The Blotter March 04 2009

KEEP UP WITH YOUR PANTS, MAN: An officer got a call about a stolen credit card at an apartment on Westmoreland Circle. A woman said a 27-year-old male friend had come by her apartment that morning and stayed for about two hours. She said he got upset because he was missing some money and his ATM card. While the officer and woman were talking, the friend showed up. He said he had arrived earlier at the woman’s apartment around 10 a.m. “He stated that he had taken his pants off in the living room,” the officer wrote. “He stated that he went into [the woman’s] bedroom. He stated when he went back into the living room to get his pants, he saw the locks on the door turning. He stated that he then looked in his pants and discovered his ATM card and $1,900 cash was missing.” Also, he said someone had used his debit card at a gas station in Mableton around 11:15 a.m. He said he felt the woman set him up and that her boyfriend had taken his stuff.

NEEDED: TRUSTWORTHY BANKERS! At the Blotter Diva’s bank on Piedmont Avenue, a bank investigator reported that an employee stole $1,217 from the bank. The money was allegedly taken in small amounts from July 2008 until November 2008. According to the police report, the employee signed a statement admitting to the thefts.

FALLING APART: An officer responded to a call about a person down at an apartment on Johnson Road. “Radio advised that a male called 911 and stated he was cut and bleeding to death,” the officer wrote. “When I knocked on the door, I heard a man screaming for help and yelling he could not get up.” The officer notified his sergeant that he was going to force entry into the apartment. “Once inside the apartment, [the man] was laying [sic] on the floor, nude, with minor abrasions to his knees,” the officer wrote. The man, age 47, was taken to Piedmont Hospital. Nothing further.

A SAFE PLACE? An officer was sent to investigate an abandoned safe on Brewer Boulevard. “When I arrived, I found the safe in the road,” the officer wrote. “The door was pried off. I found two Command Uniform receipt books and a Fraternal Order of Police book. I ran the safe’s serial number on [Atlanta Police Department computers], which informed me that the safe had not been reported stolen.” The safe and its contents were turned in to police property. “There is no further information concerning this incident at this time,” the report stated.

GOOD PICNIC SPOT? Around 9:45 a.m., an officer reportedly saw a man sitting at the end of the off ramp at I-75 and Cleveland Avenue. “I asked him if he had any ID,” the officer noted. “He stated that he didn’t. I then informed him that he needed to leave the area. He stated that he was going to finish eating first.” The officer charged the 36-year-old man with disorderly conduct. A computer check revealed the man was wanted on a similar charge in East Point.

GOOD TIME FOR A SNACK? An officer was watching the “moving lane” in the taxi assembly area at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He noted that an empty, locked taxi was blocking the lane. “After three to five minutes, the driver ... returned to his car, saying he had been eating.” The 44-year-old taxi driver was charged with misusing the taxi stand.

THAT ‘70S SHOW: An officer investigated an alleged burglary at a Vietnamese restaurant on Monroe Drive. An owner said the restaurant’s cash drawer was completely damaged. “The point of entry was the patio front door, which had been forced open, damaging the lock,” an officer wrote, adding that cash and coins were found near the entry point. The cash drawer had contained an estimated $200. A black-and-white “Sanford & Son” baseball cap was found near the damaged cash register. A restaurant employee said she saw a man wearing that baseball cap on the previous Saturday and Monday. She said the man frequents the Midtown Promenade shopping area to beg for money. The restaurant has an alarm but apparently “premise history for the location shows no alarm history.”

STUPID MOVE OF THE WEEK: A 31-year-old man said he lost his wallet at the zoo in Grant Park while he was playing soccer. He said he put his wallet down in the park to go play soccer — and when he returned to the area, his wallet was gone.

STUPID MOVE OF THE WEEK, PART II: On Briarcliff Place, a man said one night, he and his wife carried three flat-screen TVs from their home and put them in the rear of his SUV. “[The man] states he did it in the dark and that the TVs were covered with a blanket when they were carried out and when they were placed in the car,” the officer wrote. The man said he put the TVs in the car at night because he was going to return them the next day, and his wife works in the morning, so she wouldn’t have been available to help move the TVs then. The man said that overnight, someone broke a car window and stole the TVs. The SUV was parked on the street at the time. The three flat-screen TVs are worth about $4,000.

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