The Blotter: The bitter cold

On Ponce de Leon Avenue, a 26-year-old woman was sleeping in the back of her store during the recent snowstorm because she could not get home safely on the icy roads. During the night, she heard two big thuds near the front of the store. The alarm started ringing. The woman raced to the storefront and saw a smashed front window and two men pulling a large blue plastic bin toward the broken front window. The woman screamed and the two men ran away, leaving the blue bin behind. One suspect wiped out on the slippery street but got back up and kept running.

The woman told police the suspects tried to steal a special blue bin filled with dozens of plastic bags. Each bag contained candy and one fake $50 bill. She explained: The plastic bags with candy and fake $50s were giveaways to potential customers. “It’s an advertising/marketing ploy they are using during tax season,” the reporting officer wrote. The woman said the suspect must have visited her store before and spotted the display “and assumed the money was real.” The botched robbery of fake money was caught on surveillance tape so police have the suspects’ description. Plus, they broke a store window and that’s a crime.

Flake in the snow

In the Hunter Hills neighborhood, a 34-year-old woman heard a loud banging on the front door of her home. “Help!” someone cried. When she opened the door she saw her estranged ex-lover — her children’s father — and he was totally wasted. Her ex said he really needed somewhere to stay during the snowstorm — plus, he was really drunk and had peed on himself. No way, the woman replied. Their relationship had deteriorated significantly in recent weeks. Moments later, he declared that he was not “fucking leaving your house.” The woman called police. The man told police to “fucking take me to jail.” The cop gave him “numerous opportunities to leave the area peacefully” — then took him to jail on a disorderly conduct charge.

Strange trip

A shiny brand-new Kia was on display (up on a platform, behind metal wires) in the middle of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. As crowds of passengers milled by, a 31-year-old man was intrigued by car. The man hopped over the barrier and onto the platform. Then he sat down in the car’s driver’s seat, lit a cigarette, and calmly and casually smoked his cig. A cop showed up to deal with the man.

“After a brief conversation and determining he was mentally competent,” the cop shooed him away. The officer gave the man a trespassing warning and told him not to return to the airport. About 45 minutes later, the same guy was back causing trouble at the airport. This time, he was standing in front of a crowded restaurant, preventing people from coming inside. This time, cops hauled him off to jail. The 31-year-old suspect hails from Elmhurst, N.Y.

Brake down?

In Midtown, a police investigator responded to a robbery call and decided to park his patrol car in front of a Sixth Street apartment complex while he went inside. A few minutes later, the cop returned to where he’d parked his patrol car, but there was a problem. According to the police report, “The investigator noticed that his vehicle was no longer parked where he left it in front of the residence. The vehicle was on the side of the apartment complex, where it ran over a plant ... destroying the plant. There were no witnesses present or cameras in the area to explain what occurred and how the vehicle was moved is unknown. Damage to the plant is $150.” The patrol car’s front end is damaged. No one was hurt — except perhaps the officer’s pride.

Ball of confusion

In Glenwood Park, a middle-aged woman said she received an obscene phone call from a drunk man. She told police the caller “sounded like one of her ... friends that just moved out here from New Orleans — breathing hard on the phone and kept repeating her name,” an officer wrote. Also, she said the drunk man called back again and sounded like he was masturbating. The woman, 53, said she warned the caller that she was going to call the police so the man hung up and changed his phone number.

Stupid move of the week

A 24-year-old Atlanta man said he got a call from a guy who said he worked for the IRS. The caller said the 24-year-old owed the IRS $15,000 and must pay immediately to avoid any trouble. If he did not pay, he would be arrested and jailed. So the 24-year-old agreed to pay up. The caller told him to pay via Green Dot MoneyPak cards. The 24-year-old man went out and bought 28 gift cards totaling $17,000 from three different stores. After buying the gift cards, he called the guy back and gave him the gift card numbers.

After turning over the $17,000, the 24-year-old said he wanted to double-check the whole thing with the IRS agency. So he called the IRS customer service number — then went straight to the North Avenue police precinct. “Upon talking with the IRS customer service [the man] found out that he did not owe any money to them,” the officer wrote. Now the man is out $17,000 and he hasn’t even filed this year’s taxes.

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