EAST COOPER POLICE BLOTTER

Internet friend turns out to be not so friendly

A teen reported that her cellphone was stolen while she was visiting a social networking friend she knew only by a nickname, a Mount Pleasant police report says.

The 17-year-old contacted police about noon May 7. She said she became friends with the man over the Internet, and he invited her to his home in Mount Pleasant. Her friend dropped her off at the home, and she said she didn't know the name of the street or the area where she was dropped off, the report says.

She said she was sitting in the man's home when his friend grabbed her cellphone and ran from the house. The man forced her to leave his home and wouldn't let her use the phone to call police. The theft happened about 2 a.m. She tried to call her own phone several times, but the calls went immediately to voice mail, the report says.

She said the phone was worth $500. The theft was entered in the system, and she was told to report the theft to her cellphone provider.

Slick thief makes off with cooking grease

A man called Mount Pleasant police May 2 to report that someone had stolen a restaurant's used cooking oil, a report states.

The man told police that a man driving a truck stole 50 gallons of cooking grease on April 26. The man said the driver was in a truck that appeared to be owned by the business that empties the grease trap on the property, but the driver emptied the wrong trap. The man confronted the driver, who said he thought he was supposed to empty grease from that trap, the report says.

Police called the grease emptying business, and a woman working there said the company didn't have an employee who fit the truck driver's description. She said she already talked to the man from the restaurant and said she was willing to help the man in any way she could, the report says.

Man says he borrows neighbor's paper

A 61-year-old woman told Mount Pleasant police on April 30 that she saw a male neighbor take a newspaper from another neighbor's lawn and return it six minutes later, a report says.

When the woman went outside 10 minutes later, she discovered that her own newspaper was missing, but she did not see who took it. The woman identified the man she had seen taking the paper from her neighbor's lawn and asked an officer to talk to the man about it and document it, the report says.

The officer talked to the 63-year-old man, who said his neighbor allows him to borrow the newspaper. He said he checked the paper to find out what time the sports games were coming on television and that he only had it for about five minutes and put it back. The officer told the man that another neighbor's newspaper was missing and it had been an ongoing situation, the report says.

The officer told the man to let his neighbor read the newspaper first and then tried contacting the neighbor who allows the man to borrow the newspaper but got no answer. Police told the woman to talk to that neighbor about what she saw and have him contact the officer if needed, the report says.

Patron reports man holding a chicken

Charleston County Sheriff's deputies went to a bar to investigate a report of a man holding a chicken, a report says.

When the deputy arrived just before 2 a.m. May 15, the bar was closed, and staff members said they did not call authorities but that a man holding a chicken was forced to leave.

No one was able to give the deputy a description of the man or identify the patron who had reported the incident.

Staff members said the man with the chicken had been asked to leave about three hours before the deputy arrived. The deputy looked around but couldn't find anyone, the report says.

These news items were taken from incident reports from the Mount Pleasant Police Department and Charleston County Sheriff's Office.