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The Blotter: Chasing Beelzebub

Bizarre crimes from Atlanta police reports

Illustration By Tray Butler
Photo credit: Illustration by Tray Butler

In Lakewood Heights, a cop wrote a report about a “mother attempting to cast demons out of her daughter.” A female neighbor became concerned when she saw the 37-year-old mother “screaming at her daughter to run up and down the stairs and was being made to say her mother’s name,” according to the police report. “When she was making her daughter run down the stairs, the mother shouted, Faster, faster! We are going to get those demons out of her.’”

The concerned neighbor said, “She doesn’t have demons in her.”

The mother pointed to her cellphone and said, “Look it up.”

The concerned neighbor video-recorded her conversation with the mother - and showed that video to the police officer. The cop spoke with the mother, who admitted to talking about trying to get demons out of her daughter, but she did not admit to having any kind of mental illness. “The apartment was clean and there was plenty of food in the refrigerator,” the cop noted. “The mother asked me several times if I saw demons? I asked her if she was seeing demons and she said no.”

The cop repeatedly asked the mother to provide phone numbers for her close family members so he could call them about her behavior. She couldn’t focus long enough to do that. Also, the mother pointed to her Bible. “I asked her if she was a strict Catholic and she said yes,” the officer noted. “She seemed overwhelmed, and I kept trying to get her back on track.”

The cop took the mother to Grady Memorial Hospital for psychiatric observation.

High & flighty

Near Atlantic Station, cops received a call from a 42-year-old man claiming he got punched by a dude wearing a blue dress inside a 17th Street apartment.

Upon arrival, the officer looked at the 42-year-old carefully, searching for bruises or other trauma. “It did not look like he had been in a fight, and he appeared to be under the influence of meth,” the cop noted. The man admitted he used meth within the last 24 hours.

The officer was familiar with this specific apartment; a slim suspect known to carry a gun and fight with cops often hangs out there. So the responding officer called for backup. Three more cops showed up and all surrounded the apartment. Inside, they found four suspects, including a man wearing a blue dress. Another guy wore a wig, tight black shirt and pants. No one actually paid rent there.

The cop noted: “In speaking to everyone regarding the fight call, I was able to determine that no fight occurred and it was a verbal argument over a sweater.”

Itchy thump

Around noon in Downtown Atlanta, police spotted a half-naked man “with his pants all the way down,” standing in the road near a pizza and wings restaurant. An officer noted that the man was “ferociously scratching his genitals and buttocks, exposing in the process his body parts to pedestrians and motorists” as traffic whizzed by. The officer stopped to chat with the enthusiastic scratcher. “The man said he had to do it because he was itching a lot.” The 58-year-old man went to jail on public indecency charges.

Look beyond what you can see

In Midtown, a woman went to a salon to get eyelash extensions. “When she woke up the next morning, her eyes were closed shut and swollen,” an officer noted. “She returned to the salon and requested that they take the lashes off. The woman said they then put tape on her eyes to remove the lashes. The tape began burning her eyes.” The woman demanded medical attention.

The officer asked the eyelash technician for her side of the story. She said when the woman first walked into the salon, she had “her own fake lashes that she wanted put on.” The technician said the woman’s fake lashes are not compatible with the type of glue used at this salon. Even after the incompatibility explanation and warnings, the woman insisted on getting her fake lashes put on. “They are the best,” the woman insisted. The tech said when the woman returned the next day, wanting her lashes removed, she used a specific brand of professional lash remover that the woman approved. After the procedure, she told the woman to keep her eyes closed for five minutes, but the woman kept opening her eyes. “As a result, the product got in her eyes, causing them to burn.” The woman was transported to Emory University Hospital Midtown for treatment.


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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