Man Arrested After Leaving a Baby Unattended in a Car

These incidents were reported to Mount Pleasant police during the last week. Suspect names are included if there are criminal charges pending, but the parties are presumed innocent until their day in court.

Man Charged After Leaving Baby in Car

A Mount Pleasant man faces child neglect charges after police say he left a baby in the car as he shopped for a six-pack of beer.

Janssen Douglas Strong, 30, was arrested on Nov. 10 outside Bottles on Coleman Boulevard. A concerned citizen observed a very young child unattended in a locked SUV outside the retail beer and wine store, according to police.

Officers were about to pick the locks on Strong’s vehicle when management called for the man to come to his vehicle. Strong admitted that he left the child in the car, the report said. The child’s mother, Strong’s wife, retrieved the infant from police.

Strong was booked into the jail and posted a $10,000 bond, according to court records.

Plastic Gun Lands Teens in Hot Water

They thought it was just a joke, but police didn’t think it was funny when they received reports of motorists pointing a machine gun at fellow drivers.

Turns out two teen boys in the back seat of a car were just playing with a toy gun, but one motorist was scared, according to the report. That motorist told police she thought the gun was real and decided to follow the vehicle from North Charleston to Mount Pleasant after the boys pointed it at motorists.

Officers shut down streets and diverted traffic as they tried to sort out the situation. According to the report, it appears officers performed a high-risk felony stop where they ordered each of the vehicle’s occupants out of the car, forced them to the ground and placed them all in handcuffs.

The two teenage boys in the backseat thought the whole situation was funny, and they were excited when local TV news crews showed up at the scene, the report stated.

In the end, officers let everyone go without any criminal charges, but the boys received stern words from officers who didn’t find the situation funny.

Restaurant Reports Embezzlement

The Stuart Engalls Boulevard Applebee’s reported a $6,000 theft by one of its employees, according to police reports.

Police have not yet charged the employee, but the restaurant’s district manager told police the 24-year-old employee skimmed numerous cash transactions into his own pockets over a month’s time

Applebee’s records indicate the employee took $6,409 by voiding transactions if customers paid with cash. That’s a lot of Riblets.

Assault at a Car Wash

Police arrested a man for third-degree assault and battery after a car wash attendant confronted the suspect with allegations that he stole $1,400 in coins from Super Suds Car Wash.

Edward Bendt, 72, reportedly threatened the complainant and said the employee should mind his own business or risk “getting a bullet in his head,” the report said.

Bendt was booked into the county jail and posted a $1,000 bond, court records indicate. Police could not immediately find evidence to link him to the coin thefts, but the employee reportedly observed Bendt riffling through a vacuum cleaner, trying to access a coin box.

Woman Was a Contract Shoplifter

A woman arrested for stealing from the Town Centre Belk told police she was hired to steal specific items from several stores.

Cynthia Money, 22, apparently spent no money in the Mount Pleasant department store. A store officer saw the woman walk out of  a dressing room with a much fuller bag than when she entered.

The woman told Mount Pleasant police she had been hired to steal clothes and that she was to be paid a fraction of the clothes’ retail price in exchange for her work.

Money reportedly did her alleged thieving while her husband and two children waited in the parking lot. Police found other allegedly stolen items in the vehicle, the report stated.

Police Find a Pile of Spent Bullets

Mount Pleasant police received no cooperation when responding to a shots-fired call at the Snowden Community Center.

Neighbors stayed mum about the shots, but officers had received multiple calls about the gunfire and they recovered 17 spent rounds at the community center’s parking lot, the report stated.

A day later, a resident on the other side of Long Point Road reported a broken window that may have been caused by a bullet. It wasn’t clear if the damage was related to the earlier gunfire incident.