Police Beat: A Fuel Spill and a Home Burglary

Sometimes it pays to manually pump your gasoline, rather than flip that automatic pump switch up and sit in the car.

The was dispatched to , N87W17245 Main Street, for a diesel spill a 11:31 a.m. Wednesday. A 20-year-old Menomonee Falls man was filling his truck with the locking switch employed on the handle.

However, the automatic shut-off feature didn’t work and the man soon observed gasoline spewing from his truck's filler neck. The man estimated that approximately 5 gallons of fuel had spilled.

Despite efforts to contain the spill with a drying mixture, an undetermined amount of fuel still entered a nearby storm drain. A resident later reported smelling diesel fuel in the creek at Village Park.  Police determined that the particular drain did flow into the creek.

The fire department set up buoys to contain the spill at the mouth of the storm drain.

Also in the reports:

At 10:44 p.m. Tuesday, a family on the N6000 block of Mill Ridge Drive reported trouble with their 21-year-old autistic son. The man did not want to go back to the group home in West Allis where he was staying, and fled from the home on foot. The area was checked on foot with a thermal imager, but the man was not found.

A 32-year-old Milwaukee woman stole $9.85 worth of groceries at 1:53 p.m. Thursday from , N81W15182 Appleton Ave. The woman was caught on camera fleeing in a silver Hyundai Accent.

A 1:17 p.m. Thursday, a suspect stole a $17 bottle of flavored rum from Pick n’ Save, N77W14435 Appleton Ave. The suspect fled toward Milwaukee, but police were unable to match plates with the description of the vehicle.

Between 11:30 a.m. Oct. 29 and 12:30 a.m. Oct. 30, a 32-year-old Milwaukee woman reported that her live-in boyfriend had hit her and wrecked her vehicle during a party on the W20000 block of Mill Road. The 43-year-old Milwaukee man slapped her in the face and proceeded to destroy her vehicle. He removed the fuse box cover and all fuses, pulled spark plug caps off wires, tore off the windshield wipers and the brake fluid cap. Friends had given the man a ride home before police arrived.

Between 6:50 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 31, an unknown suspect burglarized a home on the W15000 block of Scott Lane. The suspect entered the home through an unlocked front door and stole a laptop from the home.

A 55-year-old Menomonee Falls man was arrested for theft after nabbing a newspaper at 6:21 a.m. Oct. 30 from , N87W16459 Appleton Ave. The man said he stole the paper, which contained stacks of coupons, because he was on a fixed income. He was arrested and booked on a state theft charge, and the newspaper was returned.

A 33-year-old man was arrested at 12:20 a.m. Oct. 30 after getting into a fight at A.J. O’Brady’s, N88W16495 Main St. The man needed to be restrained by four patrons after a verbal argument turned physical with another man at the bar. An officer attempted to take the man out of the bar several times, but he resisted. Once the officer pulled out his Taser, he complied. The man continued to resist once outside and was arrested and booked for resisting an officer and disorderly conduct.