Noticing a sheriff’s deputy tailing them at about 1 a.m. on July 6, three young stooges in a black VW sought to allay official suspicions by veering suddenly into the Bergen Park parking lot and laying chilly. It was the first of many tactical blunders.

When asked about their itinerary, the trio seemed uncertain, variously claiming to be returning from the movies, going to the movies, or leaving a fictitious Lewis Ridge Road address on non-specific business. “It’s complicated,” explained one, unhelpfully.

Detecting a piquant aroma wafting from the car’s open window, the deputy asked after its source and was rewarded with a cigarette box containing marijuana which, they unanimously assured him, was all the contraband they had available. Not satisfied, the officer asked again, prompting Larry, Curly and Moe to discover a small trove of paraphernalia and a painted jar containing a quantity of wacky-weed they’d possibly forgotten about until that moment. The quick-thinking three were issued summonses and left, probably to find a jumbo bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos and contemplate the importance of honesty.

Just as the clock midnight, an HCSO deputy observed a maroon Subaru zoomed past Independence Trail and into downtown Idledale. When the officer fell in behind to clock the speeding vehicle, the motorist put pedal to medal and blew through a red light onto County Road 73. Now fully engaged, the officer stayed in the Subaru’s wake and activated his emergency lights, at which point his bold quarry turned off the headlights, cruising blind into a handy parking lot and slipped darkly into an anonymous parking space. The deputy wasn’t fooled. “Sorry,” said the disheveled young woman behind the wheel. She was apologizing for running a red light and trying to elude her pursuer, not for driving without license, registration or insurance information, or for the several liquor bottles rolling around in her back seat, or even for her 90-proof breath. Refusing to concede defeat, she proposed that the deputy let her go free on the strength of her pledge not to drive “anymore.” The officer countered by offering to let her perform roadside sobriety maneuvers, which she refused. She complained of the cold, at which the officer placed her in his vehicle to warm up and suggested that, while she was there, she might just as well take a breathalyzer test, which she refused. He then asked her to step out of the patrol car so he could arrest her properly, and she refused so successfully that it took two deputies to put her in custody. Once under formal arrest, she (naturally) refused to get back in the patrol car for the trip down to Golden. Confined but not conquered, she spent most of the 45-minute trip hurling insults at her long-suffering captor.

An alert citizen drew the attention of sheriff’s deputies to a bizarre cache left in Cub Creek Park.
In a group of three large pine trees about 100 feet from the parking area on County Road 73, at the base of the center tree, deputies found piled a blue-jean skirt, a pair of black, knee-high, patent-leather boots, a gold-colored woman’s tank-top and a pair of purple panties. A black plastic trash bag at the site contained a brown women’s blouse, a “large” black bra, brown plastic sunglasses, a brown wig, a purple lipstick and a container of cosmetic powder. Then things turned weird…er.
Included in the curious collection were two plastic grocery bags, together yielding three objects fashioned of an unknown substance fitting the general description of corn-biscuit dough. Based on their specific shape and physical dimensions, deputies speculated that two of the mysterious items were intended to be worn inside the “large” black bra, while characteristics of the third suggested a connection to the purple undergarment.
After searching the area and finding nothing else untoward, deputies booked the non-organic artifacts into the JCSO evidence locker and placed the corn-biscuit sculptures in frozen storage to prevent spoilage.

It was shortly after 10 p.m. when a sheriff’s deputy stopped a gold-colored Ford Ranger on south-bound Idledale Parkway after observing a willowy, white-clad arm toss a lit cigarette from the front passenger-side window. The young man driving the car was on probation for possession of a controlled substance, but insisted he had nothing to hide and invited the officers to search the vehicle. That must have chagrined the willowy, white-clad young woman occupying front passenger-side seat, who hotly denied jettisoning the smoldering smoke, claiming that she diligently keeps her “butts” in the car. Unfortunately for her, she was also keeping a bogus drivers license in the car, along with a small glass jar containing a green, herbaceous substance. Under mild interrogation, deputies learned that she was also packing a colorful marijuana pipe in her panties, which she surrendered with her modesty reasonably intact. Sensing that the interview wasn’t going well, the girl slyly broke the filter off an un-smoked cigarette and presented the snowy-white article as evidence of her essential honesty. “See,” she reproved the deputies, “I always keep the butts of the cigarettes.” Not buying it, the deputies appropriated her illicit collection and treated her to a free ride to a smoke-free county facility.