March 24

Near overdose smacks sense into addict

A Santa Ynez man who believed he was overdosing on drugs called the Sheriff’s Department for help. The 28-year-old told the responding deputy that he injected methamphetamine at 2 a.m. and had been awake since. He called 9-11 when he began to experience difficulty breathing and high levels of anxiety. He pulled up his sleeves to show the deputy fresh injection marks on his arms. The deputy noted that the man had collapsed veins from apparent chronic drug injections. The man also admitted he took some anti-anxiety and anti-depression prescription medication to lessen the effects of the meth. He told the deputy that there were no drugs in the house he shared with a younger sister and his grandmother, and gave the deputy permission to remove drug paraphernalia from his room so he wouldn’t be tempted to use again. He was transported to Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital. The teenage sister showed the deputy to the man’s room, where at the center was a table littered with drug paraphernalia, prescription bottles, and five syringes, one of which appeared to have been used recently. The man later said he got the drugs from the Chumash reservation. The deputy requested that the District Attorney file charges against the man.


March 25

Stingy shopper gets busted

An 18-year-old Santa Maria woman felt foolish after she was caught stealing a bottle of sparkling cider from CVS in Buellton. A deputy arrived at the store after receiving a call about a stolen bottle of liquor. Upon arrival, he saw the woman walking toward the exit while talking to a store employee who was holding her grocery bag. He escorted the woman to the front of the store where she confessed, saying “It’s in my purse. I’ll pay for it.” The employee said she saw the woman on the surveillance video place a bottle in her purse and put another bottle in a shopping cart. The woman paid for one bottle and was stopped when she attempted to leave without paying for the other. The deputy asked her if she’d tell him what happened. The woman said, “No, except that I’m an idiot. I have money.” She was cited and released.


Son says sister scammed mother

A Solvang man called the Sheriff’s Department and said he believed his 82-year-old mother was bilked of a significant amount of money by his sister. He said his mother was in the hospital to recover from a fall. He said his wife was contacted by her bank earlier in the day and told that the sister had withdrawn more than $47,000 from the account the son and his wife share with the mother. The sister used her power of attorney rights to take out the funds in the form of a certified check. The man called his mother and explained to her that the sister was doing something suspicious with her money and asked if she wanted him to “stop it.” She agreed and gave his wife, who is his mother’s caregiver, power of attorney rights. The man said he called his sister several times but was unable to reach her. He told the deputy his sister was unemployed and financially unstable, and that he suspected she was stealing money from their mother. The man said he talked to his sister about finding an assisted living home for their mother. The deputy called the sister, who lives in Wisconsin, but was unable to reach her. The deputy advised the man to call an attorney to discuss his options and to continue trying to contact the sister to find out why she had withdrawn the money.


Laughing larcener

A Caltrans worker reported nearly $2,000 in equipment stolen from his truck in Buellton. A deputy responded to a condominium parking lot, where the worker had parked his utility truck at 4 p.m. on March 24. The man forgot to lock his truck’s doors and secure the storage compartments on the back. When he returned to the vehicle at 6:30 p.m., he noticed the driver’s-side door open and equipment missing, including a saw and drill, an electrical tool, several tool boxes and a meter. The larcenist spray painted the truck, a nearby van and the side of a nearby garage. “Thug Life” and “LGH” were tagged across the side of the truck. “Hahahaha” and an expletive remark about law enforcement were tagged on the nearby wall. Similar tagging was found on a nearby jeep. The deputy found no signs of forced entry to the Caltrans truck and no physical evidence on the vehicle. The case was suspended, pending leads.


No free rides

A man was given a personal tour of county jail after he skipped out on $65 in cab fare. The man, 58 from Ojai, had taken a taxi from a restaurant in Santa Barbara to the Chumash Casino. When the cab stopped, he bolted from the vehicle. Chumash security received a call from a former friend of the man who said the suspect was at his house. When the deputy arrived at his residence in Santa Ynez, the former friend said the man had stopped by his home the day before and was “rambling” and appeared to have a “nervous breakdown.” He added that he gave the man $20 and told him to never return. The deputy eventually found the man sitting near the driveway and escorted him off the property. The Santa Ynez man declined to press charges, but the taxi driver wasn’t as forgiving. The man was booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on charges of petty theft.


March 26

Got pot

At about 4 p.m. a deputy near the intersection of Highway 246 and Edison Street stopped a car with an expired registration tag and a faulty brake light. The driver stopped at the Chumash Casino and gave the deputy his paperwork. The deputy saw two passengers, both of Ventura, and smelled marijuana. He noticed a burnt cigarette on the center console. The man admitted it was marijuana and that he had no medical marijuana card. The deputy searched the car and found a plastic bag of less than an ounce of cannabis and a glass pipe in the female passenger’s purse. She said she found the marijuana and pipe in the truck, but said it was inadvertently put in his truck by an unknown person. Both were cited and released without incident.


Downside to online dating

A deputy was called to investigate a report of a Solvang woman receiving harassing phone calls from a man she met on an online dating website. The woman told the deputy that she was being bombarded with calls from a Lompoc man she had dated for two months. She said she broke off their relationship when he started to become possessive. As she explained the situation to the deputy, the ex-boyfriend called her four times. She told the deputy she had asked him to stop calling. When her phone rang the fourth time and the caller identification showed it was him, the deputy picked up and informed the man that he was asked to stop calling her, and that he was writing a police report. The man said the woman lied, but agreed to never contact her again. The officer checked the woman’s phone and saw that he had called her 17 times that day. The victim played some voice mails for the officer to record. In the first voicemail, he appeared to admit he wasn’t emotionally stable. In another, he warned her that he was headed to the Valley and, using mostly profane language, threatened to beat up one of her male friends.


March 27

Out-of-control driver

A deputy on routine patrol at 3:21 a.m. was alerted by dispatch to be on the lookout for an inebriated driver heading from Santa Barbara to Santa Ynez on Highway 154 who was driving “all over the roadway.” An off-duty sheriff’s deputy followed the man all the way to Mission Drive, and reported that the driver, who was on his way home in Solvang, nearly struck a guardrail, drove with his turn signal on for about three miles, and merged into oncoming traffic on Highway 246, forcing vehicles to pull off to avoid a collision. When the responding officer saw the man approaching his direction near Alamo Pintado Road, he pulled him over near a gas station. The deputy approached the vehicle and noticed the strong smell of alcohol coming from the car. When the deputy told the driver he could smell the booze, the man said he only had one beer the evening before. The man had bloodshot glassy eyes and poor motor skills. The deputy told him he looked like he had a bit more. The man retorted, “OK, I had two beers.” The man failed a roadside sobriety test and was arrested. He was taken to Santa Ynez Valley Cottage hospital to get his blood drawn.