The spittin' just made it worse
Two men in a car pulled over by Columbia Falls police didn't know when to leave well enough alone. They originally were pulled over at the corner of U.S. 2 and Nucleus Avenue, but the 22-year-old driver attempted to escape by driving away - and his truck struck the officer, who was not injured.
Police pulled the car over again at the corner of Nucleus and 13th Street, and this time the 33-year-old passenger tried to flee on foot. He failed. The driver was charged with driving while intoxicated and negligent endangerment. The passenger was charged with disorderly conduct and, after spitting on an officer at the police station, assault on an officer using bodily fluids.
The Flathead County Sheriff's Office received more than 40 reports of mailbox and paperbox damage on Echo Lake Road, Echo Creek Road, La Brant Road, Swan River Road, Sunny Dene Lane and several other streets. Some residents said the offenders were in an older pickup truck, possibly a Dodge, with running lights on top of the cab and a muffler that doesn't work very well.
A Haywire Gulch resident said her neighbor had stolen her fence posts and was using them for a pig pen. The complaint was canceled after an officer spoke to those involved.
An Evergreen woman reported that a man she didn't know entered her house while she was sleeping and, when she awoke, exposed himself and made unwanted sexual advances. She told the man, described as in his early 20s with a shaved head, to leave. She quickly dialed 911 on her cell phone, which apparently persuaded him to do so.
There was a dispute over a truck in the 500 block of Solberg Drive that led to a physical altercation between two women. One of them was charged with assault.
Someone reportedly pried open the back door of a building supply store on U.S. 2 and stole money from the office. Two four-wheelers and two motorcycles were reported stolen in Martin City. One of the four wheelers was located down the road shortly afterward.
A resident of the 1400 block of Kuhns Road was suspicious of a white bucket, a blow torch, a white jar containing an unknown substance and copper tubing that had been dumped by the mailbox. The items turned out to be plumbing supplies that had probably fallen out of a passing truck.
A woman at a gas station on Meridian Avenue asked an officer to help her document the fact that someone had poured sugar into her vehicle's gas tank.
There was a fair amount of pent-up aggression in the Kalispell police reports. Officers went to Fatt Boys Bar and Grille when a caller said some "kids" were trying to start a fight in the parking lot. Two men tried to pick a fight with a third outside the Los Caporales on U.S. 93 South, but only verbal jabs were thrown.
In the 300 block of Ninth Avenue West, a man said a red sedan with four people inside tried to run him over. Then the car stopped, and a male passenger punched the man in the face.
Officers also made a DUI arrest following a traffic stop on East Idaho.
Whitefish police arrested a 21-year-old man for assault and a 22-year-old woman for disorderly conduct downtown. They also took reports of a hit-and-run accident, a mountain lion on Dakota Avenue, and thefts from vehicles on Washington Avenue and Pine Place.
Alarms
The Kalispell Fire Department had four calls, including two false fire alarms, a non-injury motorcycle accident and a person taken to the emergency room after complaining of physical weakness.