Two argue over parking, gun pulled; officers injured in struggle with naked man; man with open beer high-fives officer, is arrested; suspect forgets to park car for sobriety test

I’ll be the first to admit my parking abilities are adequate, at best.

During the wintertime, they’re even worse when the snow covers up the parking stall lines and you have to sort of guess where to place your car. Then some other driver will leave you a passive-aggressive note chewing you out when the snow melts and it’s apparent you’ve parked cockeyed, straddling both parking spots.

Oh, that’s never happened to you? Just me? OK.

Anyway, the thing is, I’ve seen disputes over a parking spot before, but nothing like this. The following is a rundown of the accounts two men in their 70s gave officers after a kerfuffle in the parking lot, according to a narrative from Lawrence police spokesman Sgt. Trent McKinley:

Saturday, 10:15 p.m.

A 70-year-old man — let’s call him John — has gone to visit a friend for the evening at an apartment in the 2400 block of Melrose Lane. Another man in his 70s — we’ll call him Bob — lives nearby and returns home after being out.

Bob allegedly has trouble parking his vehicle because someone — who he’d later find out was John — has taken up portions of two parking spots.

After some finagling, Bob manages to park despite John’s less-than-stellar parking job. Bob gathers some items from his vehicle and takes them inside.

Perturbed, Bob returns to the parking lot and sees John entering the oddly parked vehicle. That’s when John says Bob confronted him, saying that John “could not park where he had been parked,” McKinley said.

John alleged that he then told Bob to leave him alone. That’s when Bob allegedly says, “I’ll show you” – and pulls a handgun out of a compartment on his walker.

But Bob said the exchange happened a little differently. Bob said that when he confronted John, the two argued for a bit before John allegedly “walked toward” him, McKinley said.

That’s why Bob brandished the .45-caliber pistol, Bob claimed, because it was in “self-defense,” McKinley said. Bob said that after he pulled out the gun, John ran away.

McKinley said there were differing accounts about whether the pistol was actually ever pointed at the victim or just shown to him. So officers confiscated the weapon as possible evidence and turned over their finding to the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office for charging review. The two were allowed, then, to go their separate ways.
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Sunday, 2:30 a.m.

A woman calls police to report that her friend, a Topeka man, had reportedly been “going crazy” in her car. The woman stops her car, and the friend/suspect jumps out, breaks off the passenger-side mirror and runs off, McKinley said.

Shortly after, a different person in the 900 block of Mississippi Street dials 911 and says that a man was running south from the intersection of Ninth and Mississippi streets and was “acting crazy.”

Officers are dispatched to the area and find the man. He’s allegedly stripping off his clothes at this point and “appeared to be under the influence of drugs,” McKinley said. Officers try to calm him down as he stands before them in his underwear, but instead, he begins to run away.

Police then chase after him, concerned that the man was a danger to himself, McKinley said. They eventually stop him, but he struggles with an officer in an apparent attempt to get away.

Two more officers join in the struggle to help the officer, and the suspect continues to be combative. As the man fights the three officers, he injures them — one in the hand, one in the knee. A third officer’s arm was hurt so badly that he had to get a cast and has been unable to return to duty as of Monday night.

All three officers were treated at Lawrence Memorial Hospital for their injuries and were released later that morning. McKinley wasn’t immediately sure whether the other two injured officers have been able to return to their regular duties. He’s checking on that for me.

The suspect was taken to LMH as well to be treated for a drug overdose. He was later booked into the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of obstruction and two counts of battery of a law enforcement officer.

I swear in those “Don’t Do Drugs” commercials, they ought to take examples from real-life situations like the kind I see in the crime realm.
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So, since the students have returned to Lawrence, the police department has been conducting a “Fall Safety Initiative,” in which additional officers are assigned to patrol the Oread neighborhood area. They’ve been doing this at the start of the school year for some time now, basically to help keep the college nightlife calm and keep patrons and the general public safe.

The campaign occasionally results in stories of antics like our last two blotter rundowns for the day:

Saturday, 1:57 a.m.

Officers patrolling the area near 14th and Ohio streets notice a woman driving a vehicle without her headlights on. They contact her and notice that the woman appeared intoxicated.

They ask her to step out of the vehicle, and she complies. They only thing is, she forgot to put the vehicle in park first.

The vehicle starts rolling backward, and I can only imagine the scene at that point. They’re ultimately able to stop the vehicle, and once they do, officers give the woman a field sobriety test. She’s eventually arrested on suspicion of DUI.
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Sunday, 1:11 a.m.

A man near 14th and Ohio streets is cheerily walking along in public with an open beer can in hand.

He’s apparently in a good mood, because he tries to high-five a man he didn’t know as he walked past. That mood quickly changes when the man he didn’t know shows a badge. Turns out, the stranger is actually a plain-clothed police officer patrolling the area as part of the Fall Safety Initiative.

The officer tries to stop the man for the alcohol violation, but the man tries to run away. The officer then chases after him and catches him about 30 feet away.

The officer handcuffs the man, who refuses to identify himself. He’s taken to the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of consuming alcohol in public and interference with the duties of a police officer.

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As you can tell from the above stories, Lawrence police had a busy weekend. The 911 activity log from this weekend was a whopping 21 pages long – compared with an average of 10-12 pages for a weekend list. So let’s jump right in to our regular roundup.

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 Friday afternoon and Monday morning:

Violence

• Disturbance (verbal or physical arguments): 16

• Disturbance with weapons: 2

• Domestic disturbance: 16

• Domestic disturbance with weapons:

• Domestic battery: 8

• Fight in progress: 4

• Battery: 6

Traffic

• Injury accident: 26

• Noninjury accident: 3

Medical

• Medical: 12

• Suicide threat: 3

• Alcohol poisoning: 2

Person crimes

• Sex crime report: 2

• Harassment: 1

• Prowler: 1

Miscellaneous

• Police pursuit: 3

• Suspicious activity: 21

• Suspicious activity with weapons: 1

• Sound of gunshots: 2

• Fireworks: 1

• Indecent exposure: 4

• Noise or Nuisance: 26

• Vicious animal: 2

Welfare

• Child welfare check: 4

• Adult welfare check: 18

• Animal welfare check: 1

Substance concerns

• Drug activity: 5

• Alcohol complaint: 26

• Bar check: 29

Property crimes

• Burglary: 8

• Burglary attempt: 1

• Auto burglary: 4

• Stolen vehicle: 1

• Theft: 18

• Criminal damage: 5

• Trespassing: 13

• Road rage: 2

• Forgery: 6

• Shoplifting: 1