The Blotter March 07 2001

A security guard at Lenox Square mall was riding the escalator up from the food court when he passed a 26-year-old man who was riding the escalator down.
The 26-year-old turned and slapped the security guard twice, hard enough to cause red marks on his back. According to the police report, the 26-year-old said he did this “due to Boss Hog telling him to do so.”
He was charged with simple battery and taken to jail.

A 31-year-old Decatur man called police and reported that his black ‘98 Ford Explorer had been vandalized. He suspects a 36-year-old man in a black leather jacket. He said he and the 36-year-old had an altercation earlier, during which the 36-year-old became irate and pushed him. He added that he is working as a DJ and the suspect is not.
An officer responded to a fight call at a restaurant on Peachtree Road. When he arrived, the restaurant owner said a male customer pushed him after the customer was asked to leave.
“As I was getting ready to leave to look for the perpetrator, one of [the owner’s] employees came running around the building and told [the owner] that his office was on fire,” the officer reported.
Smoke was pouring from the owner’s office.
The officer radioed the fire department. The owner and a manager ran into the building and started to spray at the fire with small extinguishers. The officer ran in behind them, saying that the small extinguishers weren’t going to work. The fire had spread outside the office. The officer convinced them to go outside.
Almost immediately after exiting the building, the owner darted back inside and once again attempted to control the fire with a small extinguisher.
“I convinced him to leave again as smoke was filling the building,” the officer wrote. “As I began talking to the employees who were on the scene, [the owner’s] ammunition that he kept in his office began to explode. I advised Fire [department] that there was ammunition as well as live alligators in the restaurant.”
Employees told police that the owner smoked a pipe, which he often emptied into the wastebasket next to his desk in the office. Employees said there had been many wastebasket fires started this way, but all were caught before anything major was allowed to start.
On Boulevard Drive, a 45-year-old man said his roommate, a 37-year-old woman, woke up in a bad mood and attacked him with a knife, causing lacerations to both his hands.
The woman said she was seated, firing up a crack rock, when the 45-year-old struck her head with something. She said that she picked up the knife to defend herself. She added that the male roommate was mad because she wouldn’t sleep with him. Both were charged with aggravated assault.
A 54-year-old man was detained at a grocery store on Piedmont Avenue after employees saw him put a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a rib-eye boneless steak in his jacket.
The employees brought the man to a store office and called police. The man, who is homeless, attempted to leave the office and fought with the employees. The man then pulled out a can of bug spray and sprayed two employees in the eye.
The man was taken to jail. His belongings were turned in as property; among them was a flask, Army discharge papers, a Yahtzee electronic game, two mini-flashlights and a tape measure.
At an apartment complex on Metropolitan Parkway, a 42-year-old woman said an acquaintance, a 38-year-old woman who lives in the same complex, punched her in the mouth, causing cuts and swelling.
The 38-year-old woman is mentally handicapped and told police that people were out to assassinate former President Bill Clinton and President George Bush. She also pulled her shirt over her head. She was charged with misdemeanor battery. She refused medical treatment, but social workers took her to a hospital.