Law Roundup: Neighbors give visiting Californian a not-so-warm welcome

A California man in a short term rental in the West Glacier area apparently made the mistake of revealing his home state to his neighbors. They had begun harassing him, both for being from the Golden State and because they didn’t like the idea of having a short term rental unit next door, he told the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office. Now they were accusing him of having too many people at the rental.

A Hungry Horse area man demanded that the Sheriff’s Office take action on a pack of nearly 30 dogs terrorizing the neighborhood. He said he had just escaped being attacked and the pack was keeping his nieces from riding their bicycles. The dogs, he said, needed to be “put down or he [would] put them down.”

After staying too long in a park, a woman found a gate blocking her path as she tried to leave. She asked dispatchers for help, but quickly called back to let them know she had solved the problem. The gate was unlocked all along.

A broken sprinkler system had turned the relationship between a tenant and their landlord tense. The tenant told dispatchers that the landlord was headed to the rental property and was worried that the interaction could turn “ugly.”

Two girls in the Kalispell area were plaguing a neighbor, ringing his doorbell at odd hours of the night and running off. The night prior, the girls had escalated from ding-dong-ditch and tried to toss a rock through his window. A camera captured all of it on video, he said.

A woman kicked out of a Bigfork bar wasn’t taking no for an answer. Bouncers had tried to keep the situation under control for 45 minutes, but she was still trying to get back inside. Dispatchers reported hearing a woman yelling in the background as well as profanities.

Deputies were asked to come to the scene of a fight in Kalispell. The caller told dispatchers that two men were fighting in the establishment and 15 to 20 other people were trying to break it up.

Someone spotted a potentially drunk motorist driving a Jeep around Columbia Falls. The caller’s friend said they saw the driver drinking while behind the wheel and a beer can was tossed out the window. The vehicle had since come to a stop in a parking lot and four or five people were inside, talking about how they “drive better when they are drunk.”

Someone activated another man’s new credit card. The real owner of the credit card told deputies that he also had documented activity on the account and brought that evidence to share with investigators.

Noisy neighbors in Bigfork prompted a man to contact deputies. He wanted them to turn their music down. When dispatchers informed him that the county lacked a noise ordinance, he decided to speak with his neighbors directly.

A similar situation popped up in Lakeside. The homeowner there wasn’t sure of an exact address for the party, but said there was only one other house on the road and it featured loud music and food booths.

Someone left a pickup in front of a Bigfork business, blocking the sign and half of the driveway.

Four motorcyclists heading south on U.S. 93 near Lakeside allegedly were passing other vehicles unsafely and taunting motorists, a caller told dispatchers. The quartet had nearly caused several accidents, they said.

A caller reported hearing four shots in the Lakeside area. The first sounded like a transformer blowing, they said.

A motorist spotted an SUV pulled over on the side of the road. The motorist wasn’t sure if the vehicle was suffering mechanical problems, but worried about the man next to it, who was dancing around. He seemed unwell, the motorist said.