Law roundup: Looking for love, local single only finds fraud

’Tis better to have loved and lost than to have attempted to find love and been scammed, which is what a local single person learned after doing business with a dating website. They contacted the Kalispell Police Department accusing the online matchmaking service of fraud.

Feeling taken advantage of, a jailbird phoned the police from pre-release in Bozeman to report the use of his credit or debit card while he was behind bars. He recalled signing over his belongings to his ex-girlfriend while in jail. She was supposed to hold onto the items, not use them, he said. Authorities agreed to investigate. 

A woman accused her ex, who she had a restraining order against, of tormenting her by unblocking the previously blocked phone numbers of people she wanted to avoid. She told officers that his name is still on her phone account and thus could change the status of contacts. Her suspicions had led her to decide to get a phone account of her own. 

A resident suspected that the neighbors living in a nearby “drug house” were trying to break into her vehicle at night and called the police looking for help. Though the parking area was illuminated and outfitted with surveillance cameras, the preventative measures did little to deter her sticky-fingered neighbors, she said. She also asked that officers dig up information on a vehicle in the area without license plates. 

Authorities let a pair of alleged shoplifters know they were banned from the premises of a store. Employees corralled the duo after reportedly catching them in the act.

Officers checked in on an allegedly disorderly woman after she was escorted from a local business. The caller who reported her told officers she was so drunk, she could barely understand the security personnel as they escorted her out. When officers found the woman, they deemed her fine, but let her know she was no longer welcome at the business.

Authorities were tasked with tracking down a vehicle where a caller had spotted three individuals smoking “rock and crank” from a glass pipe. Unable to find anything matching the caller’s description, they concluded that the report was unfounded.

A quintet apparently unable to find better lodging bedded down behind a nativity scene for the night, rousing the ire of a passing motorist. Her husband phoned the police, who reported that the group took off before they could make contact. 

Deciding that a masked man in the parking lot was a bit too much, a caller phoned the police. They said the man may have been trying to get into a car. 

Officers descended upon a supposed man in a knitted hat allegedly trying to break into a car after a phone call from an eagle-eyed onlooker. The man turned out to be a woman, who also turned out to be the owner of the car and just trying to get into it.