And just think: Black Friday isn’t here yet

When a reader wrote last week to inquire about a retail employee in Hilliard who seemingly became unhinged and assaulted customers, the Justice Insider initially suspected it marked the annual onset of holidays gone haywire.

But it appears that mindaltering substances, not reality-bending checkout lines, were behind the incident.

Hilliard police were called about 8 p.m. last Tuesday to the Target store on Trueman Boulevard because of a fight between an employee and a customer.

Our tipster heard the racket, writing that she first thought the ruckus was a parent reprimanding an unruly child. Then she was told by another customer that an employee “was acting belligerent and HITTING the customers,” she wrote.

According to police, that’s pretty much what happened.

Police said a 20-year-old man “became very confrontational towards the customers and began to push several of them.”

When a man tried to intervene to prevent an assault, the employee punched him in the face, police said. The victim was not seriously hurt.

Police said their investigation revealed that shortly before the employee went off on customers, he and a coworker had gone out to the co-worker’s car to smoke marijuana on their break.

Earlier that same day, Delaware County deputies were called by a homeowner in the Scioto Reserve neighborhood who reported that there was a possible gunman approaching a house.

“There was NOT a gunman in the Scioto Reserve neighborhood,” deputies later wrote on Facebook. “We responded within minutes and determined it was a non-uniformed (rural) postal worker with a hand-held scanner in his possession.”.

Ever belatedly discover that your voice mail still is informing callers that are you are out of the office and on vacation, even though that vacation, sadly, came and went months earlier?

The folks who run the TriCounty Regional Jail that takes prisoners from Champaign, Madison and Union counties could stand to freshen up their voice mail.

Dispatch Reporter Holly Zachariah discovered that part of the automated message on the jail phone system explains, “Our menu options change on May 26, 2008. Please listen to the four new options.”

If you want to get an idea of how big the heroin problem is in central Ohio, Dublin police are hosting a community forum on Dec. 9 that might be worth your while.

The event will include representatives from the school district, Franklin County sheriff’s office, attorney general’s office and several other agencies. Speakers will discuss local crime and drug-abuse statistics, recount personal stories and offer prevention strategies and tips for parents on how to spot signs of heroin abuse.

“We want to educate the community,” Dublin Police Chief Heinz von Eckartsberg said. “I think a lot of people are surprised to learn that heroin is here, in Dublin, right now, and it is affecting us all, whether or not someone close to you is struggling with addiction. A large number of our property crimes are directly tied to heroin abuse and addiction.”

The event will run from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Dublin Community Recreation Center, 5600 Post Rd.

Theodore Decker