Local law enforcement agencies have handled countless calls for service this year, ranging from the violent and heinous to the strange and downright bizarre.
Oftentimes, the most perplexing stories stemmed from a curious set of circumstances that regardless of outcome still boggle the mind.
Below is a set of the top 10 most bizarre crime-related stories from San Angelo in 2014. There are certainly many others, but these are the ones that were reported.
10. Mysterious Debris in the Concho River
On March 15, a parent and child were walking along the Concho River when they discovered a mysterious object wrapped in plastic floating on the surface. After notifying emergency personnel, San Angelo police officers and firemen gathered on the river shore and attempted to fish the package out.
What could have been the solid beginning of a crime novel turned out to be a dead and bloated beaver that smelled so horrid once pulled on shore that many of those in the area nearly fainted.
9. The Snack Stabber
Robert Gomez hadn’t actually hurt anyone on March 27 in the parking lot of Wing Stop, but when he picked up a box of Tom’s brand snacks and began stabbing them on the asphalt, he secured his own fate, temporarily behind bars.
Gomez, 37, pled guilty to one charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on July 24, admitting that he had waved the weapon and made threats to the snack box owner after stealing it out of his truck. He was sentenced to six years probation.
8. The Rock-Bouncing Burglar
When 23-year-old Santiago Garcia devised his scheme to rob a local 7-11 on March 11, he hadn’t worked out the details of his plan.
Approaching the store’s front window with a rock, Garcia attempted to break into the location by hurling the object at the glass, but when it just bounced off, he fled on foot. Garcia was later arrested and charged with criminal mischief and evading on foot.
7. Doobage in the Courthouse
A 19-year-old headed entering the Municipal Court to pay a ticket ended up leaving in handcuffs on Feb. 5, when a security officer smelled marijuana and noticed a joint behind the man’s ear.
Anthony Lee Jimenez attempted to flee the courthouse after being addressed regarding the joint, but quickly surrendered his contraband when told he’d be charged with evading arrest if he left the building.
6. The Pipe Bomb
A crushed Keystone Light can and a gauze wrapping lie next to a small pool of blood behind a house out in Carlsbad on July 19. Responding deputies from the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office had met the man who dispelled the blood in a truck at the residence with a belt tightened around his upper right thigh.
Deputies determined after talking to 23-year-old Kevin Dykstra that he had been playing with a pipe bomb in the backyard of the residence when it went off, blowing a hole in his leg. He was found by his 29-year-old friend, William Perkins.
5. SAPD “Seems Legit” Meme
On Aug. 4, SAPD motors officer Bryan Bylsma steered his motorbike into a car wash near HEB to conduct surveillance on a stolen vehicle in the grocery store parking lot.
As he entered, someone snapped a photo and created a meme that went viral. “SAPD Seems Legit,” the meme read. After circulating for several days, the PD sent out a press release explaining why officer Bylsma was cruising his motorcycle into a car wash. “It was legit,” the press release concluded.
4. The Bong and Illegal Search
A man sitting behind a bong became violent on March 19, when SAPD patrol officer Adrian Castro was led into the residence and attempted to conduct a search of his person.
At that point, 28-year-old Otis Ray Woodfin, Jr. became belligerent, stating that Castro had no right to search him and engaging the officer in a physical struggle. Ultimately, Woodfin was detained and jailed. It turned out he had accidentally called the cops on himself.
3. Two Horses Left a Bar
On April 5 around 10 p.m., two horses were fatally injured after leaving a Hughes St. bar in north San Angelo and being hit by a car.
Police determined during the investigation that the owner of the horses, Gregorio Ponce, had tied the animals up at that bar earlier in the evening, but they had somehow gotten loose.
2. The Wanted Subject
Most people know when they’re wanted, but when 24-year-old Priscilla Espinosa began commenting on her boyfriend’s wanted poster on the police department’s Facebook page, there was no doubt she knew there was a warrant out for her arrest.
Within seconds of the PD posting 24-year-old Ramiro Vera’s wanted poster on Sept. 28 they had posted one of Espinosa, but rather than turn herself in or question her own warrants, she claimed the police weren’t telling the whole story.
1. The Shadows
Officers Michael Peterson and Barry Ratcliffe were at Community Hospital on Oct. 8, when a hysterical man approached an empty police car and began asking it for help. When the officers asked if they could help him, Mike Belman explained that “the shadows” were after him and that he desperately needed help.
After an exchange with the officers, Belman first decided that the shadows were after officer Peterson as well, then changed his opinion and determined that Peterson was one of them.
Belman ran from the hospital and jumped through the window of a car in the adjacent bank’s drive-through, and after some assistance from two citizens, was put into handcuffs.
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