Runaway horses go trotting down the highway in Westport
Every day, police officers respond to reports of all sorts of events and nonevents, most of which never make the news. Here is a sampling of lesserknown — but no less noteworthy — incidents from police log books (a.k.a. blotters) in our communities.
MORNING MEANDER
Sometime before 8 a.m. on May 1, two horses managed to escape from a privately owned stable and embarked on an unsupervised adventure on Route 88 in Westport. According to a Facebook post by State Police, when troopers arrived to corral the two runaways, the owner was already at the scene and had wrangled one of them. “Trooper Alex Boswell, who apparently watches a lot of western movies, was able to get a rope onto the second horse,” police wrote,
“and he and the owner walked the horses back home, their morning adventure now complete.”
AN UNLIKELY SCENARIO
At 7:32 p.m. May 5, someone walked into the Bridgewater police station with a rather wild tale. He told police that he was delivering food to an address on Whitman Street when a strange man ran out of the woods, hit his vehicle with a baseball bat, and then fled. Upon further investigation, police determined that their visitor lied and had actually hit a mailbox with his rental car in the neighboring town of East Bridgewater. He was subsequently summoned to court on a charge of filing a false police report.
PARTY BUS GOES UP IN FLAMES
At 4:09 a.m. April 18, Brockton firefighters were alerted to a vehicle on fire on Dawes Road. But this wasn’t a typical vehicle — it was an empty party bus that was completely engulfed in flames. More recently, on the morning of May 5, the Brockton Fire Department responded to multiple fires that had been intentionally set in a vacant house on Clifford Avenue. Three people fled from the scene when firefighters arrived. Anyone with information about either incident is urged to call the Brockton Fire Department at 508-5832933 or the Arson Watch hotline at 1-800-682-9229.
SWIPING BABY MONITORS
According to police in Watertown, a man has been seen stealing stuff from Target several times since late November, and he appears to have a penchant for shoplifting baby monitors. Police said the first time he was noticed in the store he was accompanied by a woman and left with two baby monitors valued at $460. He allegedly came back and took $1,500 worth of electronics on March 28, then returned two days later and shoplifted $1,150 worth of merchandise, including a breast pump and a baby monitor. He then came back the next day and helped himself to another baby monitor. He allegedly made a return trip to the store and left with a breast pump and a camera, valued at $730, and then came back again on April 1, when he allegedly stole three more baby monitors valued at $900. Watertown police said they’ve been working with police in Framingham to identify the suspect, because apparently he’s also been taking similar items from the Target store located there.
OTHER ODD THEFTS
On Feb. 25, a resident of Marcia Road in Wilmington reported that someone siphoned the gas out of both of his vehicles.
On April 21, Bridgewater police received a call from a resident of Meadow Lane who reported that a $900 baby stroller was stolen from the resident’s vehicle sometime during the night.
On April 28, a woman called Saugus police and said a “rolling cabinet” went missing from her driveway on Essex Street.
FUGITIVE ANTELOPE APPREHENDED
Mary, the African antelope who escaped from the Lupa Zoo in Ludlow on April 1, was finally taken into custody May 6. The wayward antelope had spent five weeks on the lam, and had been seen wandering around the towns of Ludlow, Wilbraham, Palmer, and Belchertown. She was hanging out with a group of deer when she was finally caught and returned to the zoo safely. On May 9, Wally Lupa, the director of facility development and animal care at the zoo, reported that Mary had settled in and made herself back at home. “Like she never left,” he said.