The Blotter

Four Savannah teens were taken into custody after they allegedly committed two armed robberies on Savannah’s Southside, then stole a car to get away.Leonard Graham, 18, Rodney Simmons, 18, Eric Williams, 17, and a 15-year-old boy who was not identified were each charged with two counts of armed robbery. Simmons also was charged with theft by receiving a stolen auto. The first robbery occurred Sunday, July 16 shortly after 9:30 p.m. at the entrance to the Edgewater Trace apartments. A man who was walking to his apartment was robbed at gunpoint. The robbers fled on foot south on Abercorn Street. Within minutes, the four robbed a woman who was walking to her apartment at Dutchtown Villa, then got into a car and sped off. The victim was able to get a good description of the suspects and a partial tag number from the stolen car. The information was broadcast to patrol officers who had saturated the area.  Within 20 minutes of the initial report, officers saw the stolen car at a gas station at Abercorn and Apache streets, not far from the scenes of the robberies. The four teens were arrested without incident. Both victims later identified them as their attackers. The gun used in the robberies was found inside the car.

• A man who was buying gasoline at a Skidaway Road gas station said three men in another car became upset with him because he didn’t move his car. The suspects began cursing the man, so he told them they would have to wait until he came out of the store. When he exited the store, more words were exchanged. The man said one of the suspects began fighting and the other two men also tried to attack him. He said he began to fight all three men and was able to hold his own. All three suspects then got into their car and left before the police arrived. The man refused treatment by EMS, and he had no visible bruises. The man was given a case report number, but said he didn’t want to pursue the incident any further.

• While on patrol, an officer noticed a man lying on the ground outside a title loan business on the north side of Abercorn Street. The business was closed, so the officer approached the man and asked what he was doing. The man replied, “My phone is charging at the store and I was just sitting here waiting for it.” The man then pointed as a gas station next door. The man was asked for identification, which he produced, along with an ID bracelet.  Then the man told the officer, “I was arrested last week for sitting here.” At that point, the man became disorderly. While the officer was running the man’s information on the radio to dispatch, the man started talking in a very loud and boisterous manner. He continued to yell even after the officer told him to be quiet.  The officer attempted to place the man in the squad car, but he resisted. The man was arrested.

• A cab driver told police that he picked up a man on Montgomery Street, who said he wanted to be driven to a Western Union location to pick up some money and then taken to a hotel. On the way to a Western Union office on Ogeechee Road, the man started asking the cab driver where “the women were and where the cheap hotels are located.” The cab driver said he asked the man to get out of the cab because of these actions and told him the bill was $26. The man said he didn’t have any money to pay the cab fare and walked off to a nearby store.  The man told police that he would pay the cab driver after he got his money from the Western Union office. He said that the cab driver drove him “all over town causing the fare to be higher than it should be.” The man then called for another cab, and he and both cab drivers worked out an agreement for the $26. The first cab driver then left, and the man left with the second cab driver.