Drunken Student In Christmas Treejack Bust

DECEMBER 22--A drunken Ohio college student is facing a disorderly conduct rap for attempting to chop down a 30-foot pine tree that he intended to use as a Christmas tree.

Grant Ison, a 21-year-old Miami University student, was collared last Sunday at 2:15 AM after his harebrained attempt to bring down the tree, which was in an alley off an Oxford street. When confronted by a cop--who asked Ison whether he was aware that the tree was 30 feet tall--the student replied, “I was going to just cut it down then cut off the top.”

Ison lives around the corner from where he attempted his urban lumberjack act.

When an Oxford Police Department officer wondered why he would try such a thing, Ison “replied that he was pretty hammered right now.” Not surprisingly, the patrolman “detected an odor of alcoholic beverage emitting from his breath,” according to a police report.

Ison explained that he had been using an ax, but a friend ran off with it when police arrived on the scene of the attempted treejacking. Cops noted that a second tree, height unspecified, had also been damaged during Ison’s early morning tree hunt. (2 pages)