Quiet is the word most closely associated with crimi nal activity during a summer in Athens, yet multiple hap penings managed to make some noise and keep law en forcement stirring during the four-month span.
Like something out of an old Spaghetti Western, multiple bank robberies and even a snake on the loose drew headlines in Athens this summer.
In June, an Athens resident caused a public scare when she released a ball python from her mobile home because she could no longer afford to feed it.
The 4-and-a-half-foot snake was eventually found four days later underneath the trailer home of Dana Boyles in Stone Terrace Trailer Park, where Boyles, 57, had originally re leased it.
Dave Sagan, a natural re sources instructor at Hocking College, discovered the snake, according to a previous Post ar ticle.
“She told Deputy (Chris) Tomsha she did not want a hungry python in her house and that she hoped to run over it with a mower later,” accord ing to a post on Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly’s Facebook page.
Multiple bank robberies also kept law enforcement busy.
There was the July 8 robbery of the People’s Bank on East State Street, for which Emman uel Arocho, 31, of Albany, later turned himself in.
Athens Police Department of ficials said Arocho was the man from the bank’s surveillance camera and they believe he act ed alone, according to a previ ous Post article.
Though it is uncommon for the department to deal with robberies, APD Captain Ralph Harvey said it isn’t out of the ordinary for someone to turn themselves in for a crime of that scale.
Just two weeks later, the sher iff’s office began investigating an armed robbery that hap pened at the Foodland Grocery Store in The Plains.
Kelly released a statement saying the suspect is a white man who was believed to have been acting alone and shopping in the store July 16. Authorities believe the suspect came back the next day around closing time to look for his cellphone he said he left there.
Aside from those headliners, local law enforcement have de scribed the summer as “quiet,” although APD Chief Tom Pyle said, in a previous Post article, the number of noise violations didn’t seem to drop.
As a warning to off-campus students returning for Fall Se mester, Pyle said: “A lot of peo ple come back and find that their residence has been robbed while they were gone.”
