Vergennes Police Log: Police investigate inappropriate touching claim
VERGENNES — Vergennes police on Nov. 23 referred a possible case of inappropriate touching of a juvenile male to the Addison County Special Investigations Unit.
The case came to city police’s attention in two ways: a complaint from family members that a boy told them a guest at their home had touched him, and a note left in a car that had been abandoned in Settlers Park that suggested to police that the author was possibly suicidal.
Police learned the man who had left the note was the same man who was being accused, and that he had checked himself into Porter Hospital and then been sent to UVM Medical Center. From there, he had been sent to a Bellows Falls psychiatric ward, police said. At that point, they referred the case to the special investigations unit, which focuses on sexual assault and abuse cases.
In other incidents between Nov. 23 and 29, Vergennes police:
• On Nov. 23 calmed and told to go separate ways a man and woman arguing near the intersection of School and Green streets.
• On Nov. 23 on behalf of South Burlington police served a relief-from-abuse order to a Green Meadow Acres resident.
• On Nov. 24 helped a motorist get into a locked car on Green Street.
• On Nov. 24 on behalf of Vermont State Police calmed a verbal domestic dispute on Sand Road in Ferrisburgh.
• On Nov. 25 checked out a possibly suspicious broken window at a Maple Manor home and determined that it had been hit by a rock kicked up by a lawn mower.
• On Nov. 25 checked the welfare of a male Green Street resident, who was found to be OK.
• On Nov. 25 responded to a domestic dispute at a Main Street apartment, an incident that remains under investigation.
• On Nov. 25 delivered news about a death in the family to a Green Street resident.
• On Nov. 27 discovered an unoccupied building at the intersection of Canal and Main streets was unsecured and that someone was sleeping in it; police informed its owner.
• On Nov. 27 helped VSP search a car stopped on Route 22A in Panton.
• On Nov. 27 checked out a report of a suspicious person on High Street and determined the individual was a postal worker.
• On Nov. 27 responded along with the Vergennes Area Rescue Squad to a report of a teenage girl feeling suicidal who had taken too many prescription drugs; VARS took her to Porter Hospital to meet with the Counseling Service of Addison County.
• On Nov. 27 went along with firefighters to a porch fire at a School Street home.
• On Nov. 28 ticketed a driver for speeding and possession of marijuana and paraphernalia at a West Main Street traffic stop.
• On Nov. 28 helped a motorist get into a locked car on South Water Street.
• On Nov. 28 ticketed a motorist for possession of seven grams of marijuana; police also took a blood sample to test the driver for driving under the influence of drugs, and a charge is possible pending a test result.
• On Nov. 29 reported an electrical smell from some fraying power lines on Macdonough Drive to the fire department and Green Mountain Power.