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BLOTTER TALES

His request: Hold the pickles, please

A Quincy man didn’t appreciate the pickles he recently found decorating his car’s windshield.Matthew Cavanaugh for The Boston Globe

Every day, police officers respond to reports of all sorts of events and non-events, most of which never make the news. Here is a sampling of lesser-known — but no less noteworthy — incidents from police log books (a.k.a. blotters) in our suburbs.

WAIT DILL YOU HEAR THIS

On Feb. 7, Quincy police received a call from a man on Safford Street who reported that his vehicle had been “vandalized several times.” When asked to elaborate, the man said pickles were placed on his windshield. Police documented the incident and provided the man with a case number.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER EXORCISM

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Another interesting call was answered by Stow police just before 7:30 p.m. Feb. 1, when a woman on Warren Road reported that she could hear screaming and banging in the apartment next to hers. She was concerned, she said, that it was a fight or something of the sort. The officer who responded found something that was a bit more off the beaten track: “a mother and daughter,’’ according to the log, “praying to get the demons out of the apartment.” The two were asked to go about their business more quietly. Detective Sergeant Michael Sallese said later that the pair had been praying and “yelling the word ‘fire’ over and over.” But otherwise everything was fine. “The child was in great spirits and health,” said Sallese in an e-mail. The two “stated they did not mean to alarm their neighbors.”

HOT SLICES TO GO

On the afternoon of Feb. 3, Mansfield police pulled over a car that was being driven erratically. When the officers stopped and spoke to the woman behind the wheel, they found out why: She said she was eating a pizza that she’d just picked up. Police advised the hungry one to hold off on her meal until she was home, or least parked somewhere safely with the shift in the “P” position.

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SNOW ROW IN WITCH CITY

With about 5,000 residents per square mile, Salem is a pretty well-populated place, which may have had something to do with events there Feb. 9. The first big snowstorm of the winter brought with it a series of complaints about snow removal there, with people bickering over where the white stuff should — or should not — go. At about 4 p.m. that day, police were sent to Bridge Street, where a business owner complained that the city’s plow drivers had piled snow onto the sidewalk directly in front of his store. An officer documented his complaint and advised him to contact City Hall to speak to someone at the Department of Public Works. But in Salem, it seems, this sort of thing can work both ways. At about 6:45 p.m. that evening, police were sent to Andrew Street, where city DPW workers were complaining that residents were shoveling and dumping snow into the street. An officer saw nothing to justify the complaint, and after monitoring the area for a little while, departed. But the peace didn’t last for long. At 7:50 p.m., the same officer was called back to the same street to deal with the same complaint from the plowmen. Again, the officer monitored the sitation for a while, again saw nothing wrong, and with the plow trucks now departed, did so as well.

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YESTERDAY’S NEWS

At 10:20 a.m. Feb. 4, Hopkinton police received a call about a suspicious package on Tammer Lane. Suspicious? Talk about shooting the messenger! Upon closer police inspection, the mysterious object proved to be a frozen newspaper.

HEY, BOOKMARK THIS

Just after 1 p.m. Jan. 20, someone in Winthrop told police that upon opening a library book, the following items were found tucked away inside the pages: a hotel room key, two Discover cards, and a 2012 Red Sox game ticket. The makeshift bookmarks were turned in to police.


Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney.