The Blotter September 06 2006

A POLICE OFFICER saw a 34-year-old man standing on the corner of Broad Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The man was stopping passersby and showing them an item in his hand. The officer walked up and asked, “What’s that in your hand?” The man answered by shaking a gold necklace in a small baggie and saying, “Cheese.” The officer asked, “Are you selling the jewelry?” The man replied, “No, are you selling?” The officer told him to move off the sidewalk. The man refused. He stared at the officer and said, “I like white women, too.” He repeated this comment several times. For about five minutes the man refused to move. Then he darted into the road, causing cars to stop. The man was jailed for disorderly conduct.

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A MAN WALKED INTO A HOTEL LOBBY on West Peachtree Street. A clerk asked if she could help him. “Fuck you, bitch,” the man replied. The clerk told him to leave. The man refused, adding that he was there to get coffee. Again, the clerk told him to leave. The man punched the clerk’s arm. Then, he took a cup of coffee and threw it on her leg. Then, the man yelled so loudly that other hotel guests got alarmed. The man turned toward the guests and said, “What the fuck are you looking at? I will kill you, too.” Police officers showed up and arrested the man, who was very drunk. One officer asked the man to give his side of the story. “I am in love,” the man replied.

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While police were waiting for the paddy wagon, they got word of another disturbance at a grocery store one block away. The manager said a man punched him in the face. The manager described the suspect — turns out it was the same lovelorn man who allegedly tossed coffee on the hotel clerk. The man, age 48, went to jail.

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AT A HOTEL ON PEACHTREE STREET, a security guard was watching a surveillance camera that showed the hotel loading dock, which is an employees-only area. The guard saw a man on the loading dock. The guard investigated, and the man wasn’t an employee. The man had a printer cartridge (worth $30) in his hand. “I thought they were cookies,” the man said. He was arrested for stealing and taken to jail.

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AT A HOTEL ON BUCKHEAD LOOP, someone complained about a man standing on a second-story window ledge. The man started running back and forth from the window, shouting at guests below. Police arrived. An officer knocked on the door of the man’s hotel room. Then, the man climbed back out the window and ran around the hotel building — on the second-story ledge. The man was arrested. At the police precinct he had a seizure, so he went to the hospital. Police found $933 cash on him. The man, age 34, hails from Cleveland, Ga.

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A MIDDLE-AGED MARRIED COUPLE got into a fight at their home on Barrett Drive. The husband told police that his 3-year-old daughter informed him that his wife was cheating on him with another man. The husband said he and his wife argued about where the wife was going to spend the night. The husband said his wife has yet to change her last name to his last name. Plus, she still has an apartment, where she spends some weekends. The husband said he tried to get his wife’s apartment key from her purse, but his wife sprayed him in the face with Mace. The wife said her husband bruised her right arm and cut her middle finger. Both refused medical treatment. Both husband and wife went to jail for simple battery.

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AT A GROCERY STORE IN BUCKHEAD, a middle-aged woman was arrested for trying to shoplift vitamins. When an employee stopped her at the door, the woman ran to the restroom and flushed the vitamins down the toilet. Police found two empty bottles of “Energy Plus” vitamins in the feminine hygiene dispenser inside the toilet stall. The woman wore white sandals, a white sleeveless shirt and a white cap. She was charged with shoplifting. The vitamins were worth $52.

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AT THE NORTH AVENUE MARTA STATION, a drunk man had a knife, which he used to stab at trees. A police officer told him to put down the knife. He complied. “You ain’t shit,” the man said, followed by, “Fuck you.” Then the man sat down and fell over backward, hitting his eye on the pavement. The man, age 48, went to the hospital. No word on how many trees were stabbed.

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A MIDDLE-AGED MAN was sitting on a bench in front of the Waffle House on Piedmont Avenue. He was nude, except for a black shirt. His nickname is “Baby.” The sidewalk next to him smelled strongly of urine. “Baby” admitted that he peed on the sidewalk and scattered some items on the Waffle House countertop. He went to jail for indecency, disorderly conduct and public urination.

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AROUND 4 A.M., police found a thin man who was sleeping in a chair in a parking lot on Donnelly Road. An officer woke up the man, who was very drunk. The man, age 40, could only say that he cut his arm. The officer escorted him through the parking lot to wait for medics to arrive. During the wait, the man leaned against an apartment wall and peed. The officer charged him with public urination. The officer wrote, “[The man] was very happy that we found him and saved him. He thanked me and then was transported to Grady for treatment.”

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