The Blotter January 13 2005

At Greenbriar Mall, the manager of a store was ringing up a customer. Suddenly, the manager smelled smoke. She walked into the back room and realized smoke was coming from the microwave. According to the report, "A small child had turned the microwave on, while a deposit bag containing $911 dollars was in it."

All the money in the deposit bag was damaged and could not be recovered.

On Christmas Day, a middle-aged man walked into a gas station on Peachtree Road. He grabbed an Icehouse beer and left 82 cents on the counter. Then, he pulled out a butter knife and screamed, "That's all I have!" The store owner said the beer cost $1.19. The man refused to pay any more than 82 cents.

The man left the gas station, walking north on Peachtree. An officer found the man and arrested him for shoplifting. The man, who had body odor and a full beard, spent Christmas Day in jail.

A man with his penis exposed was standing in the driveway of a bank at the intersection of Monroe Drive and Ponce de Leon Avenue. The man was urinating. As two officers neared, the man said he had bladder problems and couldn't wait. The man, who smelled of booze, refused to give his name. During arrest, the man kicked, cursed, and spit at the officers. "I have TB," he said repeatedly. Also, he tried to head-butt the officers. He slammed his head on the car doors, saying the officers were beating him. He threatened to kill the officers and their families. And he kept spitting on anyone who approached him.

Then, the man appeared to pass out, and he was carried into Fulton County Jail. When the man woke up, he apologized, saying he was on drugs. He also said his name is actually Ben Laden. (No, not his real name.)

On Rebel Forrest Drive, a 32-year-old woman was sitting in the kitchen, talking to her husband (from whom she is separated). They argued about who owned the bedroom set. The husband got mad and threw the bedroom set out the back door, into the yard. (This furniture-flinging also smashed the porch.)

Then, the husband set fire to the bedroom set.

The fire department showed up and extinguished the fire. The husband fled.

On Sylvan Way, a 19-year-old woman said her older sister wanted some money to buy toilet paper. She refused to give her any money. She said her older sister got mad and slapped and pushed her.

The older sister said her younger sister hit first and was pulling her hair, and that's why she hit her. The older sister is 28 years old.

Both sisters were ticketed for fighting. During a search, police found a bag of marijuana on the older sister. She went to jail.

An officer responded to a 911 hang-up call from an apartment complex on Ponce de Leon Place. When the officer arrived, there was a man standing in the street — and the man was unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it on and off. The officer asked, "Did you call 911?" The man said, "Yes, about the drugs, everyone has drugs."

"OK," said the officer. The man was extremely drunk. His eyes were glazed in a yellow coating, with hints of red. His pupils were dilated.

The officer asked where the man lived. The man said he lived in one of the apartments. The officer said, "Why don't you go inside, you have had plenty to drink and I think you would be better off inside your house and getting some sleep."

The man walked inside his apartment. As the officer pulled away, the man walked outside again. The man was yelling and accusing everyone of being a drug dealer, including two neighbors.

The man, age 38, was jailed for pedestrian under the influence.

A woman checked into a hotel on Parkway Drive. While she was lying down on the bed, she felt a needle stick her hand. She looked around and found a used needle under the mattress. She went to the hospital to get checked out.

An officer was investigating drug activity on Chivers Street. He saw two men talking. When the officer approached, one man said the police were coming. The other man turned around and fumbled with his pants. The officer wrote, "... that's when I saw him reach back into his pants in the groaning area ... ."

The officer said, "Why are you trying to hide the marijuana from me?" The man said he was just trying to sell the marijuana so he could buy his son some Christmas presents.

The officer wrote, "That's when I retrieved the marijuana from his growing area, which came to a count of seven bags ... ."

The man, age 26, went to jail.

A 49-year-old man said he was tortured by two men on Pryor Street. The two men put out cigarette butts on top of his head, he said, and they put a hot iron on both sides of his butt. The men also cut his stomach.

The man said the torture occurred last week. The officer asked why the man waited so long to call police. The man said he was forced to stay at the location, and he didn't want police to look for the torturers because they would know he called police.

The officer noted that the man had "some clear signs of mental illness" and his story wasn't consistent. But the man did have cuts on his stomach. He went to Grady Memorial Hospital.

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