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The Blotter April 18 2007

Bizarre crimes from Atlanta police reports

WHAT’S IN A NAME? Police got a tip about a man nicknamed “Mental” who lives at an apartment on Hollywood Court. Apparently, “Mental” is a person of interest in an ongoing police investigation. So two detectives went to the apartment and talked to the man, age 26. The man said his nickname was actually “Mental Health.” Police ran a computer check on his real name. Turns out he’s wanted for a probation violation, so “Mental Health” went to jail.

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STILL SITTIN’ ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY: An officer spotted a masked man carrying a large stick and walking down Cleveland Avenue. The officer stopped the masked man, who introduced himself as Otis Redding. The man was arrested for giving false information to police. The masked man, age 50, went to jail.

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NO PLACE LIKE HOME: In Candler Park, police responded to a dispute at a house on Hardendorf Avenue. A woman said that when she got home at 6:30 p.m. she found her roommate drunk in the house. She said he had urinated on the porch and on a couch. She said she asked the roommate to leave several times, but he refused. They aren’t exactly spring chickens: The woman is 58 and the male roommate is 54. She said she did want to press charges. So police handcuffed the roommate, charged him with criminal trespassing and took him to jail. (The Blotter Diva must interject here. The roommate does live in this house, according to the police report. So how exactly does a person get charged with trespassing in his own home?)

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DREAMING OF “PROJECT RUNWAY”: A man said he went to sleep at a homeless shelter on Mills Street, and his textbook was tucked underneath his pillow. But when he woke up, his textbook was gone. The textbook is titled How to Draw Fashion. The homeless man is 24 years old.

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GHOST IN THE MACHINE: One morning, a man went to his job at a cemetery on Simpson Road. He said he noticed two items were stolen: a casket-lowering device (worth $1,500) and a vault-lowering device (worth $2,300). Nothing further.

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GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT: According to a police report, an officer responded to a call about a “high-priority theft” on Memorial Drive. When the officer arrived, he talked to the female caller, who said a blond man stole a Corona and a Miller Genuine Draft beer from her car. She said this man was now walking east on Memorial. So the officer tracked down the man, searched his backpack, and spotted the Corona and a Miller Genuine Draft beer. The woman got her beer back. She told police that her car was unlocked because she doesn’t have door keys to her van. (So glad her crisis was, in fact, a “high-priority theft.”)

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WHOLE LAVA LOVE: A man said he got a strange phone call from a woman claiming to be a real estate agent who was having trouble getting the key to work at his home for sale on Northside Drive. The man contacted his own real estate agent. According to the man, then this strange woman no longer wanted to see his house — and she hung up the phone in a huff. Also, two lava rocks are missing from his yard, the man said.

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AROUND 5 A.M., a police officer was told about a suspicious car in the parking lot of the Atlanta police property office on North Avenue. The officer walked outside to check it out. There stood a muscular, bearded 49-year-old man. The officer asked: “Can I help you?” The man screamed loudly that he wanted his motherfucking property. The officer said the man couldn’t pick up his property until the office opened at 8 a.m. That made the man angrier, the officer noted. He said the man started yelling even louder that he wanted his motherfucking property and threatened to kick the officer’s ass. The officer ordered him to leave or face arrest. After a few more rounds of similar conversation, the man allegedly grabbed a 5-foot orange metal pole and held it in a combat stance. The officer drew his gun and told the man to drop the pole. Another officer showed up, gun drawn. Police said the man walked toward them, with the pole. “Drop the pole or we’ll shoot,” the officers said. Eventually, the man dropped the pole. But he kept screaming about how he hated police, and he would kill both officers, and he’d killed police before. He was arrested for a plethora of charges.

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THREE STRANGE DAYS: A 19-year-old woman told a MARTA police officer that a man stole her purse, and that now he was walking down Forsyth Avenue. So the MARTA police officer tracked down the man, age 20, who still had the black purse. He was just about to put the handcuffs on when the man took off running. An Atlanta police officer caught the man a few blocks away. Then the man told police that the woman’s purse contained marijuana. The officer asked the woman: “Can I search your purse?” “Yes,” she said. Inside, police found 18 baggies of suspected marijuana, plus four sandwich-sized bags of suspected marijuana. The man and woman said they’d known each other for at least three days. The woman said the man is upset because she wants to end their relationship. Both went to jail.

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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.






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