Culled from the Police Reports page of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle are the best of the Bozeman police reports from the last week along with some items from the Sheriff’s Office.

It hit 60 degrees the other day and everyone’s got spring fever, but the local ski area will still be open for another two weeks, though snow conditions are likely to deteriorate quickly in the days ahead. It may not come as much of a surprise to regular readers of these Saturday offerings, but Bozeman was recently ranked the fifth drunkest town in the nation while, at the same time, ranked the healthiest county in the state.

While the college has a lot to do with both of those surveys (it makes up nearly half the population), other factors are involved, not the least of which are lenient drunk driving laws and this AP story Montana lawmaker’s speech perpetuates boozy image goes a long way in explaining how those laws came to be. Without any further ado…

• Someone dumped half a dozen deer carcasses on a man’s property on North Seventh Avenue overnight.
• A 54-year-old man was arrested for driving under the influence after crashing into a snow bank on Gold Avenue and getting stuck around 7:30 p.m.
• A resident of Concord Drive awoke in the morning to find “I will kill again” written in ketchup on the sidewalk in front of his house.
• A school bus driver reported a driver in a small passenger car passing the bus on the right side as children were getting off on Bridger Drive around 6:30 p.m.

• Several motorists on Big Sky Spur Road reported an injured big horn ram near the road around 5 p.m.
• Deputies searched for and found a vehicle, driver and dog that had been involved in an accident near mile marker 5 on Bridger Canyon Road. The vehicle had gone off the road, down a steep 80-foot embankment and landed on its roof. The female driver was wearing a seatbelt and was uninjured, but quite cold. She was held for a drunken-driving investigation.
• A woman wanted to know how to handle a juvenile who repeatedly eggs her house.
• A property owner reported that a group of men had broken a tree in his front yard and then fled on foot. The property owner chased the men, caught one of them, and told him he needed to stay and deal with the police. The man argued, took the property owner to the ground, and ran away.
• A parent had questions about what could be done about her son receiving messages “using the ‘F’ word” as part of a live computer game.
• A deputy stopped a heavily intoxicated man who was stumbling down a street in Manhattan around 2 a.m. and gave him a ride home.
• A woman thought she smelled an electrical fire at her home on Wagonwheel Road around 12:45 a.m. The odor turned out to be from a plastic salad container on the stove.
• A man reportedly driving a four-wheeler near Penwell Bridge Road and Springhill Road was also carrying a shotgun and shooting in the area, possibly at gophers. Deputies were unable to locate him.
• A man was reportedly throwing dog feces onto Boxwood Drive. Deputies issued the man a warning.
• At 12:30 a.m. a caller on Monroe Street reported that two very intoxicated people were talking loudly outside her window. They were messing around and falling down in the snow. When officers arrived, the two people had already left.
• Just before 2 a.m. a driver was stopped for traveling the wrong direction on 19th Avenue. The 63-year-old driver was found to be intoxicated and was arrested.
• A bloody butcher’s knife in a plastic sheath was found on the corner of College Street and Third Avenue at 6 p.m. The person who found the knife suspected the blood was fake because it was bright red.
• The driver of a vehicle involved in a crash on Big Sky Spur Road became combative and was trying to break the patrol car’s windows while being transported to Bozeman by deputies just before 2 a.m.
• An officer saw one of three men walking on North Rouse Avenue around midnight toss a backpack around a building when they saw the officer’s cruiser. The three Bozeman men, two 19 and one 18, admitted to have been drinking and had several unopened beers in the pack. They were cited for being minors in possession of alcohol.
• Several four-wheelers were racing up and down Bulltail Road. A resident along the road was upset because they have to pay “dearly” to get the road graded.

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