service yesterday. Let's take a look at the report calls.
19121622: What do K-9 officers train their partners with? Real drugs of course, but not from our evidence storage. Nope, we get them from the state after filling out a bunch a paperwork for the federal government. Over time, those drugs get old and have to be replaced. What happens to the old stuff? We book them for destruction. That's what this event is all about. Corporal P. Smith and Officer C. Smith weighed and packaged the old narcotics used as training aids and booked them into evidence for destruction. Our evidence technician will throw it on the fire with a bunch of other drugs at a later date after we've obtained permission from the attorney general's office. Needless to say you wouldn't want to roast marshmallows on that fire.
19121665: On December 19, 2019, at about 11:45 a.m., Officer Mattson responded to a Disturbance call at the Super 8 parking lot. It was reported that someone was screaming in a vehicle. That sounds pretty serious and so all four of our officers responded to the call. As it turns out, it wasn't so serious, but a group of children waiting for their parents. Unfortunately, there were a couple of marijuana pipes sitting in plain view in the car and the car smelled like marijuana inside. Can we pause for a second to point something out? Marijuana smells. Whether you like the smell or don't, it smells and it hardly takes a police K-9 to sniff it out. There have been instances where police officers have followed their noses through residential streets or followed cars down the highway to ultimately find it and cite or arrest the suspect. If you're going to buy it, smoke it, or keep it in your car, you can expect that when a police officer pulls you over that you'll be driving away with more than a traffic ticket. In this case, the owner of the vehicle a cited and released for the possession of marijuana.
19121686: On December 19, 2019, at about 2:30 p.m., Sgt. Matthews was working patrol up at the JH Airport. Does it seem weird that a Jackson Police Officer works way out there? Not when you consider the airport is actually Town of Jackson property and subject to municipal code. The airport is run by a joint board and we provide police services for them. Anyway, while Sgt. Matthews was keeping the flying public safe an airport employee advised him of an intoxicated person at one of the gates who had fallen and injured himself. He went over to investigate and found the man face down. Sgt. Matthews roused the man, who he found to be heavily intoxicated. He called for medics to attend to any injuries, but the man refused medical treatment. Sgt. Matthews made every attempt to find friends or family to get him home, but couldn't find anyone. Left with no other option, the 65 year old Jackson man was arrested for Public Intoxication. His portable breath test was a .313%. Yikes. The jail requires all persons over a .30% be medically evaluated before booking. You should know neither the police department nor sheriff's office will pay for that evaluation, which can be quite expensive.
19121728: On December 19, 2019, Officers Proctor, C. Smith, O'Donnell, Cpl. P. Smith and Sgt. Ruschill responded to a suicidal subject. That seems like a lot of cops for one person, doesn't it? It depends. If we are able to talk people into cooperation, we don't need that many. If the person becomes violent, it will take all five to place them in custody with minimal injury, (hopefully none, but that's never a guarantee). In this case, Sgt. Ruschill used his mad de-escalation skills and was able to talk the person into being handcuffed voluntarily so we could get him the help he needed. The ability to talk to people in difficult situations is an important skill as a police officer. Sgt. Ruschill has had many years to hone those skills and in this case was able to show the younger officers how it's done. That kind of skill usually only comes with time and practice. Good job, Sgt. Ruschill.
Happy Friday, Jackson! Enjoy your weekend. Think about our blotter while you're out enjoying yourself. We don't want you to be a blotter item.