The Blotter: Holiday edition

Holiday shopping can drive you nuts, especially at a big mall — circling for a parking space, dodging hordes of screaming kids lining up for the Pink Pig, the tinsel, holiday tunes cranked up so loud your teeth clench. The flashing bargain signs strain your eyeballs. There’s nothing “holiday” or “joy” or “good cheer” at the mall. You have no idea what to buy for the people on your list. You should have stayed home and ordered everything online. You run back to your car ... if you can ever find it.

WHO’S NAUGHTY TO ST. NICK? At a shopping mall, a 63-year-old man was playing Santa. During a busy afternoon filled with dozens of kids sitting on his lap, asking for presents, and drooling on his beard, he needed a restroom break. Santa said he left his black Android phone in Santa’s chair outside of Macy’s while he went to the restroom. When he returned, his phone was gone. Santa said four boys between the ages of 6 and 13 took a photo with him just before his bathroom break. A manager said the four boys were the only ones close enough to Santa’s chair to snatch his phone. Stealing from Santa? An eternal lump of coal for each of you!

SHOPPER’S OVERLOAD: At another shopping mall, a man staggered through the parking lot and startled a cop sitting in his patrol car. The man was “yelling something and pointing at my police car,” the cop wrote. “I could not understand what he was saying.” A female officer on patrol said she clearly heard the man screaming, “Fuck the police.” Also, the man was “screaming at random people in the parking lot, using the ‘f’ word often.” Together, the two cops detained the man. “He had some whitish froth around his mouth. He was putting his cigarette out on his wrist, burning his wrist,” the male cop wrote. “He kept screaming two words: ‘Metallica’ and ‘Heavy Metal.’” (OK, Mr. Officer, that’s three words.) Cops arrested the man and put him in the patrol car. “He kept screaming the two words ‘Metallica’ and ‘Heavy Metal’ all the way to city jail.”

TREE SHENANIGANS: In Old Fourth Ward, someone stole a fully decorated Christmas tree from the front porch of a man’s home — and he got the whole thing on surveillance tape. The footage shows a man in a gray coat and jeans yanking the Christmas tree off of the porch at around 5:30 a.m. “The suspect just unplugs the tree’s lights and carries the tree away,” the cop wrote. The Christmas tree, including ornaments, is worth more than $100.

UP ON THE ROOFTOP: In Southwest Atlanta, someone broke into a Captain D’s restaurant by chopping a hole into the roof and then sawing a hole into the kitchen ceiling. The suspects turned off the restaurant’s security alarm and left the front door open — but they didn’t steal a single thing.

When the Captain D’s manager showed up for work, he saw the roof hole and freaked out. An officer walked through the restaurant’s kitchen and noticed “a big gap in the ceiling” and sheetrock debris all over the floor. The manager looked around several times and confirmed that absolutely nothing was stolen. No suspects.

HOLIDAY PLAYER: Red for all my sexy elf girlfriends! In Garden Hills, a man allegedly tried to steal 13 red women’s bras, six pairs women’s panties (also red), and three red women’s lingerie sets. He stuffed all that sexy red stuff into his black backpack. All that red lingerie is worth hundreds of dollars. Cops stopped the 52-year-old man and took him to jail on a shoplifting charge.

BUMPY SLEIGH RIDE: A man was expecting online presents he ordered to be delivered to his home on La France Avenue. When the delivery truck showed up, the driver got flustered and the tall truck slammed into the man’s power poles, dragging down the power lines. We’re betting the driver got canned.

DUMB MR. GRINCH: A 20-year-old woman said she was rushed to the emergency room. The woman claims that during the rush, her male friend stole her ATM card. Then he used her card and charged $448 worth of holiday presents on Amazon — extra foolish, he put the order in his full name and had it delivered to his address near East Point. The woman took out a warrant on her male friend for fraud.

WASTED SANTA WANNABE? One morning in Woodland Hills, a drunk man banged on a woman’s apartment door, brandishing a knife and asking for his wife. The man had a white beard and wore a white shirt and red plaid pajama bottoms. Several hours later, the woman said the same disheveled man returned to her Lenox Road apartment and walked back and forth with his hands stuffed into his pajama bottoms. Then he sat down in a chair outside the woman’s window and started masturbating. She has no idea who this charmer is. Cops took him to jail on a indecent exposure charge.

Items in the Blotter are taken from actual Atlanta police reports. The Blotter Diva compiles them and puts them into her own words.