Every day, police officers respond to reports of all sorts of events and nonevents, most of which never make the news. Here is a sampling of lesser-known — but no less noteworthy — incidents from police log books (aka blotters) in our suburbs.
STREET MUSICIAN . . . OR APPARITION?
Just after midnight on May 30, Peabody police received a report that someone was playing a piano on the Main Street sidewalk. An officer checked the area but could find neither a meandering musician nor a stray Steinway.RUN FOR THE WOODS, INDEED
At 3:50 p.m. May 9, Stow police learned that two vehicles being driven along Great Road had close encounters with a road sign, specifically a banner promoting a Run for the Woods 5K road race. The banner usually hangs over the roadway, the better to get motorists’ attention, but on this particular windy afternoon, it had been dislodged from its usual perch. Nobody was hurt as a result, said the police log, but a clasp affixed to the banner damaged both vehicles, smashing a windshield on one and denting the other in two places. The highway department was notified to fix the wayward banner.
THAT’S A WRAP
At around 11:30 p.m. May 6, a resident of an apartment house on Peabody’s Foster Street called police to report he could see three men in the lobby through the building’s security camera, and two of them appeared to be armed. One held a handgun, he said, the other a rifle. Officers responded and found the report true, to a point: There were three young men in the lobby, all right, but they told police they were filming a video and the weapons were fake. But police soon made another discovery: There was an outstanding warrant from Worcester District Court on one of them, a 23-year-old from Milford. He was placed under arrest, and his fellow filmmakers closed up shop for the night.
LOCKED OUT?
At 4:31 p.m. May 9, Beverly police checked on a man sleeping on a porch on Story Avenue. He told the officer he was just waiting for his wife to get home.
BAD GRANDPA
On the evening of May 9, Sergeant Mark Foley noticed a man standing next to a baby stroller on Billings Street in Quincy, urinating in a driveway. The guy then proceeded to push the stroller, occupied by his toddler-aged grandson, along the sidewalk. When Foley asked him his name and informed him that urinating in public was a crime, the man responded with profanities and refused to say where he lived. Asked if he’d been drinking, he denied it. He was ultimately arrested and charged with indecent exposure. When his wife arrived at the scene, she told police that the couple had custody of the child because her daughter, the child’s mother, was incarcerated. As Foley helped place the stroller into the trunk of her vehicle, he noticed three empty 25-ounce Bud Light Straw-Ber-Rita cans in the stroller, which were seized as evidence.
NIGHT FRETS
At 11:14 p.m. May 9, Stow police received a call from a resident complaining that a helicopter landing at Minute Man Air Field was annoying at that time of night. Police advised the caller that Boston MedFlight was completing night training and then passed the complaint on to the air field.
DANCING IN AND ON THE HOOD
At 10:49 p.m. May 13, Woburn police were dispatched to investigate a report of a shirtless man dancing on the hood of a car on Pleasant Street. Police soon located the shirtless one, who told officers he was just dealing with car trouble.
DID YOU SLEEP WELL, STRANGER?
At 6:47 a.m. May 25, Norwood police responded to a 911 call reporting a break-in at a home on Winslow Avenue. The caller told police that she saw a man sleeping on her grandparents’ downstairs couch and had no idea who he was or how he got in. Officers responded and removed the trespasser, who was taken to an area hospital for evaluation.
Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney.
