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Woman could be arrested for keeping ball


southsider2k5

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Don't some families have anything better to do?

 

Game of catch ended by neighbor allegedly stealing a ball thrown into her yard

 

 

LaPORTE - A LaPorte woman could go to jail for taking a softball and not giving it back to two girls who were playing catch.

 

"Even though it's a softball, when you take somebody else's property it doesn't matter what the object is," said LaPorte Police Chief Dave Gariepy.

 

He said that about 5 p.m. Tuesday, Emily Ballesteros and Stephanie Bollinger were playing catch in Ballesteros' front yard in the 1600 block of Stone Lake Drive when the ball got away from them and rolled onto a neighbor's property line.

 

Police said Debra Lower, 46, allegedly came out in her pajamas, grabbed the ball, smiled at the girls and went back inside with the ball.

 

Emily's mother, Leslie Medeiros, asked Lower to return the ball. When she refused, Medeiros called police.

 

In his report, officer Pat Hemphill said he questioned Lower at her residence and she repeatedly denied taking the ball.

 

Hemphill said he talked to the two girls and they insisted Lower had their ball.

 

In his report, Hemphill told Lower that he didn't believe her and warned her she could be charged.

 

The case will be given to prosecutors to decide whether to seek a warrant for her arrest on Class D felony theft.

 

Gariepy said the families have a history of feuding and added the decision by Hemphill to pursue charges might be a way of forcing both sides to start getting along.

 

"He acted within his rights given the circumstances," Gariepy said.

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I had a woman like this in my neighborhood when I was growing up. If we stepped one foot onto her property for any reason, she would yell at us. The biggest problem was that her yard bordered a large empty field that we would play in all the time. She tried to claim the field was part of her property until informed otherwise.

 

One time she did steal a ball my friend and I were playing with. It turned into a shouting match between her and my friend's mom before the cops showed up.

 

Seeing police cars in their driveway eventually became a common occurance. Mostly because she insisted that we were trespassing. The cops basically told us that she was a pyscho and to just ignore her...

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