The Police Log is a digest of reports filed by the Cranston Police

SUSPICIOUS
Officer Ross Manzotti reported that he became curious when a car on Pontiac Avenue suddenly turned onto Blackamore Avenue when he came to an intersection at Pontiac and Waterman. He said he went around the block and found the car again and ran the license plate. He said it came back to a woman who had an expired permit. He said a man was driving the car at the time and the woman’s name came back with an association with a man wanted on a warrant from Smithfield, who Manzotti believed was driving the car. He said there were two kids in the back the man had in common with the owner. He said he called for backup and pulled the car over. He said the man asked him, “Can you tell me why I’m being pulled over? I did nothing wrong, I’m wearing my seatbelt, I stopped at the stop sign, and I wasn’t speeding.” He said the driver began to get argumentative and he told him they were waiting for other units. He said other officers arrived and Francis Odide Meseck Jr., 23, of 38 Oakland Ave. in Cranston was taken into custody without incident. He was later turned over to Smithfield Police.

LOST IN TRANSLATION
Officer Michael Caramante reported a minor accident on Greene Avenue on June 15. He said he got to the scene around 2:30 p.m. and another officer told him that the driver of one of the involved vehicles did not have a license and had no identification. Caramante said the man spoke no English but did indicate, by saying “Si,” that he was driving the car that was said to have backed up and sideswiped a car parked in front of the building. He said he could not get an address or birth date from the man and requested that a Spanish-speaking officer be sent to the scene.
Officer Salvador Sanchez reported that he arrived to speak with the driver and found that the driver didn’t seem to understand him very well either. He said he asked the man to provide his birthday and the man said the equivalent of “Thursday.” He said he repeated his question and said he wanted the day, month and year and the man replied, “Friday.” He said he asked him one more time and the man finally said May of 1994 but then said he was 16 years old, which did not match the date of birth given. He said the man would not elaborate on what happened between the cars.
Caramante reported that police decided he would be taken into custody for driving without a license and for not having any positive identification. He said they did establish that the birth date was right and the man was actually 18 years old. Further checks revealed that he had no criminal record and no record of a license on file anywhere. He said they ran his fingerprints but got no hits on them for anything. It was then decided that Carlos Morales, 18, of 185 Linwood Ave. in Providence would be released with a summons for driving without a license. Caramante said it was confirmed that the car belonged to another man who worked at a local restaurant with Morales and had given him permission to use it.

NEEDS MORE WORK
Officer Michael Long reported he was dispatched to a car fire in the lot of the Sanford-Brown Institute at 85 Garfield Ave. around 5:20 p.m. on June 15. He said he arrived to find that Cranston Fire was already there, handling the blaze, and he went to talk to the owner of the car. He said the 1975 Volkswagen “Bug” had dealer plates on it and the owner explained that he was in the business of buying, restoring and selling vintage automobiles in his Providence shop. He said he was out with the car on a test drive when he smelled something and then saw thick black smoke coming from under the car. He said he pulled it into the lot at Sanford-Brown to get it off the highway just as flames engulfed the car. Long said the owner provided him with an insurance car for his antique issued through his business, Hi-Tech Auto, on Reservoir Avenue.

EMBARASSED MOM
A 19-year-old Cranston mom had to call the police to get into her SUV at the Cumberland Farms on June 15. Officer Michel Escobar said he responded to the store around 6:45 p.m. and found the woman standing beside her Ford Explorer with her 2-year-old son locked inside. She told Escobar she went inside with the child, who was asleep at the time, and did her shopping. She said she then went back to the car, put the baby inside the car seat without waking him and then closed the door and went around to the driver’s seat when she realized her key was inside the car and she automatically locked the car when she closed the back seat door. She told Escobar she did not have her keys or the code to the 10-year-old vehicle. Escobar said Cranston Fire arrived and managed to get the door open, checked on the well-being of the boy and said everything appeared to be fine. The mother and child drove away from the scene without further incident.

FAMILIAR FACE
Officer Jonathan Quaranto reported he was dispatched to an attempted larceny near Franklin and Webster Avenues around 1:55 a.m. on June 16. The caller told dispatch he discovered the two men rummaging through his vehicle and that an Asian suspect threatened him when he confronted them before they ran away. Quaranto said he was arriving when a man pointed to an Asian man walking quickly down Webster Avenue. He said he stopped the man and saw that he was sweaty and panting and nervous. Quaranto said the man claimed to be going home from “his baby momma’s house” on the corner of Webster and Franklin. He said he patted the man down and put him in the backseat while he was looking into the incident. He said a check on the suspect returned three active bench warrants. He said the caller had followed the suspect in his car and told Quaranto he was positive he was the man he found in his yard because he recognized him from work. The witness told Quaranto he is a guard at the ACI Intake Center.
Quaranto said the suspect told him he had fallen on hard times and had begun smoking crack cocaine again and was unemployed. Quaranto said he took the suspect to headquarters, booked him and then went back to Harris Avenue to get a statement from the witness.
He said the man was an ACI guard and he told Quaranto his dog was barking and he saw the light inside his vehicle was on and went outside to check it out. He said he ran into a tall white guy who was wheeling away with his bicycle and told him to stop, at which time the Asian guy came out from between the vehicles and approached the witness in a threatening way and told the taller guy to take the bike. He said the Asian guy then suddenly yelled to his friend that he recognized the guard from the ACI and they both fled. The guard said he would press charges for the missing bicycle. Sao R. Te, 39, of 39 Payan St. in West Warwick, was charged with attempted larceny in Cranston and was arraigned on similar charges in West Warwick and was remanded to the ACI as a probation violator.