The Blotter: Power faux pas

On Northside Drive, an officer stopped a white car for having dark tinted windows and a tinted license plate cover. “I approached the vehicle, explained to the driver why he was stopped and asked him for his license,” the officer wrote. The driver, a 38-year-old man, reached for his ID and said, “I’m East Point PD SWAT.”

The Atlanta cop said, “Excuse me?”

Again, the man said, “I’m on East Point PD’s SWAT team.” The Atlanta cop asked the man if had anything on him — like his badge or credentials.

“No, I left them at home,” the man said, looking through his wallet.

The Atlanta cop asked, “You don’t have a badge or ID card to which you use to get into your precinct?”

The man said his badge was around a necklace. “You know, the one you wear under your vest? I left it at home with the rest of my stuff.” The man flashed a blue business card.

The Atlanta cop walked back to his patrol car for a moment. The man waved his hand outside the car window, motioning the officer to come back. “Look, I do have a picture of me in uniform,” he said, offering a photo.

The Atlanta cop ran a computer check on the man’s driver’s license, revealing a DUI charge back in 2011, which disqualified him from getting a commercial license. The Atlanta cop called the East Point Police Department and found out the 38-year-old man was no longer employed there, as of 2011. The man was still carrying East Atlanta PD business cards in his wallet, along with a Miranda Rights card. Inside his car, the cop found an orange vest with the word “police” printed on it, a pair of yellow traffic-directing gloves, and a can of “law enforcement use only” pepper spray. The man went to jail, charged with illegal window tinting and impersonating a police officer. The man’s wife showed up and said she was there to claim her car.

Stump speech

An officer received a call about an armed person on Lakewood Avenue. “Upon my arrival, I noticed a crowd of people, mostly teenagers, [leaving] the scene,” the officer noted. The cop in charge told the officer to follow one teen that fit the description, but the teen bolted. The officer chased him in his patrol car. “As soon as I passed the suspect, I attempted to position my patrol vehicle as close to the sidewalk as possible but my patrol vehicle hit a tree stomp [sic],” the officer wrote. With the speed of the vehicle and the officer going over the tree “stomp,” the patrol car slid into a concrete wall. The officer was not injured. However, his patrol car was damaged.

Accidental actress

A City of Atlanta employee said he was working on a documentary on a public walkway on Peachtree Street when a woman knocked over his camera. “I viewed the footage,” an officer wrote. In the video, a 35-year-old heavyset woman, wearing a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt and no bra, made quite a scene. The woman asked the employee why he was recording. The employee “remained respectful and said he was working in the general area,” the cop noted. The irate woman screamed, “Don’t record my motha fucking kids. I’ll take yo camera. We should just take his camera.” On video, the woman repeatedly knocked over the camera, pushed the employee to the ground, and then fled with her small children.

The officer looked around for the woman. One block away, “I saw a congregation of people clapping hands and eating,” the cop noted. “It appeared to be a religious function.” Scanning the crowd, the officer spotted the no-bra Harley-Davidson woman. The pastor confirmed the woman and her kids just arrived. The cop took the woman from the religious function straight to jail on a disorderly conduct charge.

Forgetful cop

A local cop recently returned home from the grocery store, unloaded his groceries, and went inside his home. The next morning, he noticed that all four car doors were open, but there were no signs of forced entry. According to the police report, “All his CDs and cellphone was still laying on the back seat as they were when he departed the vehicle the night before.” Only one item was reported missing: the cop’s Smith & Wesson pistol. The cop believes he forgot to lock his car the night before.

Stupid move of the week

A man said his son lost his cellphone in a suburb about 40 miles north of Atlanta. A week later, the man received a call from a woman saying she had the missing cellphone and wanted to return it. The man was at Turner Field when he got the call and asked the woman to meet him there. According to the man, the woman called back later and said she wanted $75 to return the cellphone. The man said he agreed to pay the $75 to get the woman to meet him at Turner Field. Then, the man received another call from the woman’s sister, saying she was at the Georgia Dome. The man told the caller she was at the wrong location and directed her to the meeting spot. Finally, the man met up with the woman (or her sister), who handed over the son’s cellphone. She wanted $75. The man said he’d give her gas money for bringing the cellphone, but he wasn’t going to pay $75 for a stolen phone. The woman said she would take the man to court, and then she threatened to see him later. The man said the woman who returned the cellphone was heavyset with long brown hair. She wore a blue MARTA shirt with a blue MARTA ID badge.

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