PHANTOM PUNCH?
NORTH THORNYDALE ROADNOV. 6, 6:28 P.M.
A boy said he took a punch in the face from a strange adult while trying to raise money by selling candy door-to-door, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.
A deputy was sent to meet a supervisor with a group called Youth Education Service. The supervisor said he was overseeing about 10 children engaged in fundraising that evening in a nearby foothills neighborhood.
The supervisor said he'd been driving the kids around to sell candy when a 13-year-old boy returned to the van crying and saying that he wanted to go home. The boy said he'd been trying to sell candy to a neighborhood resident, when the resident punched him in the face and told him not to come back. The boy gave a detailed description of his alleged assailant but wasn't sure which house he had been at. The boy declined medical attention and had no visible injuries.
Deputies went to a house fingered as the possible residence of the boy's attacker. However the only residents were an elderly woman and her son, who bore resemblance to the assailant the boy described.
The boy said he "must have just had the wrong house and he just wanted to get out of there," according to the report.
The boy's supervisor told deputies that the child had never wanted to come to the neighborhood in the first place because he'd been selling less candy than his peers.
Deputies gave up the search for the attacker and left the scene.
SHARPIE GUY FINDS SHELTER
UA AREANOV. 16, 7:38 A.M.
A man, covered with scribbling done with a permanent marker, and talking into an imaginary cellphone, was taken to a safe place after expressing a death wish, according to a University of Arizona Police Department report.
A UA officer was patrolling Cherry Avenue when he observed a male on foot whose clothing, bare arms and bare legs were covered with what appeared to be writing.
The man was talking as if he were on a cellphone, but he wasn't holding one. Then he clenched his fists and started punching the air as if extremely agitated.
The man told the officer he'd been walking around all night seeking a place to sleep.
After another officer arrived on the scene, the man said something like, "I want to die, but I don't want you two to die."
The man, who mentioned he'd been hearing voices in his head (possibly explaining the make-believe cellphone call), agreed to speak to a counselor and was taken to a crisis-intervention center.
