Given the nature of both blotter entries this week, we thought it appropriate to state plainly that we do not condone a worldview that allows the mentally ill to be seen as entertainment. The police blotter is an informative look at the calls our officers handle on duty; some are grave, some are confusing, and some, yes, are amusing. In the case of the latter, much of the humor comes from the act being a crime; someone allegedly makes a choice that deviates from what we accept as a society, and because they choose we can allow ourselves to be entertained. That element of choice doesn’t exist—or is at least distorted—when a person is sick, whether the condition is temporary or life-long.
Anyway, as always, anyone who is charged with a crime in this blotter is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
SHAPESHIFTERS: Following up on a 10:33 a.m. call May 21, officers made a repeat visit to a household for problems related to the homeowner’s son’s mental health. They met with the son on the home’s front porch, where they asked him to sit down and explain the situation. He told police his parents were actually “shape shifters” who attacked him with magic. His parents informed the officers he was not taking his medication and had not eaten in days. Shortly before officers arrived, the man had placed his father in a chokehold with both arms wrapped around the patriarch’s neck. The fire department arrived to take the son to the hospital for a mental health evaluation; he was additionally charged with assault in the 4th degree.
EVALUATION: At 2:21 a.m. May 29, a man called the department to report his wife was mentally unstable and needed help. Arriving officers contacted the husband. He told them he had been awoken by his wife yelling about their infant daughter “not acting right.” The wife told her husband she did not want police officers to shoot their child. The officers assessed the child and determined she was unharmed, but looking tired. The husband told police his wife had been acting strangely for four days and hadn’t been sleeping. Medical aid called to the scene checked on the daughter, who was fine. All emergency services cleared out.
Later in the day, officers were called back when the wife had begun claiming—falsely—that she and her daughter had been in a rollover car accident. She had disposed of her child’s crib, as well as other baby items. Officers, aware of the woman’s apparently deteriorating mental state and fixation on harm befalling her child, called the fire department to the scene. The department transported her to the hospital for a mental health evaluation.
