Thefts, domestic violence and an unexplained bottle of meth are among the incidents the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) handled in Lakeland during the first half of April. See the rest of the month’s incidents for Lakeland in the May 28 issue.
Editor’s note: All suspects are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and values are estimated for stolen/damaged items. These are brief summaries of detailed SCSO reports.
April 1
Old Brownsville Road (motor vehicle theft/motorcycle)
Someone stole a Yamaha Wolverine four-wheeler all-terrain vehicle (ATV) from a property on the 9100 block of Old Brownsville Road, the owner reported on April 1. He last saw the ATV at 10 p.m. March 31.
A dispatcher entered the vehicle’s serial number into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database.
April 2
Parrish Drive (simple assault/domestic violence)
An officer responded to a simple assault/domestic violence call on the 9900 block of Parrish Drive about 15 minutes after midnight April 2.
A woman said her highly intoxicated sister drove off in the sister’s boyfriend’s car to pick him up from work. The boyfriend said he drove her back because she was intoxicated, but she got upset because she wanted him to drive her around town to various locations instead. They argued, and she went into the house.
The first woman (the victim) said she and her boyfriend were watching TV when the intoxicated sister (the suspect) came in, irritated and upset, and took out her frustrations on the sister who had been relaxing at the house. An argument escalated into a fight in the living room, when the suspect shoved her sister with two hands, causing the sister to stumble into the wall.
The victim said she pushed back to protect herself. At that point, the victim’s boyfriend broke up the fight and told the suspect she had to leave.
The suspect got back in the car with her boyfriend and restarted their argument. Eventually, she got back out of the vehicle and went to the home’s front porch, where her boyfriend said she started punching and kicking the door. He said he left at that point to avoid more confrontations.
The suspect’s sister and her boyfriend said they heard the commotion and then heard the front glass window pane shatter. The boyfriend went to the door and saw the broken glass and a lot of blood on the front porch, but the suspect was gone.
Officers arrived and evaluated the bloody scene, and the victim said they might be able to find her sister at the front office of the Canada Trace mobile home park.
Officers did find her there, bleeding profusely from the top of her right hand, and she also had minor scrapes on her feet. She received medical care on scene and refused transport.
The suspect alleged that she and her sister argued on the porch, when the victim grabbed the suspect by the collar, trying to get her back into the home. A fight ensured, and the suspect said her sister then pushed her into the window.
Officers arrested the suspect as the primary aggressor and took photos for a crime scene report.
Canada Road (felony weapon law violations)
Parking in a handicap parking spot led to a man’s arrest on multiple charges and outstanding warrants at the Waffle House (3640 Canada Road) on April 2.
Two officers spotted a silver Maserati Quattroporte with a Tennessee temporary tag parked in the handicap spot around 2:40 a.m. As they watched, a man got into the car and moved it to another sport. When the deputies approached, he said he had driven the car there and that he did not have a handicap placard or license plate.
When the deputies asked for his driver’s license, he handed over a state ID. The officers discovered that his license had been revoked as of August 2014 for failure to satisfy a citation, and he did not have proof of insurance. They also discovered he had multiple warrants.
Officers detained him and got his consent to search his car. They found a silver Smith & Wesson pistol sticking out from under the drive’’s seat in plain view, and NCIC showed it had been reported stolen on Nov. 4, 2011.
As a convicted felon, he should not have had access to a weapon. The suspect said the gun was his, but he didn’t know it was stolen. Officers also found that his temporary car tag was registered to an Audi.
He was arrested for driving with a revoked license, being a felon in possession of a firearm, violating vehicle registration, parking in a handicap spot and possessing stolen property. B & C Towing #2 towed the Maserati.
Barley Mill Circle (residential burglary)
A resident on the 3000 block of Barley Mill Circle reported that someone broke into her home between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. April 2. She returned from work to find her front door had been pried open.
Items stolen included a Samsung TV ($300), Microsoft Xbox ($200), and three Microsoft controllers (at $60). The victim had no suspect information, and the responding officer found no viable fingerprints.
April 3
Canada Road (other theft/non-specific)
A resident on the 4000 block of Canada Road said he bought a $3 “Vote Yes for Lakeland” sign in support of the city raising funds via municipal bond for a new school, and he last saw the sign around 9 p.m. April 2.
Around 9 a.m. the next morning, a neighbor visited to tell him the sign had been replaced with a “Vote No” sign.
Canada Road (theft from motor vehicle)
A man said someone burglarized his car in the parking lot of Walgreens (2960 Canada Road) while he and his girlfriend were getting a Redbox movie around 9:45 p.m. April 3.
He said a gold Toyota or Hyundai four-door car pulled up along the passenger side of his parked Volkswagen GTI.
He believes the driver, a black male wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, stepped out, opened the unlocked passenger door and took the girlfriend’s coach purse ($2,000) from the passenger floorboard.
The purse contained a military ID, a college ID from Baptist College of Health Science, a voided check and an envelope containing $178 in cash.
The victim said the suspect’s car had blue LED headlights and was an older model.
There was no workable crime scene, and the suspect fled in his vehicle in an unknown direction.
April 5
Brunswick Road (business burglary)
Someone stole a nearly new 72-inch Toro commercial mower ($11,000) from a barn at Arlington Stables (5959 Brunswick Road), the owner reported on April 5.
The south side of the barn is open without a door, and there is no lock on the garage door to the barn. There also was no lock on the property’s gate.
The security cameras inside and outside the barn had been turned to face up except for one on the north wall, which faced the open south side of the building.
The owner said he last saw the mower around 7 a.m. April 2 and realized it was missing at 4 p.m. April 5.
The mower is a red zero-turn model, and it is new with about 20 hours of use. It has a triangular piece of metal the owner welded to the mower’s rear so he could attach a trailer hitch.
The owner also said the thief took the mower’s key, which had been hidden in the upper left drawer of a toolbox on a table in one of the barn stalls.
Other small items on the table had not been disturbed, and the owner said nothing else on the property appeared to be disturbed.
He advised deputies that only two employees knew of the key’s location. One of them, a 17-year-old male, had camped out on the property about a week ago with a friend of the same age.
An officer was able to speak with the second employee via phone, and he said he last saw the mower around 7:30 a.m. April 2.
The owner was not able to provide the mower’s serial number at the time of the report but said he had it at home.
April 7
Champions Drive (theft of vehicle parts/ accessories)
A resident on the 2900 block of Champions Drive (Somer-set Apartments) reported around 1:10 a.m. April 7 that someone stole the stock tires and chrome two-toned rims to her Dodge Challenger while it was parked at the apartments. She estimated it will take $5,000 to replace them.
A witness said he saw two black males remove the tires and leave with them in a red older-model Suburban parked nearby. One suspect wore a gray hoodie and jeans, but the witness didn’t get a good look at the other man.
A crime scene officer was not able to recover any prints from the vehicle, and officers didn’t locate the suspects in the immediate area.
April 8
Herons Nest West Cove (residential burglary)
A Lakeland resident said he let a friend stay overnight April 7 at his home on the 10100 block of Herons Nest West Cove. At 9:30 a.m. the next morning, he discovered that his Glock semiautomatic gun and a GoPro camera were missing. The suspect was not on scene at the time of the report.
He contacted the local Mr. Cash pawn shop on U.S. 64 and learned that both his items were there. The victim told the responding SCSO officer that he had talked to an Oakland police officer earlier and was advised that an officer would transport the items from the pawn shop to their property room. An SCSO dispatcher entered the gun’s information into NCIC.
Old Brownsville Road (false pretenses/ swindle/ confidence game)
An Avon salesperson said a man contacted her on April 6, asking for makeup for an upcoming family wedding. They agreed on a price of $123 and shipment of the makeup to his location.
The victim became suspicious when she received a check for $1,973 in the mail. She contacted the man about the overpayment of $1,850. He assured her it was a mistake and asked her to send him a money order for the remaining balance to his address in College Park, Md.
Her bank (Regions Bank) told the woman that the check had been cleared but that the balance of the check would be removed from her account in a few days due to fraud and that she needed a police report number to place a fraud alert on her account.
She told officers that she has not touched or sent any money to the suspect and has set the matter aside for collection. She said the suspect has tried to contact her multiple times, asking about the status of the money order.
April 9
El Hill Road (theft from motor vehicle)
A complainant on the 9500 block of El Hill Road reported on April 9 that there had been a theft from a motor vehicle sometime between April 2 and April 9. Items stolen included a black Smith & Wesson .38 caliber handgun (model BG380). Additional information is not publicly available.
April 11
Front Nine Drive (residential burglary)
A man living in an apartment on the 9300 block of Front Nine Drive noticed that his next-door neighbors left around 2:30 p.m. April 11, and he came outside shortly afterward and saw that their door was cracked open. He returned later and noticed the door was still ajar, so he looked closer and decided the door might have been kicked in.
Two officers responded to his 911 call. They cleared the apartment, noticed that the door might have been pried open, and saw that the bathroom cabinets were open.
The couple who lived in that burglarized apartment soon returned, and they compiled a list of various electronics, jewelry and purses that were missing. Maintenance staff arrived and secured the door, and an officer took crime scene photos. No latent fingerprints were found at the scene.
Triumph Circle (memo)
A man on the 9300 block of Triumph Circle said he was working on a car outside his apartment with a friend between 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. April 11 when he spotted a water bottle with a white substance in it.
He said the friend picked up the bottle, opened it and smelled the substance, but he immediately recapped the bottle because of the strong ammonia-like smell. The complainant said he could smell it from a few feet away too.
He said they called 911 immediately to notify officers of what they found.
The complainant also said he had heard someone back there walking around, but the person was gone when he looked.
A narcotics officer arrived, conducted an investigation and contacted Tennessee Meth Task Force to remove the bottle. He identified the bottle’s contents as methamphetamine.
April 12
Salem Road (aggravated assault)
A woman on the 6800 block of Salem Road reported April 12 that her son broke into her shed, stole several items and assaulted her and a male friend.
She was coming up her driveway with a male friend in her truck’s passenger seat when she saw her son and another male driving away from the rear (north) side of her home, headed west in a 2005 Chevy Malibu. She parked on the west side of her home, and her son stopped the Malibu, walked up to the driver’s side of the truck and demanded money from his mother.
When she refused, the son approached the passenger side of the truck with a screwdriver in his hand, yelling at the passenger.
The mother’s friend opened the door in an attempt to exit the truck, but the son threatened the man with the screwdriver and then struck him on the left side of his face while he was still seated.
The son’s friend got out of the Malibu and the mother got out of the truck, both trying to stop the son’s attack.
Then the son turned and hit his mother on the right side of her face and punched her in the chest, making her fall. The truck passenger dropped his flip phone, and the passenger in the Malibu picked it up to hand to the mother.
She told them she was calling 911, so both suspects fled, with the son’s friend taking the flip phone with him.
Responding officers saw that the male truck passenger had a swelling the size of an orange on the left side of his face.
The mother had redness on the right side of her face, a red mark to her upper right chest, and an abrasion low on the outside of her left leg.
The mother’s friend was taken to Saint Francis-Bartlett for treatment.
Officers checked the property and found that a shed on the north side of the home had its door kicked in.
Items stolen included a red metal tool box filled with hand tools ($100), a Home-Lite chainsaw ($100) and a green chainsaw with a 24-inch blade ($100).
Officers put out a broadcast, and Memphis Police Department officers stopped and detained the suspects on the 3800 block of Hawkins Mill.
On the front passenger seat, they found a flip phone matching the description of the one taken from the attack scene. Officers also saw a red-and-black-handled screwdriver on the driver’s side front floorboard.
The SCSO officers from the crime scene arrived, and the two suspects refused to give a recorded statement.
Officers seized the Malibu and transported it to the impound lot at 11670 Memphis-Arlington Road.
A detective said he would obtain a search warrant for the Malibu to look for the items missing from the shed. The flip phone and screwdriver were tagged at the Shelby County Jail.
The suspects matched the description given by the assaulted mother. The son was described as a black male with a light complexion, about 5 foot 8 inches tall and weighing about 300 pounds, wearing a blue cap, red shirt and jeans.
She knew her son’s friend by a nickname and described him as a black male with a dark complexion, about 6 foot 2 inches and weighing about 200 pounds, wearing a white baseball cap, blue shirt, and jeans. One of the arresting officers noted that the son was also wearing pink and black driving gloves. Officers transported the suspects to the Shelby County Jail.
Yukon Drive (felony vandalism)
A man reported seeing someone drive away from where his car was parked on the 3100 block of Yukon Drive just before he noticed damage to the vehicle. It was around 1:30 a.m. April 12 when he saw the unknown vehicle pull away from in front of that address. He said there were multiple scratches along the driver door and above the driver’s side rear tire of his Dodge Challenger.
The responding officer observed that the vehicle appeared to have been keyed (vandalized by someone using a key). The victim had no additional suspect information.
April 14
Canada Road (misdemeanor vandalism)
The property manager at the Lakeland Mall reported the morning of April 14 that he found vandalism around 3 p.m. the previous day. He said someone had spray-painted the “A” door with “FHS” in red letters. The door is on the northeast corner of the mall.
He advised that Imperial Security, which has a contract to secure the property, told him they saw the lettering a couple of days earlier but did not notify him.
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