The Blotter August 19 2009

FANCY WINE BROUHAHA: A man with a blondish mohawk and a 20-year-old woman walked into a grocery store on Piedmont Avenue. Store employees say the man went to the wine section and grabbed a $130 bottle of wine. He reportedly handed the wine to the woman and she went to the customer service desk and tried to fraudulently return the wine. Employees told the woman that she couldn’t return the wine — so she left the bottle at the customer service desk. At the same time, employees were quizzing the man about the wine. “Kroger employees ran after [the man] saying they had been robbed,” an officer wrote. The man and woman hopped into a Ford Ranger and drove away. As police arrived, nearby citizens said the Ford Ranger had smashed through a garage security gate at a Buckhead condominium on Peachtree Street.
     So police went to the condo building. A woman there said the couple ditched the car and ran into the condo building. She said the man wore black nylon shorts and a black T-shirt and the woman wore a white T-shirt and brown pants.
     Police surrounded the condo building and eventually the woman walked out. An officer found the man hiding in the lobby stairwell. “They had exchanged clothing and [the man] had cut all his hair off,” an officer wrote. During a police interview, the couple admitted they went to the grocery store to fraudulently return stuff for money. They also said they had exchanged clothes while they were inside an elevator at the condominium building. An officer wrote, The man also admitted, “he knocked on a resident’s door and asked for a pair of scissors and cut his hair.”
     The man and woman went to jail on numerous charges.

CATFIGHT! Two women brawled outside a store on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The older woman, age 52, said the younger woman, 25, took $5 from her hand and would not return it. The older woman said she struck the younger woman with an umbrella and pulled at her shirt in an attempt to get her money back. The younger woman said the older woman gave her $5 and asked her to buy drugs with it. The younger woman said she refused to buy drugs for her — and then she lost the $5. She said the older woman demanded her money back, and when she didn’t have it, the older woman hit her with an umbrella on her arm and face. An officer noted that the younger woman “did have a mark on her left arm and face.” Police charged both women with disturbing the peace and took them to jail.  

TALCUM WARS: A 21-year-old woman called police and said she got into a fight with her boyfriend at her apartment on Middleton Road. She said her boyfriend threw baby powder on her and he threw a small fan at her. She said the small fan hit her; the boyfriend said the fan didn’t hit her and there were no marks left. After police arrived, the boyfriend ran out the back door — so police chased him. When officers got close, the boyfriend “continued to run, jumping walls and fences.” Officers chased the boyfriend all the way through the apartment complex and caught him near the railroad tracks on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Police charged the boyfriend with disorderly conduct and obstructing police. He went to jail.

FAME GAME: Two men from Ellenwood walked into an Atlanta police precinct to report alleged fraud. The younger man, age 24, said he met a woman on Spring Street who claimed she works for Tyler Perry Studios and said she could help him get casting calls and feature roles in any Tyler Perry movies and get him into the union. He said the woman requested $175 in exchange for her help. He said he gave her $175 in early July. Then, he told his friend about the offer, and his friend gave her $175 in mid-July. Both men say the woman hasn’t helped them at all. An officer wrote: “Every time they get in contact with [her], she tells them things will start happening in two weeks.”

FREE PARKING DOESN’T COME WITH THAT: At Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, an officer asked a driver to move her car from a no-parking zone. “The driver stated she was a city employee and that she did not have to move,” the officer wrote. “I stated to the driver, ‘You must move from the curbside if you are not loading.’” She allegedly moved her car about 40 feet and stopped again. The officer said he told her to move again and she refused — plus, she drove away when he started to write her a ticket. The officer caught her at the other end of the North Terminal. “I proceeded to ask the driver for her license on three occasions and she refused each time to display her license.” Eventually, the officer got her license and wrote her three tickets. The woman allegedly grabbed his badge and asked for his name. “The driver refused to sign the citations and threw them out of the window of the car,” the officer wrote. “The driver eventually exited the vehicle after much profanity and resistance.” He charged the driver, a 43-year-old Decatur woman, with disorderly conduct and refusing to obey police.

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