View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > May
May 2008
Never a dull moment for police PIO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Greetings from Texas folks.
I’m in Arlington tending to some PIO conferencing. The hotel is located next to the Texas Rangers Ballpark. Unfortunately, the Rangers are out of town so my plan to run onto the field in the 5th inning armed only with my police thong and a “Down with the Designated Hitter” sign was foiled.
In the biz, the PIO stands for Public Information Officer. My uncle Renaldo, who for many years was a dance instructor in Dunwoody, admitted last summer at the annual family reunion / annual probation office check-in that he thought PIO was, along with Sir Gawain and Sir Ferris, was one of the knights of the Holy Grail who are mentioned but never appear in Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal.
The PIO is charged with the responsibility for providing information to the public via the television, radio and print media, using words such as “perpetrator” and terms such as “formerly existing human” rather than “dead guy.” The PIO is also responsible for writing press releases to announce something or to create an opportunity to use the word “perpetrator.” Examples of press-release topics include such crimes as shootings and tearing tags off mattresses.
At times, a press release will be responded to by a request for an interview from a television station. TV stations are obviously driven by the events of the day. Now, thanks to satellite coverage, we can now see live coverage of two Giant Chinese Salamanders mating—just in case there’s a lull in people shooting each other.
Still, Giants Chinese Salamanders can hold our ever-channel-surfing attention so long.
Like the Swallows of Cappuccino, television will return to that most familiar to them—crime.
A good quality for a PIO is the ability to monitor the news of the day. That’s why we justify an office with a television. The hardest part is convincing the major that watching General Hospital is part of intelligence gathering. Thank God “Sonny” is part of the mafia because we’re always worried about organized crime.
The PIO should always be ready for an interview. At a moment’s notice, crime could happen. A good PIO should have a “ready kit” available. This kit should include a fresh uniform, foul weather gear and other essentials including hair spray. It’s hard to take a PIO serious when he or she, on a windy day, looks like Dee Snider back in the Heavy Metal days.
Depending on what the news day is shaping up to be dictates what is news worthy on that day. Here is an example of how the top three leading stories can vary depending on how busy the news day is:
Busy News Day Top Three Story Headlines: 1. Hideous Murder of Mafia Chief Leads Cops to Think Gang War Possible 2. Political Sex Scandal-Mayor Apologizes and Asks for “Do Over.” 3. Huge Drug Bust-Clandestine Flomax Lab Discovered in Golf-Club Community.
Moderate News Day Top Three Story Headlines:
- Barbara Walters Admits Affair with Ulysses S. Grant
- Massage Parlor Bust-Mayor Claims Therapeutic Visit-Asks for “Do Over.”
- Flower Vases Actually Crack Pipes—Store Owner: “Wow, I’m Surprised—Really!”
Slow News Day Top Three Story Headlines: 1. Mayor Accused of Jaywalking to Massage Parlor—Exclaims “Give Me a (%$*&#) Break!!” 2. Resident Stomps Out Flaming Paper Bag on Front Porch—Later Claims Local Delinquent Loaded Bag with Dog Poop. 3. Cops Complain: “Precinct Five Has Clogged Toilet.”
And you thought it was just as simple as pronouncing “perpetrator” correctly.
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Dalton goes after Christmas lights in May offenders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The city of Dalton has taken innovative steps to address a long-standing problem that, admit it or not, gets under the skin of every decent human being on the planet. Finally, someone is doing something about Christmas lights in May.
My lovely SWAT-certified wife considers this a reason to knock on the door and ask said resident just what the heck he or she was thinking. My wife, of course, has never had a whupp’in because she walked up to someone’s home and started complaining about something. I have. (An unfortunate incident involving several small farm animals and some of Mr. Latimer’s special holiday mix.
The details were sealed per the court.)
Anyway, I tread lightly when I cross onto other’s turf. The list of things that I will risk another whupp’in does not include complaining about Christmas lights in May—although, from afar, it does irritate me.
Does this violate the rights of someone who wishes to put up Christmas lights or decorations for that matter because they want to observe the Christmas Holiday year long? I don’t know. Why would someone want them up all year anyway?
As a parent of four and some-odd kids, I associate Christmas with purchasing things. I don’t care to celebrate that all year long. I like the Christmas music but after a month of it, I’m good. It’s not practical to keep the yard decorations past the holiday period because when the weather warms up, vandalism increases.
There’s nothing worse than waking up and finding someone placed a couple of pink flamingos in your nativity scene.
At some point, the need for a law has to have some practicality. For instance, the hot-debated “Sagging” law actually hinders law enforcement. I’ve said this before and it has merit. Chasing “saggers” is not only productive in terms of being able to catch them, but also brings much-needed entertainment value to law enforcement.
Saggers are actually so easy to catch that you have to pace yourself not to catch them too soon. When they start running, you need to chase but not overtake the sagger. It’s important to let the sagger feel like he has a chance to win the foot race. The longer you keep pace with them the funnier it is.
It’s like chasing a penguin. It’s crazy, wacky fun
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Dumb thieves and other random musings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today I thought I would just throw out some random thoughts.
I’ve noticed two commercials that are continuously playing on radio. Collection agencies are advertising more than ever before: “We only charge you for the money we collect.”
What a deal. Sign of the times I guess. Are we in a recession or a semi-recession, sort of recession? Gas prices are hitting close to four-bucks and yet the oil companies are having record profits?
We used to have tons of gas drive-offs until the stations all required people to pay up front unless they used a card. More and more of our credit card thefts have gas purchases put on them just after the theft. Priorities are changing. Crooks now want to gas up before they use the stolen card anywhere else.
Some gas stations have gas-pump cameras, something I think is great. We can now capture the painful look on people as they read the pump’s dollar amount go up and up.
Something else hot on the list of thieves is copper.
AC units and copper wire, already buried in some cases, are dug up and stolen. In some thefts, it appears that the thieves were well prepared and willing to spend a lot of time pulling up buried copper lines. OK, copper prices were at $8,430 a ton. OK, a ton is 2,000 pounds.
So that means a little over four-bucks a pound? To show you how far people attempt to go, a 21-year old man from West Virginia was electrocuted as he tried to steal copper wires from a power line. I saw the pictures of this dude. Let me tell you, he was cooked! He was however, still wearing his rubber gloves. Thinning of the herd I guess. He’ll probably make the final cut of this year’s Darwin Awards.
Well folks, your Garmin GPS units are going for a grand total of forty-bucks on the stolen GPS market.
Forty bucks is a lot to a crack head. Right now they’re still picking them off in public parking lots. Again, a scientific study reveals the following: If you take them out of the car, the bad people will not steal it. Wait, there’s more: if you take the GPS out of the car, don’t forget to take the little suction cup thingie too.
No sense tempting some crack-commando to smash and take a look-see. Now, take that, and add this: keep some Kleenex in the car and wipe the little round suction-cup mark the cup leaves on the windshield. Now there is absolutely NO evidence and remember, the bad people SEE what they want first, and then they break your windows and go in. Now, that is three things that you can do to put you in the upper five-percentile of people who are not too lazy to—uh, do what I just said—yep, that.
If you don’t have time for that and you do get something stolen—well, what did you learn? It’s never a priority until it gets stolen. Then you are one upset dude right? But out of all that anger, the one thing you won’t say, at least publicly, is: “Well I wish I had taken the time to take those things out of the car.”
We’re all victims of laziness aren’t we? Let’s face it. With large HD televisions and recliners and video games and…well, all you need is a catheter and you can park it there for days. Just take an extra minute or so and don’t give the crack heads the opportunity to steal your stuff.
Oh yes, here is the other radio commercial I’ve been hearing.
The train people are doing commercials now urging people not to cross the railroad tracks while the trains are moving at a high rate of speed towards them. They went as far to describe the train as six-hundred tons that can hit you and obviously hurt you. It takes the distance of six football fields to stop. That sounds more dramatic than saying six-hundred yards.
Why did they have to put together a commercial to explain to us that trains can kill us if they run over us? I thought that was understood. If you or anyone in your family have any doubts as to the overwhelming advantage a train has to your car, rent the 1974 movie called “Dirty Mary-Crazy Larry” starring Peter Fonda and Susan George.
Aside from the entertainment value of all that bad acting, the final scene should serve as a good visual that trains will mess you up. Crazy Larry and Dirty Mary bite the dust. Again though, why do they have to reminded us of something so obvious? If this is a problem then lets do what we did with explaining the birds and the bees. Let the schools do it for us.
Here’s a paragraph from “A Parent Talks to Children Ages 12-13.” Little Laura is curious about Harvey after she saw him skinny-dipping in old man Wheeler’s pond. “Gee,” she said to herself, “Harvey is different than me.” Later, she asked her mom why Harvey was different—you know, down there, that her. “Well,” said her mother, “You see, boys are made different than girls. It’s all part of the plan to, well, you know, make babies and keep the population going. Also, stay away from trains.” Piece of cake.
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Lithonia is like a family drama at Thanksgiving
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the continuing drama (or comedy, which appears to be the emerging reaction from the public) the Lithonia City Council , police and the mayor are still at it I think.
I’m not sure. I mean, every once in a while the mayor gets on TV and shows off her new bruise and claims a bunch of new stuff—dramatically delivering a very emotional but, sadly, boring view of whatever she was talking about.
This comes as no surprise to the people of Lithonia. Apparently there is a history. An April 25th article in the AJC noted that in 2005, newly elected councilwoman Linda Pruett complained that her neighbor blew leaves onto her yard.
She blew them back and the case was later settled in court—an example to the people of Lithonia as to how city leaders communicate to solve problems. Pruett’s nemesis, Doreen Carter was elected to the council in 2007 and they sit in each council session—and don’t speak.
This is starting to look like the family’s Thanksgiving dinner when Uncle Dewey brought his new girlfriend to meet the family. Her name was Jewel and she worked at a Café Erotica down near Byron, home of the second Atlanta International Pop Festival. I saw Jimi Hendrix there. My friend Skeet saw Jesus.
Well, anyway, Thanksgiving Day started out fine but went south when my other uncle, Uncle Bastogne, who drove a truck for J.W. Whitlock’s Lumber Emporium in Hiram, recognized Jewel and worse, Jewel recognized him and proceeded to go after him for apparently owing some back cash on some lap dances a few weeks back.
Uncle Dewey, who spent most of his time in the north Georgia region, never took to Uncle Bastogne because he thought he was French. In fact, one of my other uncles, Uncle Ricky Lee, told me that Uncle Bastogne’s name came from an argument that his mother and her alleged boyfriend had over how he was, well, brought into this world.
Uncle Ricky Lee said the argument contained a word very similar to Bastogne but according to Uncle Ricky Lee, Uncle Bastogne’s accused father couldn’t pronounce his word too well because he got his lips shot off during the war and nobody knew what the hell he was saying most of the time.
Well, eventually family ties prevailed and the uncles settled their differences over some Southern Comfort and an hour of roller derby on the UHF channel. Jewel ended up leaving with my Uncle Ricky Lee who later claimed to the judge that she tried to kill him by re-routing the exhaust line from the generator, located under the trailer, to the bedroom window so she could inherit his ceramic Elvis decanter and his pension check from Zayres.
Anyway, this feud in Lithonia now feeds off itself and apparently nobody is giving good advice to them. They don’t see that this has become a bad comedy and not something anyone is taking seriously. I would hate to write a check for city taxes because I would truly wonder what the hell I was getting for it. T
hey need to settle this and so I propose that if we can get Gary Coleman to finish up in divorce court, let’s move these people into Courtroom A and get it all out. They aren’t going to get along. Let’s get a ruling and finally decide who gets city hall. The mayor gets city hall on every other weekend and either Thanksgiving or Christmas but not both—whatever. Just end it.
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Crime & punishment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Have you heard all of the radio ads for collection agencies? Sign of the times folks. We’ve actually had a good couple of weeks on theft and burglary numbers but the economic times will account for more thefts metro wide. It’s very important not to assume your GPS is okay in that car when it’s stuck to the window. If you take it out, wipe that little circle smudge left on the window by the suction cup. Believe me, it’s much less work than having to replace the GPS. The going rate:
$40 for a $300 GPS
$500 for a $2000 laptop
Believe me, at those prices, there’s a market for them. Don’ t be lazy.
Robbery
A man and woman said they agreed to meet a man who was interested in buying some jewelry from them for his wife. He wanted to meet them about 10:30 at night outside an apartment complex on Northridge Road. When they showed up, two men robbed them at gunpoint, fled to an older red Chevrolet Blazer and drove away. . T The loss was valued at over $6800. Regardless of what you’re selling but especially something as valuable as jewelry, don’t even think of making arrangements to meet at night like this. Meet at a public place where you’ll have people all around you.
Burglary
A woman reported that someone entered her apartment and did a good deal of vandalism to it instead of stealing from it. She thinks that it may be as a result of a recent argument with someone over a man. (Men—what would you do without us…don’t answer.)t.
Someone pried a sliding door and entered the victim’s apartment in the 1200 block of Jefferson Drive. Missing is a bottle of perfume.
Thefts
$4,000 cash was taken from a vase in victim’s house. The vase is used a hiding place, suspect is a relative.
A cabbie reported that a guy in a cowboy hat stiffed him for $37 in cab fare.
Someone took an AC unit from behind the Village Cobbler Store on Roswell Rd. The whole metro is experiencing a lot of thefts from AC units due to the high price for the copper they contain.
Forgery/Fraud/ID Theft
A woman reported that a man, whom she knows, took her checking account number, put it on fake checks, and then wrote five checks totaling just under $1000.
Someone opened an American Express Jet Blue Card account in the name of the victim, and then charged $4,800 on it.
The victim said that someone compromised her banking account and purchased almost $900 in items including flowers that were later delivered to a woman named Roneisha in Decatur. Although originally grateful, Roneisha is now upset at having been put into this situation.
Someone’s Going to Hell
A woman reported that while she was attending church services at 7770 Roswell Road, someone took her license and her Sam’s Club card from an office in the church.
Services »
