best of the blotter: let me stand next to your fire and 31,000 pounds of shrimp

LAKEWOOD
After police responded to a call of a loud explosion and flames at Lakewood Park at 8 p.m. June 15, officers learned there was a man in the park who was a professional fire-breather putting on a show for area children.

DOMESTIC DISPUTE, RIVER OAKS DRIVE: Two brothers, one from Ashland and one from Rocky River, were verbally arguing on June 26. Police were called to the apartment complex where he found both men intoxicated. The fight began due to the visiting brother feeding a pet dog beer.

WELFARE CHECK, DERBY COURT: Out of concern for her children, a woman notified police that her ex-husband’s new lady friend was “whacked out.”

Police went to the ex-husband’s home June 25 to investigate and found that everything appeared to be normal.

On May 25, a 53-year-old Solon woman driving along Aurora Road near Portz Parkway nearly hit a police officer working a traffic stop. Solon police pulled her over and noticed that her eyes were red and glassy and she smelled like alcohol.

But that wasn't all.

According to police, the woman's face was covered in powder and what appeared to be chocolate frosting.

STRONGSVILLE

A Pearl Road woman reported someone tried to get into her apartment when she found the sliding patio door had been pushed off its tracks June 25.

Police determined the culprit was looking to get out, not in. Officers said it appeared one of the woman's cats had jumped on the door, knocking it out of its grid.

The woman said her cats do jump at the screen. Police checked all the other patio doors in the building and found no others that had been disturbed.

Teens on the Loose

An Antler Lane resident called police twice early June 25 because she could hear teenagers, often using profanity, outside her window and in a neighbor's yard.

Police found only a skunk in the yard, but said there were several parties in the area and believed the boys had been cutting through the yards.


INDEPENDENCE

THEFT, EXCHANGE STREET: The theft of frozen shrimp led police here to coordinate their investigation with Los Angeles police.

The shrimp was in a trailer believed to have been partly unloaded at some unknown place as part of an organized-crime operation.

Two hundred pounds of shrimp were stolen, but as much as 31,000 pounds was initially thought to have been stolen.

The case involved a freight broker in Valley View, a trucking company in Sandusky and a New Jersey company that ordered the shrimp from California to be delivered to Gouldsboro, Pa.

The Sandusky company notified police here, suspecting that $130,000 worth of shrimp might have been stolen because it failed to arrive in Pennsylvania on June 4.

A person with the Sandusky company said he dealt with a person with an accent.

Police here spoke with members of a Russian-Armenian task force at the LAPD and with police in Vernon, Calif.

Four days later, a trailer of shrimp arrived at a cold-storage warehouse operated on Exchange Street in Valley View. The truck arrived there after a man with a Russian accent inquired about the availability of cold storage. When the truck arrived, its driver identified himself with the last name Kevorkian but seemed not to understand the warehouse operator’s passing comment made about June 3 death of Jack Kevorkian, also known as “Dr. Death.”

Police said the scheme seems to involve unsuspecting shippers using the Internet to hire truckers who have legitimate documents they obtain fraudulently so their undelivered shipments are difficult to trace.

In this case, documents were stolen from a car owned by a person employed with a trucking company in California, reports said.