Recent false police reports trouble law enforcement

By Cindy Landrum  

JANUARY 13, 2010 9:19 a.m. (0)

A teenage Mauldin girl told police she was attacked by a stranger in a park on New Year’s Day.

A woman told police she was walking her dog on the Pebble Creek Country Club golf course after midnight when a man sexually assaulted her.

And a man reported he and a friend were forced out of a car on New Year’s Day and thrown into some thorn bushes by four assailants.

While the details of the incidents differed, they all had a common thread – the victims made it all up.

Law enforcement in Greenville County say they’ve seen  a troubling trend – an increase in the number of false police reports.

And when the false reports involve violent and other serious crimes, it keeps investigators who could otherwise be spending their time on real cases, said Sgt. Chris Cooper of the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office’s robbery division.

“We spend as much time on the fake ones as we do the legitimate ones,” he said.

During 2009, the Sheriff’s Office charged 29 people with filing a false police report.

Investigators said they put in 529 hours on those cases at a cost of at least $8,933.76.

And Cooper said those are just the cases where authorities have enough evidence to press charges.

“Those are just a fraction of the reports we still have questions about, where the investigation just doesn’t support the allegation,” he said. “But we don’t have enough evidence to charge somebody with filing a false police report. These cases just remain unsolved.

The Sheriff’s Office arrested two men Tuesday and charged them with filing false police reports in connection with separate bogus carjackings.

Marcus Marcale Lamar, 27, of 120 Old Bleachery Rd., Greenville, told deputies he was assaulted on Nov. 29 as he tried to get in his vehicle parked at a club on White Horse Road. He told investigators the driver of a van offered him a ride and they tried to follow his stolen car.

John Coleman Crenshaw, 25, of   103 Crane Ave., Greenville, told investigators he and a friend were forced out of his vehicle and were thrown into some bramble bushes.

Authorities found the car down a 20-foot embankment nearby. A witness told deputies he saw two men trying to push a vehicle out of a ditch. When the witness drove by again, he saw the same two men coming out of the ditch were the vehicle was. One of the men asked the witness to call a wrecker.

Investigators said they believe both men fabricated their carjacking stories in attempts to conceal that they wrecked their cars.

Cooper said people file false police reports for different reasons.

“They may report a robbery because they lost money gambling or spent it in a way they shouldn’t have. They may report a carjacking because they’ve wrecked their car and have no insurance or were intoxicated,” he said. “Most have this misguided thought of getting out of something. Their immediate goal is to solve a personal problem.”

But their stories often unravel because they don’t think of the smaller details, he said.

“They come up with a quick cover story and think they’ve got all their bases covered,” Cooper said.

Many confess to making their story up when confronted by authorities, he said.

Falsely reporting a misdemeanor carries up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Falsely reporting a felony carries up to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine.