River Falls police nab roadside bottle smasher

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Forty-ounce glass beer bottles were found smashed in the 200 block of Riverside Drive late last month on four separate occasions. A 50-year-old Minnesota homeless man was arrested last week Thursday night, April 26, outside the Bye, Goff and Rohde law office for criminal trespassing and have open containers of liquor. The man insisted he didn’t litter but put his empties in the law firm’s dumpster. After his arrest, however, the broken beer bottle debris on Riverside Drive stopped – temporarily.

But Police Chief Roger Leque reported the bottle smashing in that same area of Riverside Drive resumed early this week. More broken bottle fragments were found Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, May 1 and 2.

Leque said a patrol officer was posted in an unmarked car to stake out the area Wednesday night. The strategy had an immediate payoff.

Just before 10 p.m. Wednesday, May 2, Leque said that officer pulled over a male suspect who drove by and threw out a bag of 40-ounce beer bottles that smashed on the pavement of Riverside.

The suspect, Gregory J. Estlund, 62, 1480 Riverside Drive, was cited for drunk driving-2nd offense and littering. He allegedly admitted to at least one other instance of tossing out beer bottles in a bag while driving on Riverside late at night. He told an officer it just seemed like a good place to dump the bottles.

Leque said Estlund was taken to county jail in Hudson.

“We’re really glad we could identify and finally catch the person responsible,” Leque said. “Having broken glass all over on the road like that is a driving hazard.”

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