2/7/06, 1000 hours, Rolling Stolen, 1000 W. North Temple St.

“An officer was leaving the 7-11 [sic] at this location and observed a car pull into the parking lot,” Salt Lake City police reported. “The car drew his attention and he ran the plate as he pulled out.”

Admit it. When you see a cop roll into a 7-Eleven, it’s tempting to assume he’s more interested in getting his mouth around a Krispy Kreme than trolling the city for scum. But recall the last time you dropped into the “Sev” for a 40-ouncer of Old Milwaukee or some rolling papers. Even if you were on the up and up, looking around, it wasn’t exactly the soccer-mom crowd, now was it?

To wit, the car came back as stolen. And as a testament to the arresting officer’s keener-than-keen Spidey sense, a search yielded sundry concealed knives, brass knuckles and drug paraphernalia from the two perps, one of whom had several outstanding warrants for weapons charges.

In a city that never sleeps, don’t begrudge a copper his cup of Joe.

2/8/06, 0038 hours, Assault/Vandalism, 428 W. 300 South

Salt Lake City police were summoned to the Rio Grande Hotel, where a 45-year-old white male wanted to order a pizza, but his cell phone wouldn’t work.

A responding officer reported: “I arrived at the motel and saw blood on the lobby floor and the lobby office windows broken out. The victim … said that the suspect [a 5-foot-9-inch, 250-pound lodger] had come into the office to use the emergency phone to order a pizza. The victim … told him that the phone was for emergency purposes only and that he could use the pay phone. The victim then said that [the suspect] came into the office and hit him repeatedly and then broke the windows with his hands …”

Police later entered the man’s room, and told him that medical help was on hand to treat his wounds, but he first needed to be handcuffed. The suspect then reportedly “took a fighting stance and made fists with his hands.” Officers repeatedly ordered the man to turn around and face the wall, but to no avail. A whack on the forearm from an officer’s baton ultimately did the trick, and the man was taken into custody with no further incident.

Meanwhile, the victim complained of bruises and pain, but assured officers he was none the worse for wear. That, despite a security videotape that allegedly showed the suspect “punch and kick the victim 12-13 times.” At the hospital later, the suspect reportedly boasted that he was “a black belt, trained in Tae Kwan Do and that his hands were certified weapons.”

2/8/06, 1700 hours, Aggravated Assault, 1040 E. Sugarmont Dr.

Leave it to heterosexual angst to outshine what was once Fairmont Park’s biggest threat to law and order: not-so-discreet homosexual hookups.

Salt Lake City police responded to a call of juveniles with guns at the Fairmont skatepark in Sugar House. Participants in an earlier melee scattered as police arrived, but about a half-dozen of them were rounded up in the surrounding area.

Piecing it together, police determined that an 18-year-old male suspected of instigating the fracas was displeased to learn his juvenile girlfriend had been secretly seeing another young man and, according to the female, convinced her to “set up” a meeting with her ex “for the purpose of assaulting him in retaliation.” The girl’s current beau then allegedly assaulted the unfortunate former paramour, who fled and called on a cousin at a nearby restaurant for backup. They returned to “talk things over” with the suspect, who was accompanied by two other males. Brass knuckles came to bear in the ensuing skirmish, which ended in a no decision when one tough allegedly brandished a loaded .357 caliber revolver.

All this, over a girl!