Shoe polish scribbler arrested for stolen vehicle, drugs, theft

WASHINGTON CITY – Washington City Police arrested a Kearns man Monday for possession of a stolen vehicle and drugs, along with identity and financial card theft, after officers responded to a report of an intoxicated man in the Payless ShoeSource parking lot, located at 740 W. Telegraph Road.

Eric Ramirez, 25, was arrested and charged with one second-degree felony for possession of a stolen vehicle, one second-degree felony for drug possession, three third-degree felonies for identity theft, seven third-degree felonies for unlawful acquisition of a finance card, and one class-B misdemeanor for drug paraphernalia.

According to the probable cause statement filed by Washington City Police Officer Jerran Carter in connection with the arrest, upon arriving at the Payless shoe store on a complaint of an intoxicated man, officers found Ramirez in the parking lot writing on the windshield of a vehicle with shoe polish – though it was unclear exactly what he was writing.

“What he was writing on the windshield was mostly gibberish – nothing they could really make heads or tails of,” Washington City Police spokesman Ed Kantor said. “It might have been of a religious nature – really hard to pin it down to any one subject – it was just some gibberish he was scrawling on there.”

After the license plate of the vehicle was run through dispatch, it was discovered that the vehicle had been reported stolen.

In conducting a search of the vehicle before impound, officers found heroin and several items of drug paraphernalia.

“The male admitted to using heroin today,” Carter wrote in the statement, “and explained he had taken the vehicle from the Salt Lake area without the owner’s knowledge.”

In addition to the drugs, multiple items of identity were found belonging to the vehicle’s owner and an unknown female, along with seven financial cards that did not belong to Ramirez.

Ramirez was arrested and booked into Washington County’s Purgatory Correctional Facility.

Ramirez’s drug-related charges were enhanced for being in a drug-free zone, as McDonald’s play area, Wal-Mart arcade and Paul Mitchell Hair School were all within 1,000 feet.

According to booking information, Ramirez’s bail stands at $70,623.

Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

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