Suspect selling laundry detergent in parking lot blames slumbering nephew

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River Falls police were called to Kwik Trip on North Main Street Monday afternoon, Sept. 3, for a man there selling Tide laundry detergent out of his car. The man drove away before officers arrived but the car was soon spotted parked outside Walgreen’s drugstore.

Inside, an officer found the suspect, a 45-year-old city of River Falls man, by the pharmacy. He denied selling Tide without a seller’s permit and said he wanted to use a phone to call his sister.

The officer held out his cellphone, but the man said he didn’t know his sister’s number.

Meanwhile, the car parked outside Walgreen’s was found to have lots of Tide containers in the back seat.

Questioned again, the man said the car belonged to Tommy and that Tommy was the one selling the Tide outside Kwik Trip.

Long story short, police never came face to face with Tommy but they found a phone number in the car that connected them to a woman named Belinda. She said she had a son named Tommy.

Tommy came to the phone. He said he just woke up, that the police suspect it was in fact his uncle, and that he was certainly not the illegal Tide salesman since he was sleeping peacefully until the police phone call.

The 45-year-old man was thus booked at the police station, and given fines for obstruction, soliciting without a license and driving after suspension. The car belonged to his sister Belinda. It was towed to the city’s impound lot.

For more, please see Police Beat in the Sept. 5 print edition of the River Falls Journal.

Tags: river falls, news, crime