The Blotter February 03 2010

HOLY WATER! An officer responded to a 911 hang-up call on Austin Road. A 60-year-old grandmother and her 41-year-old daughter were arguing over “letting the kids get baptized,” the officer wrote. The grandmother said her daughter got mad and “started trying to baptize her by holding her down and pouring bottles of water on her,” the officer wrote. The two children, both 9, said they saw their mother holding down their grandmother against her will. The mother said she was trying to keep the grandmother away from her son while he was getting ready for church and that’s why she held the grandmother down. The officer noted that the grandmother’s clothes and the floor “appeared to be wet with empty water bottles on the dresser.” The mother was arrested for disorderly conduct — she went to jail instead of church.

SPIRITUAL RISING: A 30-year-old woman said she was sleeping in her bed when God told her to wake up. She said she looked outside at her car — and her windshield was smashed and a woman named “China” was running away. The 30-year-old woman said she ran outside and chased China briefly. Then, she said she saw China jump into her ex-boyfriend’s car. The woman said she did not know why China would smash her windshield with a stone. The woman lives on Fedora Way.

CHURCH SMACKDOWN: A man said he is the assistant chief of staff at a church on Constitution Road. He said he went to get the pastor a towel and asked another man to close the door and stop talking on his cell phone because the pastor was ministering. He said the other man got upset and punched him in the face. He said he stepped back to regain his balance and the other man charged him, causing visible scratches to his face, hands and neck.

A police officer spoke with the other man, 49. He said he was talking on his cell phone when the church staffer closed the door on him and they got into a physical altercation. The officer charged him with simple assault/battery and took him from the church to jail.

MAIL AGGRESSION: Police responded to a fight call at a UPS store on Peachtree Road. A 29-year-old female employee said a customer started screaming and yelling at her and a co-worker — apparently the customer was upset because she had not yet received an insurance receipt for a package she was mailing out. The female employee said she tried to give a receipt to the customer, but the customer kept getting more and more angry. The customer allegedly threw a tape dispenser at the female employee, striking her hip. (Also, the employee is pregnant.) The employee had a small mark on her hip from the tape dispenser. She refused medical treatment.

Police charged the customer, a 43-year-old woman, with disorderly conduct and took her to jail.

COME TO A HEAD: One morning, a man said he went to work at a check-cashing store on Moreland Avenue and noticed a large skull had been spray-painted on the wall. The graffiti also included the word “FID.” The man said this has happened several times in the past and they are getting tired of repainting the wall.

SOUR NOTE: A 25-year-old musician said he was hanging out with his friend one evening. He said around midnight, he parked his car on Kirkwood Avenue, as per the friend’s suggestion, and they walked to a nearby bar. He said his friend sent him a text message saying he should text the friend back when he returned to his car. But later, his friend sent a text saying he had found another ride home.

The musician said he returned to his car around 3:30 a.m., and his car window had been smashed out. The musician said his left-handed bass (worth $1,000) was still in the backseat, but his Korg digital voice synthesizer was gone. He said the synthesizer is the size of a laptop computer and he had tucked it behind the back seat. Also, he said the synthesizer was inside a black case – not visible from outside the car.

So he called police. He said his friend is also a musician. He believes the friend urged him to park farther away from the bar so the friend could steal his synthesizer. The officer wrote, “It was odd that they did not take the bass guitar.” The officer dusted for fingerprints but couldn’t get any quality prints.

IDENTITY CRISIS, PART I: A 40-year-old woman on Harbin Road said the IRS recently informed her that she owed $127,309.77 in taxes and penalties from 2006. She said according to the IRS, a mortgage company had listed her as an employee in 2006. (The mortgage company is in Santa Ana, Calif.) Apparently, the mortgage company reported that she sold three properties worth about $290,000.

The woman said she didn’t make any money in 2006, because she was a stay-at-home mom with her 2-year-old son at the time. Also, the woman said she’d never even visited California.

IDENTITY CRISIS, PART II: A 23-year-old College Park woman said someone used her identity to file taxes in 2008. She said a bank in Santa Barbara, Calif., notified her that a tax refund – in her name – had been mailed to an address on Prospect Street in Atlanta. She said according to the bank, her 2008 taxes showed she had a job at Delta Air Lines. The woman said she never worked for Delta.

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