Police Dispatch

Apprehensive Experience

Foothills Beat March 7, 2:40 p.m.

A meth-addled woman—convinced that strangers at Walgreens were trailing her—basically called deputies on herself and forced them to jail her, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.

The woman called dispatch from the store, saying she believed her life was in danger because "people were keeping her from going home." She admitted she was coming down from a drug binge but insisted she wasn't hallucinating "these individuals on every corner," nor a random person who "just looked at her."

Sheriff's deputies found her on a bench in front of Walgreens with several other people (whom she said had also been "following her around"). She started talking rapidly to the deputies, "bounc(ing) from one subject to another" (and bouncing around physically). She readily disclosed she'd been "slamming" some crystal methamphetamine she'd received from a guy named Melvin at a tire shop.

At one point during her interaction with deputies, a man in the parking lot had to change a car's tire, and she freaked out—identifying him as "Melvin" and deciding that deputies were "working with" him to get her in more trouble. (He was not Melvin.)

The woman was placed in a patrol vehicle for her own safety during a search of her backpack, which she said contained a letter proving that everything she'd been saying about people following her was true. Instead deputies found several small baggies of the type often used for drugs—but they held too little residue for testing. Then the woman suddenly became afraid the deputies on scene weren't real law enforcement (despite their badges, patrol vehicle and uniforms). She nonsensically demanded to use their radio to call all the county's "real" deputies to that location. Deputies told the woman she was actually free to leave at any time if she'd just like to go to the Crisis Response Center. But she refused to get out of the patrol vehicle—and then, apparently wanting to get arrested, she declared that the baggies in her backpack here hers and had contained heroin (meaning they were drug paraphernalia). Thus deputies had to pull her from the vehicle to handcuff her—but she struggled against them so hard that they dropped her, she scraped her shoulder and she had to be restrained because she wouldn't stop kicking. During this whole parking-lot scene, she was screaming at Walgreens patrons to save her from the "fake" deputies. She continued screaming even once she was finally en route to jail, saying anything that came to mind, from the names of various landmarks to the direction in which they were driving. She was still convinced that people were following her—even drivers of other cars on the road—and she was still convinced that the deputies weren't legit.

She continued to scream as she was booked into jail.