The Blotter December 25 2002

An 89-year-old woman said some jewelry was stolen from her bag in her apartment on Peachtree Road. She wasn’t sure when the theft occurred. The elderly woman said she keeps the jewelry in a shopping bag next to her at all times. The only time she’s not near the bag is when she goes to the beauty parlor. No one is in her apartment when she goes to the beauty parlor. She said she has people who come and help her during the day, but she doesn’t consider them suspects because they’ve been with her for five years. The jewelry includes: a platinum-and-diamond ring worth $22,309, a 14-karat gold watch worth $3,396, and a platinum center-cut ring worth $20,558.

An 18-year-old woman said the father of her newborn child came to her apartment on Boulevard at 11 a.m. She met him at the door and said he wasn’t welcome to come inside. The father, age 19, slapped her face twice and twisted her arm while attempting to push his way inside the apartment. He didn’t get inside. The child wasn’t there anyway. The 18-year-old woman called police at 11:03 a.m., but didn’t wait for the cops to show up because she had a dentist appointment. Later, the father called and said he was taking the child’s Christmas presents back to Perimeter Mall. She called Perimeter Mall security guards. They said they couldn’t do anything about the father unless she filed a police report. So she called police and filed a report against the father of her child.

A 25-year-old man said he made arrangements with a woman in an apartment on Montgomery Street to wash some of his clothes. He paid her $4 for this service. When he brought his clothes to her apartment, she was asleep. A fat man and an average-sized man confronted the 25-year-old. The fat man grabbed him in a bear hug, and the average-sized man slapped him. “They claimed he brought too much drama to the apartment,” noted the officer. They told him never to return. The 25-year-old wants to press charges.

An officer saw a Chevy Silverado laying drag in the intersection of Buford Highway and Armour Drive. As a result, the intersection was filled with smoke. The officer pulled over the Silverado and spoke with the driver, a 28-year-old man from Immokalee, Fla. The driver “moved very slowly and acted like he didn’t understand ... and couldn’t follow instructions,” noted the officer. The driver smelled of booze. The officer administered some sobriety tests. During each test, the man complained about a different medical problem: sore feet, problems with his left eye, couldn’t walk a straight line. The officer looked inside the man’s car and found a half-filled bottle of Smirnoff vodka. The floorboard on the driver’s side was soaked with beer. The driver was arrested for DUI. The officer reported that en route to jail, the man said, “... he didn’t like me because I’m an American and I couldn’t catch Osama bin Laden.”

At City Hall East on Ponce de Leon Avenue, a female report-taker for the Atlanta Police Department was completing an incident report over the telephone from a 23-year-old man in Washington, D.C. The man said he spoke with a 911 operator who said the report could serve as identification. The report-taker said that was incorrect, and the report could not serve as identification. The man got angry and said, “I’m going to get you.” The report-taker felt threatened and reported the incident.

A 54-year-old woman left her apartment on Memorial Drive and got into her ‘98 Volkswagen Jetta. She drove a few blocks and realized that the car wasn’t driving in a stable manner. She pulled over and looked at the car. There were five nails, each 3 inches long, in the rear tire. The woman said she’s had several disputes with neighbors about parking spaces at her apartment complex. She thinks one of her neighbors drove the nails into her tire.

On Hartford Avenue, a 33-year-old woman said earlier that night, her sister and husband were arrested for fighting. A female friend of the 33-year-old was upset about the incident. The friend drove over to the 33-year-old’s house and got out of her car, clutching a firebomb in her hand. She broke the front window on the 33-year-old’s red car and tossed the firebomb inside. She fled before police arrived. The fire department was called to extinguish the fire.

At a Mrs. Winner’s Chicken restaurant on Ashby Street, a 28-year-old manager told a redheaded female employee to leave for the day. The female employee made a phone call. Shortly thereafter, her boyfriend walked into the restaurant and punched the manager, knocking him to the floor. The boyfriend hit and kicked the manager until someone pulled him off. During this time, the female employee went to the cash register and took out some money. She and the boyfriend fled from the restaurant. Police looked for them, but to no avail.

A woman said a 41-year-old man lives in the same building as she does in a complex on Pharr Court South. He was an attorney and said he was good at investing money. Over a six-month period, she gave him $100,000 to invest for her. After a while, she noticed that he was buying new cars and things. She started to suspect that he might be spending her money on himself. She demanded that he show proof that her money was invested. The man wouldn’t provide any documentation. She asked for her money back. He didn’t respond. The man was arrested.

All items in The Blotter are taken from actual Atlanta police reports and are public record.??