Colby-Abbotsford Police Log
n March 28 - An Abbotsford woman called to report suspicious activity at her apartment. The complainant said she had been out of town for medical treatments since Jan. 7, and her daughter had been looking after her place. She said her daughter had noticed some things moved around one time when she stopped by. Then, over the weekend, of March 25, her daughter came to the apartment and saw that all of the lights were on inside even though she had previously turned them off. She said the television was on as well.
The complainant said she came home early to see if anything had been stolen and noticed that furniture had been moved and the drawers and couch cushions had been gone through. She suspected a female subject of entering her apartment using a set of spare keys the woman had obtained. The complainant said she had already contacted her landlord about getting footage from a camera outside her apartment. She also said noticed a smell of ammonia in the apartment, as if someone had been using methamphetamine.
n March 28 - An officer was dispatched to an Abbotsford residence in reference to a vehicle that had struck a garage. When the officer arrived, he noticed the vehicle was still running while stopped against the garage wall. A woman was in in the driver’s seat, and a younger male was in the passenger’s seat. The homeowners were standing outside their open garage door waiting for the police to arrived.
The officer had the female driver turn off the vehicle and asked her to explain what happened. The woman said she was teaching her 15-year-old son the basics of how to drive and wanted him to practice going in reverse. She said he accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brakes, and the vehicle left their driveway and collided with the neighbor’s garage. She said she kicked her son out of the driver’s seat so she could get the vehicle under control. The homeowners said they were inside when they heard a loud bang that shook the house. They came outside just as the woman and her son were switching seats. No one was injured, and the damage to rear of the vehicle appeared to be minor. The garage had a few broken pieces of siding, and the portion of the wall that had been struck seemed to be slightly moved from the cement it was secured to. A lawn ornament in a flower bed was pinned between the vehicle and the garage.
Pictures were taken of the vehicle and garage. The tracks in the lawn appeared to match the complainant’s description of the accident. He told the homeowners to contact their insurance agent about getting the garage fixed. The officer advised the mother to go some place more open and less populated to practice driving with her son. She said it would not happen again.
n March 28 - An officer took a walk-in complaint from an Abbotsford man about a property he owned. He said he had some game cameras set up on on the property, and he had captured pictures of a neighbor’s dog on his land. The officer went and spoke to the dog owner, who denied that his dog had ever been on the complainant’s property. The officer told him about the pictures and the dog-prints on the property and advised him to keep an eye on his dogs. The dog owner said he would. The officer also spoke to another neighbor about keeping their dogs on their own property.
n March 29 - An officer was dispatched to an Abbotsford residence in reference to an accidental 911 call. The officer met with a man who said he just got a new phone and inadvertently used the emergency call feature. He showed the officer his phone, which had the shut down and emergency call commands on the same screen. Everything at the residence appeared to be in order, so the officer left.
n March 30 - An officer was dispatched to an Abbotsford residence in reference to a harassment complaint. The officer met with a man who said he has been receiving a lot of text messages from his estranged wife, who he is in the process of divorcing. He said he has been starting to hang out with another female party, and his wife doesn’t like this, so she has started text messaging this other woman as well. The complainant offered to email the messages to the police.
The messages from the wife included warnings to the other woman to stop seeing her husband, and accusations that what she was doing was illegal. The wife said she is still in love with her husband and the woman is causing her emotional distress.
The officer contacted the other woman, who said the wife had told her that a court had ordered her to cease any contact with the husband. The officer advised her not to respond to the wife’s messages and to block the phone numbers she uses.
The officer went and talked to the wife. She admitted to talking to the other woman and telling her not to have any contact with her husband. She acknowledged bringing up her lawyer and telling the woman it was illegal for her to have contact with her husband.
She was mentioned her husband mistreating their children, but she would not provide any details. The officer told her to cease contact with her husband unless it involved their children and also told her to stop contacting the other woman. The officer also called an unidentified number that had been used in some of the communications. No one answered, so he left a message. He also looked up a law firm that the wife had mentioned, but it did not exist.
n April 2 - An officer responded to a report of an erratic driver headed north from Unity. Dispatch said the vehicle was reportedly all over the road and had been going northbound in the southbound lane of STH 13. Once the vehicle entered Colby, it nearly struck another vehicle. When the officer in the area, he saw a vehicle with its front passenger tires over the curb, and what looked liked a damaged or flat tire. The officer stopped near the vehicle, approached it and found a lone male subject inside, slouched over the wheel as if asleep. The officer knocked on the window, waking the man up, and motioned for him to roll down the window. The driver got his bearings, shut off the vehicle and started to tinker with the headlight switch. The officer knocked on the window again and motioned again for him to roll down the window. The driver put his hands by the door, and after a few seconds, was able to roll the window down.
The officer asked the driver if he was injured; the driver said he was OK. The driver did not have any identification on him, so he wrote down his name, but it was completely illegible. The driver tried to start the ignition again, but was unable to do so. The officer noticed that his speech was slurred and his eyes were bloodshot. He denied having anything to drink, but did not remember what happened before his vehicle came to stop in the roadway.
The officer again asked the driver if he had some form of identification. The driver started looking around in his center console. The driver motioned to his pocket, which had a wallet in it. The wallet contained a Mexican ID card, which had his name but no date of birth. The officer tried several times to get the driver’s birth date, but he was unable to get anything more than a year.
The officer called for the vehicle to be towed and had the driver do field sobriety tests. The driver had trouble maintaining his balance during the tests, and he also registered a .149 blood-alcohol level on a preliminary breath test. The driver was arrested and taken back to the police station, where he registered a .14 BAC on the breathalyzer. He was cited for drunk driving, driving without insurance, unsafe lane deviation, and failure to maintain control of a vehicle.
n April 2 - An officer responded to a report of a traffic complaint in Colby. The complainant had been following a vehicle that nearly struck another motorist near the intersection of Wausau Street and STH 13. The vehicle pulled into the parking lot of a local business and was improperly parked in the lot. The officer approached the vehicle, and the driver rolled down the window. The officer immediately smelled a strong odor of intoxicants coming from inside the vehicle. The officer asked the driver to remove the keys from the vehicle. The driver gave the keys to the officer, and he placed them on the roof of the vehicle. Looking into the vehicle, the officer could see an open case of beer on the front passenger’s floor. Behind the driver were several empty and crushed beer cans. The driver stated that he was coming from Unity, but when asked where in Unity he was coming from, he claimed he didn’t know. The officer noticed that he had slow, slurred speech and his eyes were glassy and bloodshot.
When asked how much he had to drink, the driver said between three and five beers. The officer also asked him why he had pulled over into the parking lot. He said he did it so he could relax and because he did not want to be on public roads. He said he was not good at driving.
The driver exited the vehicle for field sobriety tests. The driver had trouble following instructions and maintaining his balance during the texts. He also registered a .193 blood-alcohol level on a preliminary breath test. He was arrested and taken to the police station, where he registered a .22 BAC on the breathalyzer. He was cited for drunk driving and released to a sober party.
