The Blotter: First rule of fight club

Officers responded to a brawl call in the Berkeley Park neighborhood. When they arrived they found a 48-year-old man bleeding from the head. The man said that no fight happened because he eluded his opponents. He explained: Five guys were chasing him, and during the chase he jumped on a moving train. After a few minutes, the man decided to jump from the train onto a ladder. Apparently, he fell short on his ladder leap. The man said he tumbled to the ground, hitting his head near his eyebrow.

A few more clues: The man told police he’s been “on meth” for two days and drank two beers that morning. Also, the man said that two months go, he told some random guy all about “where he can get pussy for $25.” Two months later, five guys tracked him down, demanding the $25 back, and started chasing him. The reporting officer noted, “His story was inconsistent.”

Ex-treme delusions

A woman with a loose grip on reality marched into the Buckhead police precinct two days in a row with a litany of complaints about her ex-husband. First, she said her ex-husband stole stuff from her storage unit on Huff Road. The woman “stated to me that she felt she couldn’t trust me, as I may have been threatened by her ex-husband, and that I may be in a league with him to hurt her,” the reporting officer wrote. Second, the woman said her ex-husband keeps picking the door lock to her apartment and leaves clues of his presence there, but he doesn’t steal anything. Third, she said her ex-husband sent two white vans with New Jersey tags to intimidate her by parking outside her apartment.

“She advised that the reason her ex-husband is harassing her is because he is upset that she’s getting together with her ‘ex-boyfriend,’ who is being harassed by University Park Police in Texas, specifically at the behest of her ex-husband,” the officer noted. “She said her ex-boyfriend — whom she sees off-and-on — is a U.S. Secret Service agent who wants to be with her. She reiterated how her husband has been listening in on her phone calls and has a hidden GPS unit on her car, which she has not seen.”

The woman didn’t have a shred of evidence. She promised to email documents to the officer that would prove her ex-husband’s nefarious ways, but she never did. The officer explained that there was no probable cause to arrest her ex-husband. Police explained that she could try to get a temporary restraining order, but for now, they couldn’t do anything without evidence. Surprisingly, the woman was completely uninterested in a restraining order. Finally, she said about herself, “I used to be normal.”

Sign of darkness

On Ponce de Leon Avenue, a middle-aged man keeps having fits about the theater display signage at a retro movie theater. According to the theater’s manager, the guy makes threats and loud complaints when the theater’s signs are lit up at night. (The man gets confrontational from perch at the bar next door while drinking on the patio.) One recent morning, the theater manager arrived at work and noticed the theater signage had been smashed and cracked. Police found broken glass and a broken bear bottle in a nearby trashcan. No arrests so far.

Parent trap

Around 3:30 a.m., police received a noise complaint in Old Fourth Ward. Neighbors heard a guy banging on the front door of an East Avenue home. When officers arrived, the guy was still pounding away. The officers asked: Do you know someone who lives here? The man explained that he was banging the front door because his “play father” refused to open the door. Police didn’t know what to do with that comment. They ran a computer search on the 45-year-old man. Turns out, he’s wanted for violating probation on a cocaine charge, so they took him to jail. The “play father” never opened the door.

Just desserts

In Midtown, a 32-year-old man burst into a convenience store and swiped two packs of tiny doughnuts (worth $1 each) and then ran out the door. The store manager called police and reported the doughnut theft. Hours later, the very same doughnut thief returned to the store. “I stole something out of the gas station, take me to jail,” the man yelled. Police officers complied with his wish. He went to jail for stealing $2 worth of tiny doughnuts.

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