Drinking follies lead to arrests
Workers at Taco Bell called Kalispell police when they suspected that a drive-through customer was too intoxicated to be driving at all. When the 30-year-old driver left the restaurant, he reportedly looked at first as though he wanted to make a run for it (even though the border is quite a ways away). Instead, he pulled over near Wal-Mart and was arrested for driving while intoxicated, driving with a suspended license and without insurance, reckless driving and resisting arrest.
A 23-year-old man ran a red light at Main and Center streets, then rear-ended a truck at the intersection of Main and Idaho. Police pulled him over and charged him with DUI.
An 18-year-old man was charged with alcohol possession at, of all places, the flagpole at Flathead High School. After responding to a report of a loud party on Appleway Drive, officers arrested 13 juveniles on alcohol-related charges.
A man who lost his wallet at a gas station on First Avenue East told police that a couple found his wallet - and gave it to another man who said it was his. Security videotape at the gas station is being reviewed.
In the 100 block of Sixth Avenue West North, a man was arrested after reportedly spitting on a woman's husband. Children were said to be throwing soap at a neighbor's house in the 700 block of East California Street.
A truck carrying two or three juveniles pulled up alongside a man driving south on Main Street. The youngsters yelled at the other driver, calling him an old man who needed to go home. The truck's driver reportedly was wearing a Santa hat, which was superfluously described in police reports as being "red and white in color."
Holiday decorations were reported stolen in the 100 block of Sherry Lane and vandalized on Hilltop Avenue and Garland Street.
An eight-foot-tall inflatable Grinch dressed in a Santa suit was reportedly stolen from the roof of a house in the 600 block of Second Street West. This report didn't waste time specifying the color of the Santa suit, but it did note that the Grinch in question "is last year's model and does not have a dog."
Officers from the Flathead County Sheriff's Office joined Bigfork Ambulance and a representative of the Quick Response Unit at the Village Well when a man injured his head by knocking it against a table. There was some speculation that he'd been pushed into the table, but the man said he'd merely fallen. He did not need hospitalization. Officers also checked on another man who'd passed out, but he regained consciousness, continued socializing and promised to walk home.
Deputies took a man into custody following a reported assault on Fourth Street West in Hungry Horse.
A man said his car was vandalized on Big Mountain. Someone reportedly loosened the lug nuts on the driver's side tires, and the front wheel came off.
A driver rolled his car near the end of Coram Stage Road, but the vehicle wasn't found until some time later. No one was found in the car or in the surrounding area.
Columbia Falls police, in separate incidents, arrested a 29-year-old woman and a 33-year-old woman for DUI.
Whitefish police charged a 13-year-old boy with shoplifting at Stumptown Snowboards.
Alarms
Bigfork ambulance went to Aero Lane when a 12-year-old girl fell off a horse. EMTs did not take her to the hospital.
The Somers Fire Department went to an illegal burn on Deer Creek and joined Flathead Electric Cooperative workers at Lakeside Chapel when a utility pole caught fire. FEC and the South Kalispell Fire Department joined forces when the top of a power pole broke and the power line began to spark near the intersection of Conrad Drive and Collier Lane.
The Kalispell Fire Department had seven calls, including a possible fractured leg in a lumber mill in the 4800 block of U.S. 93 South.
A hit-and-run accident in the 6300 block of U.S. 2 West left a car in the ditch. Columbia Falls ambulance and the Montana Highway Patrol responded, and two people were taken to North Valley Hospital with minor injuries.