AN OFFICER in Forsyth Park observed a man approach a couple of tourists. One of the tourists took out some money and started to hand it to the man, but when the man saw the officer, he told them not to worry about the money.

The officer turned away and acted as if he hadn’t seen anything, and the man then took the couples’ money. The officer approached them and asked what the man had told them.

They said he had asked them for money and offered them a poem he had written in exchange. They said he told them he had a peddler’s license to sell poems.

The officer asked to see his permit.

“A permit for what?” the man asked.

“A permit issued by the city,” the officer said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man replied.

“A vendor’s or peddler’s permit, in order to distribute the poems,” the officer said, adding that if the man didn’t know what a peddler’s permit was, he obviously didn’t have one.

“A permit for what, now?” the man asked, pulling out a peddler’s permit. “Is this what you want? It ain’t funny no more, is it?”

The man said he knew his rights and asked the officer if he wanted to see if the permit was “fake” and if the officer knew what he was talking about. He was informed that he was obstructing an investigation and could be arrested.

The man then threatened the officer. “You can arrest me if you want,” he said. “They gotta let me out some time. That’s what you need to be worried about. When I get out is when you need to worry, cause I’m gonna go up to New York and get some boys. We’ll come back down here and handle it. That’s why you need to worry. So you can take me to jail if you want to.”

The man was arrested and taken to the Chatham County Detention Center. He was issued verbal warnings for not having his permit properly displayed and for approaching the tourist couple and not letting them approach him.

“Go ahead and arrest me,” the man said as he was handcuffed. “I’ll get the NAACP and Rev. Jesse Jackson to fix this.”

• Police were called to a local hospital in reference to a fight. A woman told an officer she was hit with a gun butt.

She said she was leaving a bar on River Street at about 2 a.m. and was walking with friends to her car when a fight broke out around them. Someone in the group tried to strike another person and instead struck her in the left eye.

The woman’s friends told her she was knocked out for about five minutes. She said she heard the names “Vanda” and “Tay-Tay,” but doesn’t know who those people are and said she and her friends were not involved in the fight.

The woman’s eye was red and swollen. She said vision in her eye was blurry.

• At least five vehicles were damaged recently when thieves used a punch device to rupture gas lines, then captured the leaking fuel in pans.

When firefighters and hazardous materials technicians arrived in the area of West 35th and Florance streets on the report of a fuel leak, several people approached them and said their own vehicles also were leaking fuel. The firefighters began plugging leaks in the fuel lines and cleaning up spills in a one-block radius of Florance, Harden, West 34th and West 35th streets.

Savannah Chatham Metro Police took reports and witness statements from the victims. Because of the spilled and leaking fuel, the thefts are potentially dangerous to motorists. cs

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