The Blotter June 27 2007

SICK AT HEART: A 31-year-old Smyrna woman said she was asleep in her room in the sickle-cell area of Grady Memorial Hospital when someone took $63 from her purse. She said her room was closed off by curtains, and there were female patients on both sides of her.

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SOMEBODY’S WATCHED TOO MUCH “X-FILES”: A 37-year-old man said he was selling a 38-inch TV on the Internet. He said his ex-roommate bought it with a fake money order for $1,000. He also said his ex-roommate is hiring people to stalk him.

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POWER STRUGGLE: A man on Crew Street said another man, who is house-sitting at the home next door, is stealing power from him. A police officer arrived, and saw an orange extension cord running from the man’s house to the house next door. The officer went to the house next door and knocked. The house-sitter, a 47-year-old man, freely admitted to taking power from the man’s house. He said, “All the man had to do was ask me to unplug the cord, and I would have done it. I was only listening to the radio.” Also, the male house-sitter had a black purse with ladybugs on it. He said the ladybug purse did not belong to him, and he found it in the yard that morning.

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THE CHILD NEVER GROWS OLDER: A mother said she told her son not to ride a bike, and he got upset. She said her son threw the bike against the dining-room wall, and picked up a chair and smashed it on the floor. She said her son yelled and called her a “bitch.” (The son is 46 years old. Mom is 66. They live together on Lorenzo Drive.) No one was injured. A police officer charged the son with damaging property.

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WHO DOESN’T NEED A SPONGE BATH? An officer responded to a call about a demented person on Byrere Terrace. A man said his brother, age 44, has a mental illness. He said he and his brother argued about the house, and his brother threw clothes all over the place. He said his brother threatened to take both of them out, and he isn’t sure what his brother will do, and his brother isn’t taking his medicine. He said their father passed away three months ago, and his brother hasn’t been the same since — nor has his brother left the house since their father died.

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A police officer handcuffed the brother, who was yelling and acting irate. The brother said he saw his mother watching him (the mother is dead). The brother also said he needs his medicine and a sponge bath. He went to the psychiatric ward at Grady Memorial Hospital.

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BOOT UP THE ASS: An Alpharetta woman parked her silver Volkswagen Passat in a parking lot on Spring Street, and she put $5 into the payment box. When she returned, she noticed her car was booted. She said she called the booting company, and a rep arrived, but he refused to remove the boot because he said her car wasn’t properly parked. The woman said she parked in space 25, and the lines weren’t clearly marked, so she left believing that she was parked properly. The booting employee acknowledged that she paid the $5 parking fee, but he disputed how she was parked. So in addition to the $5 parking fee, the woman forked over the $50 to get the boot removed from her car. “However, she disagreed,” an officer noted.

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MOTHER-IN-LAW FROM HELL? A 43-year-old man said he got into a fight with his mother-in-law at her apartment on Harwell Road. He said his mother-in-law choked him, causing scratches that bled. He lives on the same street as his mother-in-law, a few blocks away. (The Blotter Diva notes: Here’s a perfect example of why you need a buffer zone at least the size of one zip code between yourself and your family. The Blotter Diva recommends: Move!)

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GET BEHIND ME, SATAN: An officer tracked a 2005 silver Ford Mustang going 95 mph in the HOV lane of I-20, near Boulevard. Only one person was in the Mustang using the HOV lane, the officer noted. He stopped the car and talked to the driver, a 39-year-old Stone Mountain woman. She said she didn’t have a driver’s license, but her daughter was in some type of unspecified trouble, and she needed to get to her. Eventually, the woman admitted that her license was suspended. She failed several field sobriety tests, but refused to take a Breathalyzer test. So she went to jail. She was charged with DUI, speeding and reckless driving, among other charges. As the officer completed the paperwork, “[The woman] became aggressively insulting, referring to me as bitch, the devil, Satan, and Damien. [She] also went on to advise me of how much she didn’t care about what was going on and there was nothing that anyone could do because she was not drunk. [She] also advised me that she had money and she would get out of this.”

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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.