A rattled roadster staggered into JCSO’s mountain substation to report a hair-raising “Dennis Weaver moment.” On her way into town from Mountain Park Road, she’d stopped at the Little Cub Creek intersection, carefully scanned both directions for oncoming traffic, seen none, and blithely turned down the creek toward Evergreen. In the blink of an eye her rearview mirror was filled with the snarling grill of an angry silver Chevy that rode her tailpipe closer than stink on a skunk all the way down the canyon to County Road 73. As both waited for highway traffic to clear, the impatient polecat leapt from his vehicle and tried her door. Finding it locked, he made like he’d break open her driver-side window with his fist and demanded she “open this door and get out of the car.” As luck would have it, she had her dad on the cell phone but told Ricky Roadrage she was talking with JCSO, which seemed to cool his jets, but only a little. He crowded her six tighter than new bicycle shorts until she peeled off at the mountain substation, then sped off toward Conifer. Officers sniffed around but were unable to pick up his scent.

The outraged ex-husband who tried to rat out his ex-wife would have done well to remember that old saw about glass houses before picking up the phone. After spending the previous night in jail on domestic violence charges, he explained, he returned to his Annapurna Drive home to discover his erstwhile Missus had committed theft most foul, making off with several paintings and other valuables during his brief incarceration in direct violation of their rather heated verbal property settlement agreement, which is what landed him in the pokey in the first place. While not unsympathetic to his situation, the deputies could do little in what was clearly a civil matter. On the other hand, the protection order his former frau obtained that very morning banning him from the property – a copy of which he’d received but apparently had yet to read – lay well within their sphere of action, and action they took, arresting him on the spot.

Coming abreast of a popular Main Street saloon at about 1 a.m., a deputy observed two men rolling around in the street in an undisciplined form of Greco-Roman wrestling. What could spark such unseasonable behavior? After hoisting a few with his “homies,” Beavis and some friends had been heading to another bar down the street when Butthead thoughtlessly remarked on how “gay” Beavis’s hat made him appear. A tepid melee of hard words and macho posing ensued, until Beavis noticed the JCSO cruiser approaching and perceived an opportunity to get in some quick licks on Butthead, knowing the officer would likely stop the fight before Butthead could recover his wits, such as they are. The plan worked to perfection, assuming the plan included Beavis getting cited for disturbing the peace.

A volunteer mom called JCSO to report that she’d been harassed by a teacher at her daughter’s elementary school. According to her complaint, she had opted to enter the school with her child via a room where class was in session, prompting the teacher to remark that her classroom “is not a hallway” and bid her not use it as such in future, comments the mother felt demeaned her before her daughter. Later, she said, when she tried to make nice with the teacher by reminding her that tax dollars paid her salary, the teacher grasped her roughly and said “Your tax dollars mean nothing” and called her an unflattering name. When questioned by deputies, the teacher admitted telling the woman not to use her classroom as a throughway, though the stories diverge somewhat from there. The teacher said the mother approached her in the hallway “stuck her finger in my face and said ‘I’m a taxpayer and I can use whatever door I want.’” She said the woman then poked her in the “boob,” threatened to tell the principal on her, called her an uncharitable name and promised to have her fired forthwith. No witnesses could be found to corroborate either version of the scrap and the charge was deemed unfounded.

How much easier to run down fugitives when the fugitives do all the legwork. Parked on the highway near Kings Valley Road, a lucky sheriff’s deputy made what ranks among the easiest collars in the history of crime. Though lacking identification, the young pedestrian who approached his car announced he stood on the wanted side of a $10,000 cash-only bond for drug possession. That morning he’d walked from Bailey to Pine Junction and hitched a ride north for the express and only purpose of making himself a prisoner of the first cop he saw. The first cop he saw took him into custody without incident.