View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > May > 18 > Entry
Crime & punishment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As you read these reports of thefts, how many of them could have been avoided with two minutes worth of planning? You really have complete control of your destiny if you will: Realize that this stuff can happen and does happen all over; always remember that all crooks depend on the OPPORTUNITY to commit the crime. You can easily take that away with just about two minutes of planning.
This victim said that someone removed several items from her back yard including a cooler, a pink Motorola cell phone, a half case of Bud and a half case of Corona. The theft occurred between 4:30 to just after 5 a.m. She said that she and some of her friends met some guys and invited them over. Several minutes after they arrived she told them it was time to leave so they did. The officer found marks on the grass where they slid the cooler. It was probably easy because of the dew. There was dew because it was 5 a.m. when all of us were sleeping. Our coolers were safe.
A woman reported that someone stole her purse from her office area. Another employee found the purse in the men’s room but the credit cards were gone. She cancelled the cards and learned the cards had already been used at Kroger, Shell, QT, Walgreens, and Sports Authority. $200 cash was also taken. There was office furniture being moved that day and she believes that someone slipped in and around the legitimate office movers and stole her purse. Access is everything. Don’t leave items in the open when movers or any other outside people are in the home or office. Stash it in a good hiding place. Keep the cards and cash in your pocket while these people have access to your areas.
Domino’s Pizza reported that an employee, who was supposed to make deposits for the company on two dates. They found that the deposits were not made. The employee no longer works for them and they can’t find him. His last address is in Pelham, Georgia. The loss is just over $1800.
A woman reported that someone took her wallet while she was shopping at the Whole Foods Store on Roswell Road. The wallet had her SSN card and check card in it. The card was later used at multiple locations.
A man reported that he set his wallet down while he played basketball at Allen Park. During that time, another man picked up the wallet and ran towards Northwood Drive. The wallet contained approximately $700 as well as the victim’s ID. That’s a lot of money to leave lying on the ground—to me anyway. If I have five bucks in my wallet I go on DEFCON-4.
A customer of the Mellow Mushroom said that someone stole a checkbook from their table around 10 p.m. The checkbook contained $174 cash, a college ID and several receipts.
A woman said that while she was shopping at a Kroger Store, someone took her wallet from her purse. The wallet contained personal and credit cards.
Someone took a $400 sink and about $4200 worth of tile from a home under construction on Fenimore Drive in Sandy Springs.
A woman reported that while she was sleeping in her room at the Women’s Center of Northside Hospital someone took her driver’s license and hospital in-processing paperwork from her purse. The victim and a relative, also napping, said they awoke and saw a man standing in the room. The man said he was there to pick up someone by the name of Crayton. They told him he was in the wrong room and he left. They then discovered the items were missing from her purse.
A man said that he moved out of his apartment after he had a disagreement with his roommate. He didn’t have a place to go so he left some of his stuff in the apartment. The roommate had the locks changed and won’t give him his stuff. You need to plan ahead and have arrangements made for your stuff when you are leaving. At the time you leave, have your stuff with you or this kind of thing will happen.
Thefts from Cars
A laptop, briefcase, and a $2000 Rolex.
$1500 cash and two Motorola cell phones.
Two Amplifiers, a DVD monitor and a CD player face unit.
A black and orange Hawaiian print diaper bag.
A Dell Latitude D620 Notebook computer and case.
A gym bag containing a Ju-Jitsu uniform .
A GPS unit and an I-Pod.
A laptop, computer bag, and a ring .
A briefcase containing an MP3 player, notary stamp, a credit card and several other items. The thief entered through the sunroof.
Burglary
Someone shattered the glass and entered the Spalding Wine and Spirits bottle shop on Spalding Drive. The video shows a male with a hooded shirt, stealing two bottles of Seagram’s V.O. Canadian, one which he dropped on the way out.
Someone stole the TV that was on the wall of the Berkley Run Apartment fitness room.
An apartment resident said that someone forced a window and gained access to his apartment. He said that he didn’t know if anything was taken. He reported the burglary some 19 hours after it happened. Maybe he had to tidy up first.
Arrests
A 24-year-old man was arrested after Sports Authority employees said that he took a pair of $38 Nike shorts and put them under his shirt and then tried to leave the store. An employee saw the theft and tried to detain the suspect. According to the report, the two men got into a physical altercation when the suspect tried to get to his car and leave. The man, who was charged with Shoplifting and Simple Battery, told the officer that he thought it was okay to take the shorts because an employee of Sports Authority said he could have them as a final payment for personal training that she took from him when he worked at the L.A. Fitness gym next door. He will be eligible for the new book “Alibis for Dummies” on sale soon.
Ernesto Rafris, age 34 from Marietta, was arrested for Shoplifting at a Kroger Store after he concealed several hair products in his pants. He was also charged with Disorderly While Under the Influence due to his intoxicated state. His hair was fabulous.
42-year old Deborah Diana Waid was arrested for Battery and Pointing a Pistol at Another in relation to a domestic violence call. The male victim said that he awoke to find the suspect biting his finger. He apparently retreated to a bedroom but the suspect forced the door open and then pointed a gun at him. He disarmed the suspect but sustained a gash to the head after she hit him with the gun.
28-year old Lindsey Eric Rashen of Fresno, California was arrested for Disorderly Conduct and Obstruction after officers responded to the Homestead Suites on a fire alarm. While interviewing Rashen, officers asked him for identification which he refused to show. They asked him to remove his hands from his pockets which he refused to do. They told him that he was then under arrest. Rashen scuffled with the officers while they tried to cuff him. The report said that Rashen tried at least twice to leap, head first, off the second floor balcony and head-butted objects including building columns and the back screen of the police car. Don’t believe what you see on television and in the movies. Head-butting is overrated. That’s not a steel plate up there. For most of you, your brain is inside there and if you head-butt something hard enough you’ll be wearing a bicycle helmet and name tag for the rest of your life. Quit doing stupid things like that.
42-year old Kenneth Mark Slingerland of Sandy Springs was arrested and charged with Pedestrian Under the Influence (Yes, PUI) after he was found passed out in the road just after 4 a.m.
Khalid Avery Egypt, age 17 was arrested and charged with Robbery by Snatch after he told police he was in involved in an earlier robbery where his friend was caught. He said he was feeling guilty.
Kendrick Keyon Williams, age 26, from Atlanta, was arrested after the loss prevention staff at Ross Department Store found that he had been taking money from customers and then canceling the sale of the items they paid for. Store officials said that Williams pocketed over $2500 cash in approximately 17 transactions.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By catlady
May 19, 2007 8:47 AM | Link to this
How, exactly, do we have THIS MANY stupid people? I got a chuckle from you today, Officer.
By Stephen
May 19, 2007 10:17 PM | Link to this
Love the cancel transaction scam, and the clowns think no one will ever know… (Uh dude? Where’s the cash?)
By Jeffrey
May 21, 2007 8:47 AM | Link to this
It always befuddles me the number of people that try to work these scams or thefts and they get caught. As for the people who had items stolen from their car, if I had a $2000 Rolex you can best believe it would be on my wrist not sitting in the car. Someday people will realize either take the valuable items out of your car or hide them so people won’t find them. The most expensive thing in my car right now is a $20 George Forman and I know I need to take that out because someone who wants to eat healthier may take it! Keep up the good work Steve. I was in Sandy Springs this weekend and wanted to meet you however I didn’t want to have the silver bracelets put on my hands so I could do just that!
By Kat
May 21, 2007 12:26 PM | Link to this
I think a lot of people who have something stolen (wallet, jewelry, whatever) tack an imaginary Rolex onto the list of missing things so they can collect more from the insurance company.
By Jennie
May 21, 2007 5:05 PM | Link to this
Who carries that kind of cash around? Most of my friends are gainfully employed folks with plenty of money and we can’t come up with enough cash to pay for lunch most of the time! Sounds suspect in my humble opinion.
By Lee
May 22, 2007 8:01 AM | Link to this
Pedestrian under the influence? What’s the difference between that and Public Drunk?
By Stephen
May 25, 2007 10:38 AM | Link to this
The problem is that we feel safe—we don’t expect a robbery to occur, and we feel safe and in control of our surroundings. When a robbery does occur, it is involves more than just the loss of our belongings. It is a violation of ourselves.
This week, on Monday, May 14th, my car was broken into and a laptop and several personal items were stolen. My car was parked in a paid parking lot at the Woodruff Arts center in Midtown. This parking lot has both security cameras and patrols. Access is limited, and you cannot get in or out without being seen and recorded by a camera. It never even crossed my mind that a break-in could occur in this area. It simply wasn’t a possibility, as far as I knew. And yet, sometime on Monday, someone smashed my passenger-side window and made off with my laptop bag, complete with laptop and very precious personal items, a satchel with a change of clothes, and a small bag primarily containing a copy of the scriptures. Once the thief had made it safely within the confines of the parking lot stairwell, the thief had a moment to decide that the change of clothes and the word of God were effectively useless to him (considering that neither would get him closer to his next fix, he was probably right), and discarded these, retaining only the laptop bag and the five-year-old computer and personal items contained therein. We know only that he was in the stairwell because that is where those two items were found (one of which contained my contact information, which is how I was informed of the discovery).
I was devastated to discover what had happened, but the “lesson” is useless to me now. I’m a man of limited means and limited insurance, so there will be no replacement for the stolen computer any time soon. But what hurts the worst is not the financial burden imposed by this loss. The worst part is the feeling of violation. This is exacerbated by the loss of the personal items contained in the laptop case. These items, a spiral-bound notebook with my handwritten notes, thoughts, and ideas inside, and a USB drive that contains the only electronic copy of these notes, are completely valueless to the thief, but to me they are priceless personal treasures. They represent an extension of myself, a personal history that I have been keeping for roughly 8 years. If I could have nothing else back, I would want these, and it pains immensely me to think that by now, they are likely already taking up space in a landfill somewhere.
Combined with this pain and this feeling of violation is a sense of frustration that there is nothing either I nor the Police can really do about it. Despite the fact that the thief was most probably caught on camera (cameras are pointed at all the stairwell entrances in the Woodruff parking garage; it should be a simple affair to identify the thief as the guy who goes into the stairwell carrying my laptop case, satchel, and scripture bag and coming out, either on the same floor or on a different floor, with only the laptop case; he was probably one of only a tiny handful of people to use the stairwell all day, instead of the elevators) I realize there is very little the police can do. Even if there is a clear image of the thief, finding one such individual out of thousands of the “usual suspects” in Atlanta is a virtually impossible excerise in needle/haystack theory. And it’s frustrating that there’s nothing I can do, either. I’m willing to pay to get my personal belongings back (I can’t afford to pay to get the laptop back, but I had no personal files stored on its hard drive anyway). With the help of friends and family, I can afford to offer a reward that should easily exceed the amount any pawnshop owner could get for a USB drive, much less a spiral-bound notebook with maybe a half-dozen blank pages remaining in it. But I haven’t a clue how to communicate this information to the thief or the pawnshop owner who has likely taken possession of my property by now. I just want those two items back (the USB drive with my files intact, naturally).
When the officer took my report Monday afternoon, he informed me that this is the most common crime in Atlanta; citing a statistic that last year there were 11,000 such crimes in the Atlanta area. Reading between the lines was the suggestion that it was unlikely that anything would found—not impossible, but very unlikely. And there really is no safe place in Atlanta. Yet we all feel safe and secure—our doors are locked, we’re watched by security cameras and protected by security patrols. None of these things can prove a deterrent to a desperate criminal. Unfortunately, it seems the only way to learn this sad truth is to experience the violation of safety and trust that comes with such a crime, but by then it’s way too late.