The Blotter: Wendy Don't Play 

Where's the Beef? An incident occured recently in north Charlotte that proved the fact that you should never fuck with fast food employees. An employee at a Wendy's on Sunset Road walked an order out to a car at 1:30 a.m and was greeted by two customers who were upset with their wait. One of the women got out of the car and began fighting with the female employee in the parking lot, and eventually the passenger exited the vehicle with plans to fight, too. That wasn't going to happen, however. A male employee of Wendy's was not about seeing his coworker get jumped, so he exited the restaurant with a shotgun and fired it into the car. Nobody was hurt, since both women had gotten out of the car, but the man was arrested for discharging a firearm in city limits and his gun seized by police.

Here It Is That staff on Sunset Road was wishing they had their OG back just a week after he was arrested for the above-mentioned incident. A week later, the same damn Wendy's drive thru got some more action. According to the report, at some point between 4 and 6 a.m., unknown suspects pulled up to the closed drive thru window and threw a rock through it, busting the glass and causing $400 in damages. The suspects then entered the restaurant and stole $5 of change that had been donated to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. These folks just better count themselves lucky that ol' buddy with the shotgun wasn't there.

Berry Picking The Publix in South End may not have made the list of hottest clientele, but they certainly have the most health-conscious shoplifters. On a recent Tuesday afternoon during rush hour, a man walked into the grocery store and started pocketing fruits, berries, hummus, wheat bread and sushi. The suspect wasn't quite as sneaky as he was healthy, though, as he was confronted and arrested before he could leave the store.

Sniff Him Out If you're not smelling good down there, you're just not smelling good. One suspect was certainly getting fresh when he stuffed several bars of deodorant down his pants at a Family Dollar in northwest Charlotte last week. A witness and the manager watched the suspect throw $63 worth of deodorant down the front of his pants and walk out at around 1 p.m.. To find this one, police could try roaming the streets, waiting for the overwhelming scent of an Axe and Old Spice combo to give them the headache that moms of prepubescent, overzealous body-mist-spraying teenage boys have been living with for years.

Bad Dream There is nothing more important than a good night's sleep, and getting a solid 8 hours could do so much as save your smartphone. A man waiting to take the Lynx Blue Line from the convention center stop in Uptown learned this lesson the hard way. After falling asleep at the stop at around 5 a.m., he woke up to find that his phone was no longer in his lap where he was holding it when he fell asleep. Whether his iPhone fell to the ground in his sleep and was taken or if the culprit swiped the phone right out of his hands while in his deep slumber, nobody can be sure, but the moral of the story is that you never want to fall asleep with your phone in your hands in public.

Turnkey The most embarrassing type of crime you could possibly fall victim to is one in which you end up being charged with a crime yourself. Although it's unclear whether that's what happened in this specific incident, one man from Whitakers learned how CMPD doesn't have much sympathy for folks who leave their car running while they run inside. The man told police that he left his Dodge Dart outside with the keys in the ignition at a house in the Ashley Park neighborhood between 5 and 6 a.m., for God only knows what reason. An unknown suspect made the most of an opportunity and snatched up the $12,500 car. Normally I might judge someone for leaving their car sitting there wide open and ready to be stolen, but who would have thought this many thieves — or any human beings for that matter — would be up and at 'em at such an ungodly hour? Loafers can't relate.

Bad Move A police officer's job can be very difficult at times, but other times, the crime just drives right up to them. According to one report, an officer was doing his rounds on Albemarle Road in east Charlotte last week when a woman drove up and told him that she had a flat tire. That's a normal enough incident, so the officer started preparing to carry out the "serve" part of his promise to protect and serve, but then quickly had to move into "protect" mode. According to the report, the officer quickly realized that the woman was impaired, either by alcohol or drugs, and there was a 1-year-old baby in the car with her. She was arrested, although it's unclear from the report what happened to the baby.

All stories are pulled from police reports at CMPD headquarters. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.