Law roundup: Decorative lights bring out neighbor’s inner Scrooge

A resident's holiday spirit drew the ire of a neighbor, who complained to the Kalispell Police Department that the newly installed decorative lights were very bright and shining through their windows. They considered the light display "very inconsiderate." Officers swung by to see the light and determined that the luminosity fell short of constituting a crime. The neighbor who phoned in the light show took a dim view of that response.  

Someone spotted a ladder in the middle of the southbound ramp for the U.S. 93 Bypass.  

A passerby turned a wallet they found into the Police Department.  

Someone was allegedly dropping off gas cans in front of rooms at a motel. The person who called in the refueling effort asked officers to run extra patrols in the area, citing other ongoing criminal problems.  

A caller asked officers to intervene in an argument between a man and a woman in a car. Authorities unsuccessfully tried to locate the vehicle.  

Given his marching papers by his mother, a 47-year-old called the police asking for help on where to go now that his mom had kicked him out of the house. He followed up on the request a little later and was told to direct those kinds of questions to the non-emergency line. 

The driver of an older green sedan allegedly approached a passerby and asked where he could find drugs.  

Officers were asked to deal with a possibly dead homeless person in a public park. The caller said the individual was resting their head on a scooter and their face was covered with a white blanket. Despite the honking of passing vehicles, the person had not moved. Arriving officers determined the individual was OK.  

Someone reported a motorist for driving recklessly in a parking lot.  

A resident said they had received information about drug cartels working in a local school and wanted to speak with officers.  

Authorities removed scrap metal discarded in the left northbound lane of the U.S. 93 Bypass.  

A booth vendor at a downtown antique market held a man at Taser-point for allegedly trying to sell stolen goods. Arriving officers banned the man from the premises after the owner of the market declined to press charges.  

Officers tried to track down a man allegedly sleeping in his truck at the urging of a passerby, who requested a welfare check on the drowsy motorist.  

A customer trying to make a few returns phoned the police after the store manager told her to leave and threatened to contact law enforcement. She told officers she didn't understand what prompted the manager to kick her out. He had been staring at her, she told officers.  

Upset after finding his trailer ticketed by officers, a motorist phoned the Police Department looking for answers. They told him the trailer earned a ticket because it was unattached. The motorist said that he had left about an inch of space between the trailer and his vehicle, which he thought was good enough. He also argued that there were other unattached trailers in the neighborhood that escaped ticketing. He had to assume the police were targeting him. Though told that was not the case, he said he planned to come down in the morning to file a complaint with the captain.