Police blotter
Pupils arrested in bomb threat case
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Three Greenbrier Middle School seventh-graders were arrested Monday after they wrote a bomb threat on a bathroom wall, police say.
A 13-year-old and two 12-year-old girls were charged with disrupting public school and making terroristic threats, Columbia County sheriff's Capt. Steve Morris said. The girls were taken to the Columbia County Detention Center for processing before being transferred to the Regional Youth Detention Center.
The threat was written on the wall of a girls bathroom and indicated a bomb would explode around 10:45 a.m., Morris said. The school was evacuated and sheriff's investigators connected the girls to the threat, Morris said.
Dr. Sandra Carraway, the deputy superintendent of the Columbia County school system, said pupils who make bomb threats are suspended pending a hearing, at which time the school board will push for expulsion. Expulsion entails suspension for the remainder of the semester and the following semester, Carraway said.
The following accounts were taken from reports filed with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office:
Caller made false claims
An Evans man called police Friday after getting a call from someone claiming to be a federal drug investigator.
The man said the call, which came between Thursday morning and Friday afternoon, was left on a voice mail message from a woman claiming to be an investigator for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Deputies listened to the voice mail, which sounded like a tape-recorded message, left by a woman stating the man was being federally indicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges. An unintelligible case number was included.
The message encouraged the man to turn himself in before noon on Wednesday and included a name and phone number of a "volunteer investigator" to call with questions, the report stated. The man said he called the number, but the man who answered knew nothing about the message.
Deputies confirmed the contact person was not an investigator, but a transportation employee of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said the man had no warrants.
Beer stolen from store
Police were called to a Martinez Circle K Sunday after a man took the beer that a clerk refused to sell him.
The clerk told police the man tried to buy a 22-ounce bottle of Budweiser, but she told him she was unable to sell it to him because of state law prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
The clerk told the man she would call police after he asked what she would do if he "just walked out of the store without paying for it." The man said he'd be gone by the time police arrived and left the store without paying for the beer.
The man, described as heavy-set, 5-feet-8-inches tall, wearing a white long-sleeve shirt and black pants, left the store in a red Land Rover headed toward Washington Road.
Greenbrier sign damaged
A Greenbrier High School assistant principal told police that someone shot an electronic sign at the school's entrance.
The assistant principal told police that between Nov. 30 and Dec. 3, someone shot a hole in the $580 green electronic sign at the entrance to the school.
Police found a shotgun shell and its wadding about 15 feet from the sign.
Radiators stolen
A Grovetown man told police last week that someone stole 24 radiators from his home workshop.
The man said he was looking for a radiator and realized that between Nov. 24 and Dec. 3, someone took 24 vehicle radiators, worth $4,800, and a $185 battery charger, from around the workshop in the backyard of his Huntington Drive home.
Martinez-Columbia Fire Rescue Activity Report for Dec. 2-9: Structure fires, four; wood/brush/grass fires, three; vehicle fires, two; controlled/unauthorized burns, five; other fires, three; activated fire alarms, eight; activated carbon monoxide alarm, one; gas line ruptures, three; medical incidents, 26; vehicle accidents, eight; investigate various incidents, one; and assist citizens, four.