photo by: Richard Gwin

One of the men in a large Chevy truck yells at a photographer as the vehicle sits overturned and wedged on the sidewalk that runs along the east side of North Second Street just north of the intersection of North Second and Locust streets, Thursday, July 23, 2015.

I don’t know if it’s the heat, but the past two days have brought out some oddities in the crime world.

Yesterday, I spent my afternoon at the scene of the now locally infamous truck debacle.

https://twitter.com/CaitlinDoornbos/status/624323771084595200/photo/1

It was honestly one of the more chaotic crime scenes I’ve been on – and I’ve been to plenty of tragedies in my time at the Journal-World. You can read the story for the full details, but I had to share a little behind-the-scenes narrative of my experience.

So when I got to the scene sometime before 4 p.m., both men inside the truck, Roy Bullard and Wayne Hrabe, were swerving as they walked from the vehicle. They were also hollering at Journal-World photographer Richard Gwin for being at the scene, but police tried to explain that we had the right to be there.

photo by: Richard Gwin

One of the men in a large Chevy truck yells at a photographer as the vehicle sits overturned and wedged on the sidewalk that runs along the east side of North Second Street just north of the intersection of North Second and Locust streets, Thursday, July 23, 2015.

The men are apparently father and son, based on comments Hrabe made to police later that afternoon.

The truck was wedged up on a sidewalk railing across the street from Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence. The railing has a ramp-shaped cement barrier wall leading up to it, so that’s perhaps how the truck made it to its odd resting place.

I spoke with two young men, Jake Robertson and Jackson Mercer, who said Bullard asked to use their cellphones. Robertson said Bullard asked him to “call his wife to tell her he was going to jail” and that he’d “had a couple drinks.” Robertson and Mercer also said Bullard told them the accident happened when he “took the wheel” in response to a traffic issue.

Bullard ultimately was the one who police believe was driving, so they arrested him on suspicion of DUI. Meanwhile, Hrabe was wandering around the scene verbally abusing police officers, little girls, grown women, Robertson and Mercer, and me. He called all of us names that I hadn’t heard since middle school.

photo by: Richard Gwin

One of the men in a large Chevy truck rests on a fence as the vehicle sits overturned and wedged on the sidewalk that runs along the east side of North Second Street just north of the intersection of North Second and Locust streets, Thursday, July 23, 2015.

I’d like to commend the police for remaining calm with Hrabe as he repeatedly berated them. It’s that kind of police work that I don’t think is mentioned enough in national media.

Police would rein him in when he got too out of control, and after about an hour and a half, he lay down in the shade. I’m not sure if he was sleeping, but he didn’t seem disturbed as about 30 people showed up to watch the city and towing companies try to get the truck off of the sidewalk railing.

Once they got it down, a woman showed up to pick up Hrabe. He returned briefly to tell police that he was the one driving, but it may have been a false confession. The woman took him away again, and, as of now, I don’t believe he’s been arrested or cited for anything.

Bullard wasn’t alone in being cited on suspicion of drunken driving yesterday. The Douglas County Booking log shows that there have been six arrests on suspicion of DUI within the last 24 hours.

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Someone learned the “stranger danger” lesson well Wednesday evening when an older man reportedly began making sexual comments to people near 25th Street and Ridge Court. The individuals didn’t take kindly to the comments and called police on the man, who is described as being in his 80s.

Lawrence police spokesman Sgt. Trent McKinley said that officers were able to find the man and “determined he was suffering from a medical condition.” Officers contacted the man’s relatives, who helped care for him.
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Two bicyclists were allegedly spotted looking into vehicles in the parking lot of the Super 8 motel, 515 McDonald Drive, just before 10 p.m. Wednesday. Police were called, and one of the cyclists tried to bolt from the scene, McKinley said. (Mind you, this is the same Super 8 where its owner allegedly stabbed his wife recently.)

As he was pedaling away, the fleeing cyclist looked over his shoulder at the officers pursuing him. With his eyes diverted, he didn’t see the stopped police car in front of him, so he smashed into the side of the car and fell off his bike.

Officers “struggled with the suspect” as they tried to handcuff him. The man’s hat fell off amid the wrestling, “revealing a syringe hidden in his hat,” McKinley said. Preliminary testing of the liquid inside the syringe indicated the substance was likely methamphetamine, police said.

The man, identified through booking logs as Jeremy Allen Cline, was arrested on suspicion of criminal threat, obstruction, drug possession and two counts of failure to appear in court for an unrelated case. The other man was not arrested.
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It’s moving season, and typically that’s synonymous with “free stuff on curbs” in Lawrence. But one man said he had belongings taken from him that he didn’t intend to give away.

A Lawrence man moving out of his apartment near 26th and Iowa streets around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday put “several bags” of his property outside during the process, McKinley said. One of the bags was allegedly stolen during the “short time” that it was outside, so the moving man suspected a neighbor had something to do with it.

The moving man confronted two other men outside the apartment building about the missing bag, McKinley said, leading to a argument allegedly laced with a threat. The moving man turned and started walking away from the men after the threat, but either one or both of the men attacked him, punching him in the head.

When police arrived, one of the suspects told officers that the moving man “was aggressive and had ‘invaded (his) space,'” that’s why he punched him in the head several times, McKinley said. That suspect was given a notice to appear in court on suspicion of battery. The moving man had minor injuries, but declined medical care.

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A resident of a home in the 2500 block of Bremer Drive may have thought the boogieman had come for a visit when he or she saw a man inside the home’s attached garage around 3 a.m. Thursday.

The victim called dispatch, saying the man had walked west from the home as the victim followed him. Police found the man in the 2600 block of West Sixth Street with a large backpack in tow.

But there were no items in the backpack identified as being taken from the victim’s home. He did reportedly have an open container of alcohol in the backpack, so police cited the man for consuming alcohol in public and gave him a trespassing warning for the home.

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And now for our daily roundup of police calls. As always, I’ll remind you that this is a list of noteworthy calls I pulled from the Lawrence Police Department call log. Not all calls yielded police reports, and many may have gone unsubstantiated. The list is meant to give you an idea of what kinds of calls police are responding to within a given time period.

This list is a collection of calls that police responded to between Thursday and Friday mornings:

Violence

• Disturbance (verbal or physical arguments): 5

• Domestic disturbance: 7

• Battery: 2

Traffic

• Noninjury accident: 9

Medical

• Medical: 3

• Suicide threat: 1

Person crimes

• Harassment: 1

• Criminal threat: 1

Miscellaneous

• Suspicious activity: 3

• Vicious animal: 1

• Noise/Nuisance: 1

• Sound of gunshots fired: 1

Drugs

• Drug Activity: 3

Property crimes

• Burglary: 1

• Auto burglary: 1

• Theft: 3

• Trespassing: 4