From Hinesville Police Department reports:

Car theft: An officer was sent Feb. 16 to a Bacon Road address regarding a missing 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche. The owner said it was under his carport at 8 p.m. Feb. 15. Dispatchers checked to see if the car had been logged as a repo — the man said he missed a couple payments “but he had not been told whether the vehicle had been repossessed or not.”
There also was no physical evidence that the vehicle had been towed from the driveway. Police checked with the bank that financed the pickup, but “they were unable to advise whether the vehicle had been repossessed.”
The reporting officer checked with the detective division, “and they advised to enter the vehicle as stolen.” The owner was told to let HPD know if it turned out it had been repo’d so they could remove it from crime computers. A BOLO was put out for the pickup.

Fight, other stuff: On Valentine’s Day, an officer was sent to an E.G. Miles Waffle House regarding a fight. The dispatcher said a man with a hammer was smashing out a SUV window.
Before he got there, the officer was told a man involved had run away from the scene in the direction of Liberty Regional Medical Center.

Once at the scene, the officer talked with three people — including an employee at Waffle House who witnessed a man walk up to the victim’s SUV and whack the window with a hammer, shattering it in the parking lot, so she called 911. She said there were four men in their late teens or early 20s involved.

The victim said he didn’t know who the guy was who smashed his window. The  victim was in the vehicle at the time and when he got out, one of the four guys threw a brick at him.

A third guy said he was driving his car nearby when he was flagged down by four guys who asked him for a ride “to an unknown location in Hinesville,” the report said, so “(The third witness) then allowed them to ride in his vehicle. (He) stated he did not know who they were however, he saw them at school (Bradwell) in the past. While he was stopped at a traffic light … two black males got out of his vehicle and ran toward Waffle House. (He) then drove his vehicle to the Waffle House to find out what was going on.”

At that point, the other two guys in the car got out and began fighting with the man who owned the SUV with the busted window. The third guy also said the man with the hammer broke out his “vehicle driver side headlight cover,” but he didn’t want to file a report.

While police were trying to sort this out, the third guy apparently smelled enough like pot to lead to a search of his car, which turned up some pot, a scale and a Play Station 3 with no serial number, some radio equipment and, of all things, AR15 magazines. The man also had two small bags of pot on him, the report said.
He was arrested.

Disorderly conduct: An officer met Feb. 9 with a man in the new Oglethorpe Square parking lot. The man was waiting in his car. He told the officer he was with a woman “he was traveling with his older niece who had applied at TJ Maxx for a job a few days prior. She had changed her phone number and wanted to make sure that TJ Maxx management had her current phone number. (He) decided to speak with management on her behalf and walked in to the store.”
The man said he went inside the store carrying a small child, and was met by a construction foreman who told him to leave and “talked to him in a disrespectful manner (so that) he became loud in return. At one point (the man) said that if he was not holding a child … he would beat his (the foreman’s butt). After being told to leave (the man) still attempted to speak with the fire marshal but left the store after that waiting for police which (the foreman) had called.”

The foreman said much the same. He was given a case number.

Cat bite: You don’t see this often. A CenturyLink employee reported Feb. 10 he was installing a system at a Glenn Bryant address when “a stray cat entered the residence behind him and when he attempted to ‘shoo’ the cat out of the house, it bit his left hand, resulting in a small laceration to his hand. Shortly after biting (the victim) the cat exited the residence and left the area. The home owner …. advised it was a brown and white stray cat. Environmental control was advised of the incident. I was unable to locate the cat. (The victim) was provided a case number and informed on how to obtain a copy of this report.”