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The Daily Wildcat

The Daily Wildcat

 

Police Beat 2/6/2019: Featuring a Surprising Amount of Balconies

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Courtesy UAPD

University of Arizona Police Department officers on the UA campus. 

Don’t Threat on Me

An attack on an Uber driver! A balcony monologue! Mysterious pants! It was an eventful night for one man before, during and after a party at the former Kappa Sigma fraternity house on Jan. 20.

According to the University of Arizona Police Department report on the incident, an Uber driver picked up four people at approximately 1:40 a.m. and began to drive them to a party.

The male passenger in the backseat took out an electronic cigarette, but the driver asked him not to smoke in his car. He put the pen away, but glared at the driver through the rearview mirror during the trip, the driver later told an officer.

When they arrived, the man exited the car, then yelled at the driver, telling him that if he had let him vape in the car the man would have given him a much higher review. The driver replied that he did not care.

According to the driver, the man then stood at the front passenger window and threatened the driver, who then responded that it would be a bad idea to follow through. The man reportedly lunged at the driver through the window, threatening to kill him.

The driver quickly exited the car to avoid being hit. Several other men who had been standing in front of the fraternity house rushed to physically restrain the man, who was still threatening to kill the driver. The others called the man by his first name while restraining him. They were eventually able to get him inside the house.

          RELATED: 1/30/2019: Caught in the Act

The driver reported the incident to UAPD, and an officer arrived at the scene. The driver recounted his story and said he feared for his safety and wanted to prosecute for the threats. 

The officer knocked on the fraternity house door, but it took several attempts before two men finally answered. They both denied knowing anything about the incident, though the driver said that the men had been a part of the group who had restrained the man. 

When the officer asked about the man, using his first name, the men replied that there were a lot of guys with that first name at the party. 

They then said they would go try to find the man the officer was talking about, but several minutes later, they had not returned.

A person then appeared on a balcony. The officer called up to them, who the officer noted looked intoxicated, and asked if he knew where the man was.

Within minutes, the person had descended the balcony and identified himself to the officer as the man he was looking for. He denied knowing anything about the threats and said he’d been at the fraternity house all night.

The driver positively identified him as the man who had threatened him, though he had evidently changed clothes after entering the house.

Based on that identification and description, the officer arrested the man on charges of Threats and Intimidation.

The officer conducted a search of the man and found a wallet containing a driver’s license that did not match the man. The officer asked about it, and the man insisted the pants were his but the wallet was not, and he could not explain how it got there. The wallet was returned to its owner.

The officer transported the man to Pima County Jail and sent a Student Code of Conduct referral to the Dean of Students Office.

Dog Days of Winter

It was a ruff night for one Beta Theta Pi fraternity member after a dog bit him outside the fraternity house on Jan. 20.

A UAPD officer arrived on scene at approximately 11:30 p.m. to assess the situation and the fraternity member’s condition. The member told the officer how the dog bite happened.

According to the fraternity member, he and his fraternity brothers had been on the house’s balcony when two men who appeared to them to be homeless called up to them asking for water.

A few of the members met the men on the sidewalk in front of the house and brought them cups of water. According to the fraternity member, the men began to complain they were not given full jugs of water. 

          RELATED: 1/23/2019: Half Court Shot

The two groups got into an argument. The fraternity member went to tell his brother not to get into a fight and began pulling some away from the altercation.

As he was doing this, a dog, belonging to one of the men, ran to the fraternity member and bit him on his right leg. The men then walked away.

The fraternity member showed the officer the bite marks. According to the report, the fraternity member’s right calf had four teeth marks in it. One of the marks had broken through the skin and caused minor bleeding.

Medics from the Tucson Fire Department arrived on scene and cleared the fraternity member, who said he would clean the wound himself.

He then described the men to the officer but said he was not certain he could identify them due to it being dark when they were there. He was also unsure the dog’s breed, but believed it may have been a German Shepherd.

The officer found three men walking in the nearby area, one of whom matched the suspect description; however, they did not have a dog with them. The two men were never located.

My Father Will Hear About This

Just like insurance and phone plans, college students will apparently use their parents’ lawyers for as long as possible. At least that was one student’s plan after he was caught allegedly making women uncomfortable in Highland Market on Jan. 21.

A UAPD officer arrived at the market at around 12:45 a.m. after he was brought to the attention of A-team security guards who reported him to the police.

The office noted that the student was “clearly intoxicated” as he spoke. In slurred speech and with a “blank stare” he told the officer that he had stopped by the market with some friends, when the security guards began to harass him for no reason.

The guards asked him to leave, but the student said he felt they could not make him leave, because he “knew his rights.” 

          RELATED: Police Beat 1/16/2019: Charges of the Night Brigade

A second officer who was also on scene told the first officer that he had conferred with two separate groups of women inside the market who reported that the student had approached them and asked if they wanted to join him in his dorm room to do drugs.

The women had informed the security guards that the student was making them uncomfortable, which is when they asked him to leave.

The first officer told the student to leave the market and go back to his dorm for the night. He also informed him that he would alert the Dean of Students Office about the incident.

The student responded by saying he would have his father’s lawyer handle the incident and that his interaction with the officer “didn’t need to go any further.”


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