Published: October 05, 2008 11:06 pm      

BLOTTER: Police reports published Oct. 6

Niagara Falls

• ARREST: Felix J. Ruggiero, 49, 1809 Walnut Ave., was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest at 9:50 p.m. Saturday. He is accused of swearing several times at a Falls police officer who was patrolling near the corner of 19th Street and Pine Avenue. Police said Ruggiero was drunk and refused to leave the area. After being told he was being arrested, Ruggiero is accused of struggling with officers and attempting to fight them. Officers struck him in the side and leg multiple times and stunned him with a Taser before they were able to place him in handcuffs.

• ARREST: Grace C. Laster, 31, of Delaware, was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana at 8:35 p.m. Saturday. She was stopped by U.S. Customs officers at the Rainbow Bridge after trying to enter the country. During a secondary inspection, officers found two cardboard tubes containing marijuana insideher car.

• ARREST: Vernon S. Maracle, 46, of Ontario, was charged with disorderly conduct at 3:24 a.m. Sunday. He is accused of causing a disturbance at the Seneca Niagara Casino and then refusing security and police officers’ orders to leave the scene. Maracle reportedly was drunk and refused to let his wife drive his truck away from the property.

• BURGLARY: An unknown person used a shopping cart to smash through a front window of a vacant building on north Main Street sometime overnight Saturday. The building’s owner, Richard Hastings, told police metal racks valued at $400 were also taken from inside. The damage to the window was estimated at $750.

• DISPUTE: Police responded to a neighbor dispute in the 1100 block of 13th Street Saturday after an 8-year-old boy was involved in a physical altercation with an adult woman. The victim’s mother says her neighbor grabbed her son and slammed him to the ground while she was down the street at a store. The neighbor claims the boy was throwing rocks at her house and when she threatened to tell his mother, he attacked her and began punching and kicking her. She added that the boy’s sibling also came over to her and punched her in the head. No injuries were reported.

• ARREST: Thomas J. Hardenstine, 54, 8612 Jacob Place, was charged with theft of services at 5:56 p.m. Saturday after he attempted to avoid paying a $27.50 taxi fare. The cab driver told police he picked Hardenstine up in the 8700 block of Buffalo Avenue and took him to the corner of 10th Street and Walnut Avenue. Hardenstine then got out of the cab, ignored the driver’s request for payment and walked into Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center. Hospital security detained him until police arrived.

Wheatfield

• GRAND LARCENY: An employee of Sears at The Summit mall on Williams Road told police Saturday that someone removed a Craftsman 12.5 hp 36-inch mower. The report said the mower was located outside the store near the lawn and garden department and was valued at $3,100.