A sharp-eared citizen contacted JCSO dispatch at about 6 p.m. on Oct. 9 to report a suspicious incident she’d witnessed at Safeway. She told deputies that, while dropping off a passenger at the Evergreen Parkway grocery, she observed a girl of possibly 9 years standing on the sidewalk near the entrance. Suddenly, a 35-ish man wearing a “Little Bear” T-shirt emerged from the store, approached the girl in a suspicious manner and suspiciously said “you look nice.” He then suspiciously continued into the parking lot, got into his car suspiciously, and suspiciously drove away. The girl, perhaps stunned by the encounter, waited a few moments and then wandered back inside. The girl could not be located for interview. The witness provided officers with the suspicious man’s license plate number, but a check with dispatch turned up nothing suspicious.

Dispatched to investigate a reported disturbance between neighbors in the wee hours of Feb. 24, deputies reached the Mauff Court address just in time to nearly run over a well-oiled man driving an ATV. He was apparently driving because he could barely walk, and deputies returned him to the alleged crime scene with some difficulty. According to the man’s wife, she and hubby had been “partying a little bit” with a neighbor and discussing country music when that volatile subject predictably led to violent discord. Her husband shoved her, prompting the gallantly lubricated neighbor to intervene, thus widening the conflict. Seeing his wife call 911, the man shoved her again and hit the trail on his trusty 4-wheeler, perhaps hoping to T-bone a police cruiser. As in any decent country western song, the unforgiving county lawmen tossed the hard-drinkin’ range-rider in the calaboose.

One sunny afternoon a local developer summoned sheriff’s deputies to a Hilltop Road residential construction site to investigate what could be termed anti-sculpting. Sometime during the previous 24 hours, a determined anti-artist had transformed a handsome 9-square-foot stone mega-sign welcoming passers-by to “The Observatory on Independence Mountain” into four smaller signs that, individually, convey no clear message. Although the anti-sculptor didn’t sign his work, the doleful developer suspects he may have seen his handiwork before. Other anti-acts against the planned subdivision have included strewing roofing nails along the entrance drive and depositing the site’s building permit and blueprints into the most fragrant part of a portable toilet. Officers promised a month’s-worth of increased patrols and, with luck, the destructive Degas will soon be making big rocks into little ones for the county.

At about 10 a.m. on Jul. 11, deputies were called to a Booker Lane address where persons unknown may have been trying to send a message. According to a woman at the scene, her absent neighbor had prevailed upon her to watch his house and, that morning, she’d noticed a small forest of commercial signs and solar lights had suddenly sprung up like promotional mushrooms at the end of his driveway. Investigating, officers found 14 signs and 14 solar lights posted in the drive, plus a solar-powered address sign and a cardboard box that had been used to cover the man’s mailbox. The ornaments seemed to have been filched from yards across a wide area, and deputies were able to repatriate only a few of the signs and none of the solar lights to their rightful owners. The woman could shed no further light on the incident except to say that her neighbor “does not have a good reputation in the neighborhood.”