The Blotter July 08 2009

BUGGED OUT: Around 9:30 a.m., a woman said a bee flew into her car while she was using her access card to enter a parking lot on Peachtree Street. “As she was swiping the bee out of the car, she did not realize how close she was to the card reader,” a police officer wrote. “As she drove off, her left-side mirror hit and knocked out the card reader.” Damage to her car: $200. Damage to the card reader: $300. Damage to the bee: unknown.

PRANK PHONE CALL: Around 1 a.m., a man reportedly called the front desk of a hotel on Peachtree Road. He said his name is “Mike” and he works for the hotel’s alarm company and he got a fire alarm signal from the hotel. The front-desk clerk said everything was fine at the hotel, and no alarm was going off. Apparently, Mike told the clerk to go to the fire alarm and pull the handle to reset the alarm. Also, Mike told the clerk to turn on the hotel’s sprinkler system, because according to Mike’s information, the building was on fire. At this point, the clerk activated the sprinkler system. A few minutes later, the Atlanta Fire Department arrived. The hotel’s management called the alarm company, and an employee there said no one from the alarm company had called and taht the alarm was not going off at the hotel. According to the police report, there was about $5,000 worth of water damage from the sprinklers being turned on. A hotel employee said several Atlanta hotels have received the same prank phone calls recently.

SUMMER TRADITION? An officer responded to a call at a hotel on Courtland Street. A security guard had stopped a man accused of repeatedly coming into the hotel and trying to steal toilet paper and towels. The guard said that two days ago, he saw the same man carrying towels inside the hotel. The guard said he approached the man, who dropped the towels and ran. Another guard said last week that he saw the same man carrying two large bags of paper products — and the man ran away.
    The officer arrested the suspect, a 39-year-old man. “As I was walking [him] out of the hotel, he advised me he did not care about getting locked up because the judges always just let him go,” the officer wrote. The officer ran a computer check on the man. Turns out, the same man was arrested in July 2008 and July 2007 for trespassing at the same hotel on Courtland Street. Also, the man was arrested for stealing toilet paper from another hotel on Peachtree Street in June 2009.

BIZZARE ENTRANCE: On Wadley Street, a woman said a stranger walked into her home and knocked over her 2-year-old son. The woman said the man refused to leave, so she called police. Her son wasn’t hurt.
An officer arrived and asked the man why he came into the house. “I was high, I was just trippin,” the man said, according to the police report. Also, he said his friend told him to meet at the house, but he thinks his friend set him up. Also, the man admitted he’d smoked about $500 worth of crack earlier that day. The officer arrested the man, age 43. At a police precinct, the man said he didn’t touch the child, but possibly the door knocked over the child when he walked in.

INTERESTING STRATEGY: An undercover cop was working outside the Georgia Aquarium. A 57-year-old man allegedly shook his cup of change at a group (including the undercover officer) and asked for money. The officer arrested the man for disorderly conduct. According to the officer’s written report, the man said that “he knew I was the police and was just playing asking me for money, because he wanted to see what I would do.”

PRESSING PRESENTATION? At a grocery store on Metropolitan Parkway, a man allegedly tried to steal a laser pointer. The 49-year-old man went to jail on a shoplifting charge. The laser pointer is worth $10.

BRUSHING UP: A man walked into a beauty supply store on Peachtree Street and allegedly shoplifted four brushes and eight “hairdo rags” worth a total of $38. The store owner stopped the man and called police. The 44-year-old man went to jail on a shoplifting charge.  

DON’T PISS OFF GRANNY: An officer responded to a fight call on Iverson Street. A 68-year-old woman said that earlier, she got into an argument with her 18-year-old grandson. She said that during the argument, her grandson verbally threatened to kick her in the knee. She said her grandson left the house when she called police. An officer wrote, “I was told that the suspect likes to ride his skateboard in Little Five Points.” So the officer went to Little Five Points and found the grandson riding his skateboard. The officer returned the grandson to his grandmother’s house, wrote a ticket for disorderly conduct, and informed the grandmother of the court time.

GRANNY GOES TO JAIL: At a grocery store on Peachtree Road, a security guard said he saw a 53-year-old woman take a pair of Foster Grant sunglasses, remove the price tag, and conceal the sunglasses in her purse. (The sunglasses are worth $29.99.) He stopped the woman when she allegedly tried to leave the store without paying for the sunglasses. Police arrived and charged her with shoplifting. Before she went to jail, the woman asked that her purse be turned over to her granddaughter, who was at the scene. Police complied and gave the purse to her granddaughter. (The Blotter Diva suggests more traditional activities for grandparents to share with grandkids ... like going to a museum or the park.)

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