Local man sees unintended consequence of surprise

Friday afternoon, a local businessman was part of a scheme to show a co-worker a good time for her birthday. While the rest of her friends set up shop at Salt Creek Grill for a lunch, the man’s job was to drive the birthday girls around blindfolded.

When they arrived at the mall he received a call telling him to kill time so he stopped by SCV Bank. The teller at the bank recognized the man, who was a customer.  A passerby, however, saw the blindfolded woman and called the Sheriff’s Department.

After a string of bank robberies, the Sheriff’s Department did not take the call lightly, and sent a convoy of deputies over to SCV bank in a hurry. Contact with the CHP was also made, and they began locking down the freeway. A CHP airplane in the area was also redirected to the scene.

After the whole situation was figured out, the man was deeply apologetic and therefore deputies believe he had no intentions of causing an emergency.

No charges will be filed against the man, but the Sheriff’s Department took the opportunity to warn people to be very careful where they do things like that. Responding to an emergency is dangerous to deputies and if they would have thought that the blindfolded woman was in danger, the man could have been in harm’s way.