An Elgin Police Department (EPD) officer arrested a 31-year-old Elgin woman for not having a driver’s license, DUI and child endangerment after receiving a call from someone saying they were following a possibly impaired driver on Brentwood Drive around 7:15 a.m. July 4.
According to an EPD report, when an officer turned onto Brentwood Drive from Bowen Street, they could see a red Chevrolet truck blocked in the roadway by two other vehicles. A man on the scene said he was coming down Bowen Street headed toward town, came up behind the truck and saw it run off the roadway seven or eight times. He added that when they turned onto Brentwood, the truck traveled about 4 feet into someone’s yard and then back onto the roadway. He said he saw another man driving a Ford Explorer, flagged him down and they worked block in the truck until the officer arrived.
Up approaching the red truck, the officer reported being able to smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage and described the woman as having breath that “stunk from the odor of an alcoholic beverage,” and had glassy, bloodshot eyes. In addition to quickly determining that she had been driving while impaired, the officer also spotted two children -- one 7 years old, the other only three months old -- in the truck’s back seat.
The officer had the woman call her brother to pick up the children.
The woman claimed at the scene that she had not had anything to drink, but she failed field sobriety tests. She later admitted to drinking whiskey and registered .16 blood alcohol content level at the Kershaw County Detention Center where officers charged her.
The EPD also reported the following recent incidents:
An Elgin officer responded to the 100 block of Abbey Road around noon July 1 in response to a large dog that reportedly had a young child pinned on the top of a phone box in someone’s yard. When the officer arrived, they found the dog in the middle of the road acting aggressively toward area residents. The officer managed to run the dog back into its yard, but when they followed, the dog went back to where it had dug under a fence. The owner arrived a few minutes before Kershaw County Animal Control officers. The dog had to be placed inside the home because it continued to come under the fence and bark. Animal Control officers stated they have had several complaints had issued the owner a ticket for allowing the dog to run at large.
Elgin officers cited a 37-year-old Ridgeway man for carrying a concealed weapon around 3:30 p.m. July 1 after finding him in possession of a sharpened nail file with a red cloth-like material wrapped around it to serve as a handle. Officers stopped the man in the first place because he fit the description of someone involved in suspicious activity near the intersection of Smyrna Road and Church Street. During a search of his person, officers also found a plastic wrapper with some white powder residue on it, but only cited him for the nail file and released him from the scene. Later, they learned that he had not given his legal name when questioned.
An officer spotted a dark-colored Chevy Silverado pickup truck traveling at 52 mph in a 35 mph zone on White Pond Road around 8 p.m. July 4. The officer pulled the truck over at White Pond Road and Campbell Street, but when they approached the vehicle, the driver took off driving toward Church Street, turned while failing to stop at the stop sign and crossed Main Street through a red light. The vehicle continued onto Sessions Road at approximately 90 mph, and the officer lost sight of it around Barfield Road.
An officer spotted fireworks going off in the vicinity of Stover Middle School’s back parking lot around 9 p.m. July 4. When they arrived, they could not find anyone, but did find a Roman candle that was smoking heavily. They also recovered a total of 31 Roman candles, two plastic hand grenades with explosive inside, two smoke “bombs,” other miscellaneous expended fireworks, a blue hoodie, some candy canes and some toothpaste.
An officer escorted a 62-year-old woman from her home to KershawHealth on July 2 to have some injuries to her head evaluated following an altercation with her 38-year-old son who suffers from “severe developmental disabilities.” At the woman’s request, no files were charged against her son, but he was taken by ambulance, also to KershawHealth, for a mental health evaluation.
Between 7 and 11:10 p.m. July 3, officers responded a total of five alarms at the new Bojangles. Three of them were freezer alarms; two were panic alarms. Managers said they would get in touch with the alarm company.
Elgin officers also dealt with recent incidents involving an animal complaint, domestic disturbance, family dispute, hit and run (including one involving a stop sign), no driver’s license, public disorderly conduct, theft from a motor vehicle, trespassing, and welfare check.
(EPD reports are provided under the S.C. Freedom of Information Act. Subjects are considered innocent until proven guilty.)
