From the blotter / Niagara County police calls, Aug. 19 to 24 Aug. 19
• An 87-year-old woman and her 82- year-old husband told sheriff’s deputies they were shopping for groceries at Save-A-Lot at The Summit mall and had $500 in an envelope in her purse. She said when she left, the money was missing. The woman asked store security to use surveillance to check out two women who bumped into her twice while she was in the store.
• A 46-year-old man called sheriff’s deputies when he found several marijuana plants when he was bush-hogging his property in the 1400 block of Hartland Road in the Town of Somerset. The man said he ran over one plant but still had four plants standing. Patrol said they removed the remaining plants.
Aug. 20
• Dawn Marie Quinlan, 38, of 61st Street, Niagara Falls, was charged by city police at 8:47 a. m. at 18th and Niagara streets with felony driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation. Police said Quinlan stopped in an abrupt manner and did not use a turn signal. She was charged after failing field sobriety tests.
• Christopher Howard, 20, of Robinson Road, Lockport, was charged with petit larceny by sheriff’s deputies at 2:23 a. m. on Robinson Road. Deputies said they were checking the Snyder Drive area when a bicycle was found abandoned in the roadway. Howard was stopped and threw an aerosol can in a ditch and, after a pat-down, was found with four magazines, two cans of hard ice tea and a can of beer in his pants, which he told deputies he had stolen from Tops Market, according to reports. Deputies said he appeared to be intoxicated.
Aug. 21
• Linda J. Winkowski, 56, of Lake Avenue, Lockport, was charged by sheriff’s deputies with driving while intoxicated and moving from a lane unsafely. Capt. Steven Preisch said that Winkowski had been spotted driving erratically, crossing the intersection and nearly striking mailboxes on Plank Road near Lower Mountain Road.
Aug. 22
• Niagara Falls police investigated two break-ins, including one at a Niagara Avenue home where an inventory was being conducted to determine the extent of loss. The female victim told police she returned home to find a ladder leaning against her home. Entry had been made through a second-floor window. Also reporting a break-in was a 25th Street man, who told police that someone stole nearly $1,500 worth of power tools from his garage. A door was forced open between 9 a. m. and 4 p. m., and items taken included a tiller, an air gun and a power washer.
• The daughter of a 57-year-old Packard Court woman told Niagara Falls police that a safe was stolen from her mother’s apartment while she was out of town. An employee of the Housing Authority found the safe in a nearby field and said that it had been opened and that personal papers were scattered around.
• Sometime between 9 and 11:50
a. m., someone stole $3 and a cellular telephone from the backpack of a youth attending football practice in the Linwood Avenue area of Hyde Park, Niagara Falls police said.
• A compact disc stereo valued at $75 was stolen from a car belonging to a Pierce Avenue woman, Niagara Falls police said. The car was parked behind the victim’s home when it was entered. Police later recovered a stereo unit believed to be the one stolen from the vehicle.
• An Elmwood Avenue man told Niagara Falls police he was attacked and robbed at about 6:30 p. m. in the 500 block of 19th Street. The victim said he was punched in the face and dropped his cellular telephone, and a bystander picked up the phone and fled with it. The victim was not seriously injured in the attack.
• Niagara Falls police were investigating a complaint from an Orleans Avenue woman that a man stole $200 from her bank account.
Aug. 23
• Brian T. Hughes, 37, of East Avenue, Newfane, was charged by sheriff’s deputies with aggravated unlicensed operation, felony driving while intoxicated with a previous offense and an equipment violation at 8:35 p. m. on Lockport-Olcott Road in Newfane. Deputies said they responded to a reckless driver near McKee Road and saw Hughes cross the fog line and driving without headlights after dark. Hughes told deputies he did not have a license, and deputies found that it had been revoked for a prior DWI conviction in 2004. Hughes was charged after he failed field sobriety tests and refused to submit to a breath test, said deputies.
• Two witnesses told sheriff’s deputies that they saw three men pull up to the Tonawanda Sportman’s Club on Killian Road in Pendleton at 11:21 p. m. in a silver Mitsubishi sports utility vehicle with their lights off and said one of the men ran behind the building. One witness said he believed one of the men was an employee. The next day, the “President’s Only Sign” in the parking lot was missing. The suspected employee returned the sign and was fired from his job. The manager told deputies she did not want to press charges but did not want the three to be allowed on the property ever again.
• Scott D. Haseley, 27, of Niagara Road, Niagara Falls, was charged by sheriff’s deputies with aggravated driving while intoxicated with a blood level above 0.18 percent and speeding at 12:16 a. m. on Niagara Falls Boulevard in the Town of Niagara. Haseley was stopped driving 62 mph in a 45- mph zone, said deputies, adding he was charged after failing five field sobriety tests and registering a blood alcohol level of 0.21 percent.
• Sometime before noon, a thief entered a Bayview Station home in Newfane and stole a pair of prescription medications, sheriff’s deputies said. The drugs were taken from a bedroom closet.
• Neighbors told Niagara Falls police they saw four juveniles trying to steal a snowblower from a Haeberle Avenue home at about 9 p. m. The boys fled after the snowblower became tangled in some fencing behind a neighboring home. Police later returned the item to its rightful owner. One of the juveniles was identified by a neighbor and faces charges.
• A 34-year-old Norman Street resident was attacked while sitting on the porch of a 34th Street home at about 10:10 p. m., Niagara Falls police said. The victim was punched in the face several times, breaking his eyeglasses and causing cuts and bruises. His attacker fled the scene, police said.
Aug. 24
• Sheriff’s deputies responding to a motorcycle crash charged the driver, Steven M. Skorik, 43, of Lake Street, with driving while intoxicated and speeding at 1:50 a. m. in the 300 block of Lake Street in Wilson. Deputies said Skorik was transported to Newfane Inter-Community Memorial Hospital for evaluation and refused to submit to having blood drawn at the scene. Deputies said he suffered minor injuries to his arm and hand.
• A 32-year-old Cambria man told sheriff’s deputies that sometime in the past two weeks someone entered his Campbell Boulevard home and stole a fire safe from an upstairs bedroom. He told deputies that he had $5,000 in cash in the safe.
• Thomas Dixon, 25, of Buffalo, was charged by sheriff’s deputies with driving while intoxicated after he was found asleep at the wheel in the middle of the road at 7:36 a. m. at Chestnut Ridge and Graham roads in the Town of Royalton.
• Charges of driving while intoxicated, speeding and reckless driving were lodged against an 18th Street man at 12:01 a. m. after Niagara Falls police said he nearly struck a police cruiser after turning wildly from Main Street onto Third Street. Arnold
S. Walker, 46, registered a 0.14 blood-alcohol content when tested by police, according to reports.
• A Niagara Road, Bergholz, resident was charged with driving while intoxicated. Niagara Falls police said that Scott P. Haseley, 22, was pulled over shortly after midnight on Niagara Falls Boulevard in the Town of Niagara. After registering a 0.18 reading on a Breathalyzer test, he was charged with aggravated DWI and speeding. Police said they clocked him driving 62 mph in a 45-mph zone.
• James D. Minney, 44, of Stephenson Avenue, was arrested at his home at 3 a. m. He was charged with third-degree assault and harassment after Niagara Falls police said he repeatedly punched his 20-year-old stepson in the face.
• A Buffalo woman told Niagara Falls police that someone smashed a window in her car between 6:30 a. m. and 1:30 p. m. while she was working at the Seneca Niagara Casino. The vehicle, parked at Sixth and Niagara streets at the time, had about $5 worth of change stolen from it.
