The Blotter November 24 2010

Two middle-aged men got into a fight on Baker Street. The first man, 40, said the other man took his hot dogs and tried to damage his DVD player. The 40-year-old man said the other man called him “bitches and hoes” and threatened to “beat his ass.” The other man, however, claimed he didn’t do anything, and that the 40-year-old man was responsible for starting the fight and to “fuck him up.”

The 40-year-old man admitted that he got his food back. “Both parties kept yelling and acting violent towards each other,” the officer wrote. “Both parties kept stating they was going to fight when I left.” So the officer charged both men with disturbing the peace and took them to jail.

THANKFUL SHE’S NOT YOUR GIRLFRIEND: A 33-year-old man called police and said his girlfriend poured hot coffee on him and scratched his neck. He said the alleged attack happened the day before. An officer wrote, “I asked him why he didn’t report this to the police yesterday, and he stated that he thought they could work it out but today there was another argument and she took his house keys and threatened to get him fired from his job.”

The man said the girlfriend repeatedly pushed him and blocked him from leaving his apartment. Somehow, the man got to the apartment lobby and called police. He said he only let his girlfriend into his apartment so she could get her stuff, but in the process, she took his laptop computer, a flat-screen TV and a flash drive. Police took the girlfriend, 24, to jail on multiple charges.

THANKFUL SHE’S NOT YOUR GRANDMA, part 1: An officer responded to a dispute on First Avenue on a recent Monday. The caller, a 62-year-old woman, said she got in a fight with her granddaughter. She said she was in the kitchen fixing breakfast with a knife in her hand when she and her granddaughter argued and she “slapped the shit out” of her granddaughter. An officer wrote, “She said she couldn’t stand her [granddaughter’s] attitude toward her in her own house.” She reportedly “swung the knife that was in her hand and cut [her granddaughter] on the left forearm and right hand,” an officer wrote. “[The granddaughter] began bleeding and fled the scene.”

The officer continued, “I mentioned to [the grandmother] that she could face aggravated assault charges for cutting [her granddaughter] and her story changed dramatically. She tried to change her story by saying that [her granddaughter] had began choking her and that she [the grandmother] had not hit her.”

A few minutes later, the granddaughter, 21, returned home. She had “a large cut on her left forearm and a smaller cut on the back of her right hand,” the officer noted. “I also saw a large amount of blood on the floor and the bedding in the living room.” The grandmother went to jail on an aggravated assault charge; the granddaughter went to jail on a simple battery charge.

THANKFUL SHE’S NOT YOUR GRANDMA, PART 2: On Eisenhower Road, a 21-year-old woman said she argued with her cousin “about wearing her underpants” when her grandmother “slapped her across the face and pulled her hair.” The cousin confirmed her story. The officer wrote, “When I entered the room [the grandmother] was going in and out of consciousness. The other family members in the room stated that she had just been back from the hospital and had been prescribed some blood pressure medication as well as some other medication that they were not sure of.” The officer arrested the grandmother, 61, on an assault charge and took her to the hospital at Grady Detention Center.

THANKFUL FOR COPS, Part 1: Around 1 a.m. on a recent Thursday, an officer was driving north on I-75/85 when he saw a man walking in the pouring rain with cars zooming by. The officer pulled over “as fast as possible before he ended up seriously injured or killed by oncoming traffic.” The officer asked the man why he was walking on the freeway in the rain. The man replied, “Cause I want to.” The officer arrested the 37-year-old man, charged him with “pedestrian on roadway” and took him to jail. The man wasn’t hurt.

THANKFUL FOR COPS, PART 2: Officers spotted a black 2006 Chevy Silverado weaving on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The officers ran a computer check on the license plate number. Turns out, both the car and the owner, a 42-year-old man, had been reported missing two days earlier in Coweta County.

According to the police report, the truck swerved into the left lane several times, and then swerved into the right lane “almost hitting the curb.” Police turned on their blue lights to stop the car. “Upon pulling over, [the driver] went so far to the right, the vehicle slammed up the curb,” an officer wrote. “This put the truck halfway on the sidewalk and half in the roadway.”

An officer asked the man where he was headed. “[He] said he was on his way to work and he had to be there by 8 a.m.” Police asked the man to get out of the truck to be assessed further. “He stepped out of the vehicle with the truck still in drive. [An officer] had to run after the truck, jump in, and hit the brakes.”

Another officer asked the man if he was OK, “and the first thing he stated was he was under the influence of dope. I asked what kind of drugs and he stated cocaine. ... He stated he had been up for the last 24 hours, and was unsure how he got from Sharpsburg to Atlanta.” He was very jittery, police noted. “It was 43 degrees outside and a little windy. [The man] was obviously having issues with the cold. He started to shiver a little and was keeping his hands pulled in.”

Police found a small hit of suspected crack cocaine on the truck floorboard. “A lighter, crack pipe, push rod, brillo, and makeshift pipe made from a liquor bottle, and a small piece of baggie were found in the vehicle.” Officers took the man to jail. Later, at the police station, the man said at one point he was driving the wrong way on I-285. “He stated he was driving against traffic, and had to turn around on the highway while trying to find his way home. He stated that he could have killed someone, and that he was glad we arrested him.”

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