The Blotter June 22 2005

A BEARDED, MIDDLE-AGED MAN was standing in the front lobby of a retirement home on Joseph P. Lowery Boulevard. The man was sweating, and he didn’t respond when people talked to him. A police officer arrived and noted that the man appeared to be on drugs. “He would put his pants on and then pull them back off and grab his penis, saying that something was biting him,” the officer wrote. Medics said the man’s heart rate was dangerously high. The man, age 48, was charged with indecency and taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.

TWO OFFICERS were patrolling Hosea L. Williams Drive. They saw a thin man holding a big stick. The man swung the stick at a car, yelling, “You can’t have them!” “Put the stick down,” one officer said. The man complied, but he kept yelling about his “raps.” Angrily, the man walked toward one officer. The second officer grabbed him from behind and pushed him into the patrol car. The man had a backpack filled with papers, which he called his “raps.” Others have made millions from stealing his raps, he said. He kept screaming that the police officers were stealing his raps. At the jail, it took three police officers and two jail officers to get the man inside. Once inside, the man sat on a bench and said he would calm down if someone signed a property form for his backpack because he needed a signed release for evidence. An officer signed the paper, and the man calmed down.

Then, a commercial for Delta appeared on the television in the jail. The man jumped up and screamed that he was going to miss his flight to Washington, D.C., to meet the president and rap for him.

The man tried to run, but police stopped him. He was put in an isolation room at the jail.

A BALD MAN who weighs about 275 pounds walked into a gas station on Metropolitan Parkway. He pushed a rack out of his way, saying he could not fit. The man asked the store clerk, “Don’t you know muscle when you see it?” The clerk replied, “No, you’re fat.” “Bitch,” the man said. The clerk refused to serve him. So he pushed a rack onto the floor, breaking it. Then, the man got into a white Astro van and left.

ON PEACHTREE MEMORIAL DRIVE, a 39-year-old man said his live-in girlfriend came home drunk. The girlfriend threw her keys, which hit his head. She threw her shoes at him, which hit his back. Then, the girlfriend got a knife and cut up the curtains. Also, she broke some windows. She left in her silver SUV.

AROUND 2 A.M., a man heard noises outside the front door of his apartment on Peachtree Hills Circle. He looked through his peephole, and saw his neighbor urinating on his front door. (The neighbor is a pony-tailed man.) The urine ran down the door and seeped into his apartment. The man took pictures of the urine on the floor and in the hallway. He said he’d had problems with this neighbor in the past. Police arrived and knocked on the neighbor’s door, but he didn’t answer.

AN OFFICER went to a homeless shelter on Peachtree Street to deal with a dispute. One man, age 35, said a second man hit him with a rock, after they argued about a bed in the shelter.The second man said the first man approached his bed and started carrying on about how dirty it was. He told him to go away. The first man said they should take it outside. Once they were outside, the first man started rummaging through his bag, and the second man thought he was grabbing a knife, so he picked up a rock and hit him on the shoulder.

The officer went back and spoke with the first man again. His story changed. He said he asked the man outside to warn him not to mess with him. He said he was going to tell the second man to watch, as he drew an “X” on the ground and put a curse on him, so the spirits and gods would deal with him. He said it didn’t matter what the police did about the situation, the gods would deal with him.

Then, the first man showed a printed e-mail to the police officer. It was from an unknown woman stating that she did not appreciate the literature he left in reference to sex with her daughter and that she had contacted the Atlanta Police Department. The officer asked, “Why are you showing this to me?” “He explained that this is another person who does not listen and misunderstands what he says,” the officer wrote.

No charges were filed. The second man just wanted to be left alone.

A GRANDMOTHER on Springdale Road said her grandson got mad because he couldn’t find his shoes. The grandson, age 19, tore a door off the hinges and tossed it outside. He smashed a TV and tossed a glass vase against the wall. He turned over the washing machine.Police found the grandson walking down the street, with a shovel in his hand. “I don’t need you, you can just shoot me,” the grandson said. The grandson tried to bite one officer on the leg. He went to jail.

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