Police Blotter
The following accounts were taken from reports filed with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office:
School construction site burglarized, vandalized
A construction superintendent told police Thursday that a construction site office at the future Evans Middle School was burglarized and vandalized.
The R.W. Allen and Associates Inc. official said he arrived at the construction site of the school and future Columbia County Board of Education building at 4781 Hereford Farm Road just after 7 a.m. Thursday and found that the site trailer had been burglarized.
He said someone broke into the trailer by throwing two cinder blocks through a rear window. He said the other windows were broken, the trailer was ransacked and several items, such as a refrigerator, printer, microwave and other office equipment, were damaged.
A $1,500 laptop computer and a $45 pocket calculator were missing.
False report of a fire
A Richmond County sheriff's sergeant told Columbia County police Jan. 4 that a former informant had called in a false report of a fire at his home in an effort to antagonize him.
The sergeant said a fire was reported at his Martinez home at about 11 p.m. Jan. 4 and Martinez-Columbia Fire Rescue responded to the scene. When firefighters arrived and found no fire, the sergeant asked who called it in.
A fire department dispatcher relayed the name and phone number of the caller, whom the sergeant said he recognized as being one of his former police informants. He said the woman possibly made the false report to aggravate him.
Police were unable to contact the caller at the time of the report.
Woman deceived into sending money
A Washington, D.C., woman told police Friday that her mother-in-law, who lives in Evans, was deceived into sending money to collect false sweepstakes winnings.
The woman said her mother-in-law responded to a letter that stated she won a large sum of money in a sweepstakes. She said the 84-year-old woman sent at least $21,088.36 to various locations between Sept. 19 and Dec. 6 at the request of people she'd spoken with on the phone in the belief that she would receive the money.
The money, the mother-in-law was told, was the winnings of a sweepstakes held in another country. The money sent in advance was supposedly to transfer the winnings from that country.
Gas siphoned from pickup
The manager of a Martinez vehicle sales lot said Friday that someone stole gasoline from the tank of a company work truck.
The manager of the Car and Truck Place at 408 S. Belair Road told police someone siphoned 25 gallons of gasoline from a Ford F-350 pickup between Dec. 17 and Thursday.
Martinez-Columbia Fire Rescue Activity Report for the week of Jan. 1-7:
Structure fires, 10; grass fires, four; dumpster fires, two; controlled burns, two; fire alarms, nine; medical calls, 10; rescue calls, 13.