from recent Savannah/Chatham Police incident reports

A man was charged with public indecency after he began masturbating in front of a shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

A witness told police she was out in front of the shop and saw that the suspect “was playing with himself in front of the store.” The man was about 40 feet from the store when an officer arrived and continued to walk north in a fast walk.

The officer started after him, but the man began to run. When the suspect reached Gaston Street, the officer went back to the squad car and followed the man, who was still running. The officer stopped at Gaston and Barnard streets where he had seen the suspect hide under a stairwell. Upon leaving the squad car, the officer yelled, “Stop! Don’t make me chase you.”

The suspect then fled south on Barnard to Huntington, east on Huntington, then south on Howard Street. The officer continued on foot until he lost sight of the suspect, who went east on Hall Street. Another officer said the suspect was in some bushes at Forsyth Park. The first officer continued on foot to Forsyth, where the second officer had the suspect cornered. The man was arrested.

• A woman told police her ex-boyfriend grabbed her and threatened to kill her.

The woman was waiting for a bus at 37th Street and Waters Avenue, and when the bus arrived, she got onboard. Her ex-boyfriend also jumped on the bus and grabbed her hand and said, “If you get off this bus, I’ll kill you.”

Both remained on the bus until it reached 45th Street and Waters Avenue, where the woman jumped off. She said her ex-boyfriend got off the bus at Waters and Washington avenues.

The man approached her at the west end of Daffin Park and told her, “I’ll kill you right here.” She said that his pickup truck, driven by a man she didn’t know, came by and picked him up.

There was a machete in the truck, so the woman called police from her cell phone. She said there were already several court dates involving her ex-boyfriend for battering her and for making terroristic threats, and there is a court order that says he isn’t allowed within 50 feet of her.

• An employee of an East Broughton Street shop called police after a teenager shoplifted a pair of Prada sunglasses worth about $130.

The woman said the teen, who was about 17 years old, entered the store and asked to try on shoes. She said he was neatly dressed, and didn’t appear to be homeless.

While one of the other employees was getting shoes for the young man to try on, he started to put on a pair of sunglasses. The woman said she spoke with him about the glasses, then turned her attention to another customer.

The suspect tried on the shoes very quickly and left the store in a hurry. The woman said she recognized the suspect as having been at the store two months prior, when another set of sunglasses went missing.

• An officer was southbound on Liberty Street when he noticed a pickup truck weaving into both lanes of Price Street.

At Bolton Street, the truck swerved to the left and nearly struck the curb on the left side. The officer stopped the man, who pulled over onto Park Avenue and stopped.

A strong odor of alcoholic beverage was coming from the man’s breath. He could only produce an insurance card, and said his wallet was back at the bar where he works.

The man was then told to turn the truck off and step outside, and he put the truck in neutral and stepped out. The truck began to roll forward until the officer told the man to put his parking brake on.

The man stumbled, nearly falling, as he got out of the truck. When asked if he’d been drinking, the man replied, “Yes, three to four beers,” then “No, more like five to six.” He agreed to take a field sobriety test, which registered positive for alcohol.

• A woman went into the West Chatham Precinct and said her husband attacked her at her job on Skidaway Road.

She said the attack happened after they argued about Christmas presents. She said her husband called her a bitch and a whore, to which she responded that his mother was a bitch and a whore.

When she said that, her husband came charging at her and pushed her down. She said when she fell, her head hit a copier machine.