View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > June > 05 > Entry
Crime & Punishment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well folks, this is May and many of you are leaving for vacations and so hopefully you have done some homework in getting ready to go.
Even as you prepare for the beach by purchasing ugly shorts and oversized flip-flops, crooks are gearing up for the summer as well. This is prime time for stealing—specifically from cars.
This is a metro-wide rise in crime numbers. DeKalb County, especially the perimeter area is showing an increase and Zone 2 Atlanta is showing a 29% increase mostly due to thefts from autos.
GPS units are very popular but believe it or not, we’re seeing an increase in thefts where the driver left a purse, wallet, camera, and so on, right there on the front seat and in some cases, left the door unlocked.
We are all guilty of this from time to time as our lives are so busy as evident by my increased speaking-engagement schedule. Today alone I spoke at two Waffle House employee reunions and the Georgia Chapter of the Moon Amtrak Club. (www.moonamtrack.org.) I must say, I’m in demand this summer.
Anyway, the point is that we’re going 90 MPH everywhere we go. One of the first things to fall in the cracks is how vulnerable we are to crime. We just don’t think it’s going to happen—until it happens, then, we go a little nutzo. As much as I hate to see people taken as victims, sometimes it’s a wake-up call and afterwards it is, at times, productive. Still, carrying expensive jewelry to a gym is nutzo and leaving expensive items in the car is nutzo. Don’t be nutzo.
Robbery A man reported that while he was standing near a dumpster at the rear of his apartment complex, a white mini-van approached, driven by a man described as white with curly hair. Two other males got out and one pulled a gun. The two men took his I.D. and $500 cash. The two men were described as 6-0” and around 160 to 180 lbs.
Burglary A complainant reported that while she was in her apartment around 11:45 a.m. a man kicked in the front door and yelled for everyone to get out. The man was armed with a gray handgun. As the complainant went for the door, the perp yelled “Never mind—wrong person!” and then left.
Someone entered the victim’s garage and took a chainsaw and blower, valued at around $700.
The victim said someone kicked the front door in and took $2,600 in property.
Someone entered the victim’s apartment and took items, valued at $600 from the apartment.
The victim reported that someone forced a kitchen window and entered his home. Property valued at just under $2,000 was taken.
Thefts A complainant reported that someone removed numerous sections of copper pipe from a construction area. Value of the theft is about $1,000.
Two men ate over $26 in food at the Northridge Road Waffle House and then left without paying.
A man gave the convenient-store clerk a bad credit card, probably stolen, and pumped $81 in gas and left. The clerk did get the tag and arrests are pending.
A man reported that he bought a laptop from a man on Craigslist for $1,000 and found later the computer had been stolen.
A man walked into a convenient store, took several CD’s and left without paying.
Forgery-Fraud-Identity Theft Someone used the victim’s name and DOB to open a credit account with MasterCard and attempted to open an account with Bank of America.
The victim said someone accessed her electronic account and paid money to Wal-Mart and a Circle-K store. Total loss was in excess of $800.
Someone used the victim’s credit card number acquiring over $8,000 in retail-store items in Chicago.
Bright Ideas *
• Most Convoluted Business Plan: Adolfo Martinez, 33, and Mark Anderson, 26, were indicted for fraud in Las Cruces, N.M., in April, accused of passing forged checks. The men’s plan was to buy Domino’s pizzas with the checks, then have one of the men put on a Pizza Hut shirt and resell the pizzas, by the slice, in a local park or at stores (even though the pizzas were still being carried around in the Domino’s boxes).
• A 31-year-old man was hospitalized in critical condition in Salt Lake City, hit by cars after running into traffic to avoid paying for a taxi ride he had just taken.
• Three men were arrested in New Orleans in February and charged with possession of almost two pounds of marijuana after police were called to a car on fire, which they said started when the men stashed their dope under the hood, and it overheated. • Recurring Themes: Mr. Cash Burch, 24, was arrested in Waterloo, Iowa, in April after he broke into a truck and tried to start it but apparently ran down the battery doing so, which triggered a theft-prevention device that locked the doors, trapping him inside, where he was waiting when police arrived. Courtesy of Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird www.newsoftheweird.com
Comments
By Gil
June 5, 2008 11:11 PM | Link to this
Correct web address for moon amtrak is: http://www.moonamtrak.org/
There is no “c.”
By Cop Talk
June 5, 2008 11:21 PM | Link to this
Stever Rose reminds us that what we are dealing with is a complete lack of respect for the law.
By Fred
June 5, 2008 11:40 PM | Link to this
Thanks for the clickable link Gil. I enjoyed the hell out of reading it. Steve, where DO you come up with these things lol?
On another note I don’t EVEN want to know what a 700 dollars “blower” is. Sounds like something a New York City Mayor or former President of the United Staes would have handy in their garages……. garagi?
By Cassie
June 6, 2008 10:20 AM | Link to this
Steve honey,
It’s June.
By Stone
June 6, 2008 11:57 AM | Link to this
You just may be a redneck if you think there’s nothing worse than a yankee.
By Say What?
June 6, 2008 2:20 PM | Link to this
A $700 blower is what got Eliot Spitzer in all that trouble…
Now cut that out!!!!
By Fred
June 6, 2008 8:04 PM | Link to this
Stone: Guilty as charged and PROUD of it.
By Cop Talk
June 6, 2008 8:49 PM | Link to this
It’s more than a complete lack of respect for the law, or total lack of respect for law officials, or the total disdain and dissing and dismania of anything legal or institutuional or civilized. What Steve Rose reminds us is that there are plenty of dirty, no account, thievin’ pieces of yellow confederate trash just wandering around out there. And he makes a very convincing case that our society cannot or will not deal with them or even attempt to constrain their behavior, because apparently there’s either too many of them, or none of us have the heart to actually punish them. Maybe we’re all bleeding heart liberals and we’ve reached a turning point in criminalogy. Maybe we are simply going to have to endure the shenanigans of these motley clown acts who live on the edges of our once ordered realm. If only we could find a scape goat, a group of people, say maybe a race or a religious group, that we can blame all our problems on, somebody get Rove on the phone, he’ll know what to do.
By Fred
June 7, 2008 5:09 AM | Link to this
LOL Cop talk, can you just settle on a name so we can know how to address you? Can we have a contest for it? You crack me up. you are Luckovich and Neal Boortz rolled up into one ball of wax.
I guess some don’t get it do they?
By G. Mauricio
June 7, 2008 3:40 PM | Link to this
Tough talk coming from a racist redneck. UR the 1 who doesn’t get it dude.
By Lt. Steve
June 8, 2008 4:40 PM | Link to this
Hey!! It’s June! Man, those time-warp gaps are getting longer. My A.D.D.is progressing. Is it that or just short attention span? Hey!! It’s June!
By ElBubba
June 8, 2008 6:46 PM | Link to this
What’s up with that fellow who shot his mother in the back with a cross-bow? That’s pretty heinous. And all over $300 rent? (I think the last time I had Rent of $300 per month was around 1982)
Seems like he could have stolen six GPS thingies and sold them. What’s that, one evening of work per month?
I’m seriously worried about our society and whatever it is that we are doing wrong. My knee-jerk reaction isn’t to put’em all in jail and throw away the key. We’ve been doing that for a long time and it is not solving the crime problem, just filling up the jails. When they do let them loose again, the problem hasn’t been solved, just reintroduced to society.
By Cassie
June 9, 2008 12:28 PM | Link to this
ElBubba -
Send ‘em to Mexico.
Sending them north seems to work for Mexico.
By Fred
June 10, 2008 1:07 AM | Link to this
yep, that’s me maouicio, a racsist, redneck. That’s why I married an Asian chick and am voting for Obama.
Is it tough to breath with your head so far up your a* BTW?
By Stone
June 10, 2008 12:05 PM | Link to this
Fred, I don’t know whether you are a racist or not, but maybe he thinks you’re a racist redneck because a couple of posts ago you called him a n**** and later proudly refered to yourself as a redneck. As for claiming that being married to an “Asian chick” absolves you from any charges of being a racist you’re wrong. I know several white guys who are married to my wife’s relatives that are racist to the bone. They hate blacks! If you don’t like being refered to as a racist redneck, stop calling people n**** and refering to yourself as a proud redneck. That would be a start. Just my two cents, no offense intended.
By Fred
June 11, 2008 5:45 AM | Link to this
But I AM a redneck, the true definiton of it, not the perverted one. As far as typing n****/ As long as HE can use redneck as a racist slur, I can use the other. I don’t do double speak and double standards. What is good for ONE group of people is good for ALL groups of people. Take that PC crap back to the idiots that dreamed it up.
By Stone
June 11, 2008 6:25 AM | Link to this
You’re the one dreaming Fred. Equating the word n**** with the word redneck, which you proudly call yourself, is off the mark and just not the same. There is no excuse for calling someone a n****, even someone like Maricio who says he isn’t black, just because you disagree with them. I’ll say it again, if you don’t like being called a racist redneck, don’t go around calling people n**** on blogs. It makes you sound like an uneducated, immature and uninformed white trash. I’m sure you call people n**** all the time, regardless of if they call you a redneck or not so your justification this time doesn’t cover all the other times. Your lame excuse makes one wonder if you aren’t indeed a racist and just don’t know it. Check your self Fred, before checking someone else.
By Fred
June 12, 2008 3:29 AM | Link to this
Oh, ok Stone, I get it now. I was rushed this morning, my 6 year old daughter woke up scared so I had more important things to do than debate about the word n****. I’m not rushed now and I recall how it came up in conversation. Do you? The word CHINK is acceptable by the auto snagger here but the word n**** isn’t. THAT my opponent (I won’t debase either you or I by saying friend) is how this all came about. N**** can call chinks, chinks here but let a chink call a n**** a n**** and all hell breaks loose. Why? Riddle me that answer man. Mr. Apologist.
YOU wear the guilt of a few years of Black slavery if you chose to. I won’t. NONE of my “people” were over here then. MY people came over in the 1900’s. My moms folks were coal miners who usually died in the mines and my dads were Scots. WE had nothing to do with slavery. I had nothing to do with Jim Crow laws. That is just weak assed crap. As I said YOU wear some sort of weird assed guilt for it, I won’t. I am married to a Korean. Talk about racism, just look at how blacks act towards and treat Koreans. I forgive them, they just need an excuse.
“Racism” has become the word of idiots who reallty have no logical point to add to an argument. I never thought I would add you to that group of idiots but I think you must made the list of people just too stupid to talk to. COngratulations. You join such esteemed folks as Jesse Jackson and David Dukes. Have a Coke and a smile, I’m done with your dumb a*.
By Stone
June 12, 2008 5:52 PM | Link to this
Fred, this came about when you called another person a n**** because you didn’t like what they were saying, period. It had nothing to do with me or my posts. Try to rationalize it and justify it all you want. Bottom line, when you call another person a n**** you are wrong. When you degrade another because of the color of their skin you are wrong. I will always stand up and defend those that I believe are being treated unfairly and you were unfair to this person. Hide behind your Asian wife and your coal mining ancestors all you want, but the more you post, the more you appear to be the racist person everyone accuses you of being. What a shame.
By Fred
June 12, 2008 7:33 PM | Link to this
Point it out big boy apologist. Show me where. I don’t think you CAN because if I used the word I used it in context. You still don’t get it and you will never get it. You are toting the mail for the TRUE racists, the ones who use the color of their skin for an excuse. You are a David Dukes/Jesse Jackson POS. You want advantage for skin color, not advantage.
“All a brother needs is a b*** and a gat. A n**** ain’t down if it ain’t like that”
hip hop lyrics from a black man. Is HE a racist because he said n****? Oh no of COURSE not. He’s “oppressed”.
“yo, my n****”
A popular phrase for blacks, are they racists for saying so/ Of COURSE not, but I would be if I said it.
“Hey get down off that tree, you bunch of monkey’s.”
According to YOUR apologist a*, that would be racist if said to Black children, but acceptable if said to any other kids.
Keep toting that illogical weak assed mail you apologist. Forget true freedom, it’s a concept you cannot envision.
By G. Mauricio
June 12, 2008 7:53 PM | Link to this
freddy boy thought you were done with stone? Face it ur an inbred piece of white trash. Slamming stone 4 what? Because he says calling people n**** is wrong? U have so much hatred in u it is sickening. Ignore him stone he’s a racist redneck loser full of hate.
By Fred
June 12, 2008 8:08 PM | Link to this
“You want advantage for skin color, not advantage.”
To correct the typo: It should be “You want advantage for skin color, not equality.”
By G. Mauricio
June 12, 2008 8:13 PM | Link to this
found it freddy boy. u called me a n**** racist hypocrite in “Dumb Thieves and Other Random Musings” used the word in contex huh? loser boy can’t keep his lies straight.
By Fred
June 13, 2008 6:50 PM | Link to this
Yep Mauricio, I was WAY in context, let me quote it since you and stoneless lacked the balls (or stones0 to do so):
“It’s ONLY racist if some white CONSERVATIVE is talking about a a balck person. Quite basically Mauricio, you DON’T “get it” and won’t get it because YOU are a n* racist hypocrite. Oh wait, you can call ME a cracker and get away with it but if I type N*, I get autosnagged.”
It was in reply to YOUR post “UR a racist cracker and so is the redneck who is selling these t-shirts.”
So what you are saying is that because of the color of YOUR skin you can hurl racist epithets and it’s cool, but because of the color of MY skin I can not respond in a like manner. At least other than my typo’s I can spell. (and I left my typo’s in the quotes as they ARE quotes).
SO tell me Mauricio, what will it take for YOU to stop the hate and the racism. Will murdering me satiate your inconceivable hatred? Or do you need to rape my wife and kill my child as well? When will YOUR use of racial epithets be as despisable as my use of them in replying to your hatred and use of racial epithets? When will YOU acknowledge your hypocracy and go on towards the path of EQUALITY, not some weird sense of superiority. Never right?
While I draw the line at the senseless rape of my wife and killing of my child, I would gladly let you murder me if it could end this stupid a* “race war” that is only propagated by racists such as yourself. But it wouldn’t end it because YOU refuse to see that YOU are the problem, not the solution.
Stupid redneck a* me didn’t realize that there WAS a problem until I moved up north to Atlanta and found that every time I had a disagreement with someone who had darker skin than mine that I was a “racist,” not that it was just a disagreement between two mwn. Maybe one day you will see that and quit playing that tired race card. Just a tip for you? The Ace of spades is the highest card in a deck of cards. It has been for hundreds of years before YOUR ancestors sold their enemies into slavery. Check out some history and Hoyles since you won’t believe me. Also stop the CURRENT slavery going on in Africa if you are so socially active and quit whining about non existent problems in this Country.
And quit using racial epithets if you don’t want them used back. I fight as I am fought. What is good for you is good for me. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it wild man. The so called racism starts and stops with YOU, (and me). I use the phrase to make a point to point out YOUR hypocracy, how do you use YOURS?
Email me Garedneck@yahoo.com. Seriously, I want to do a black/white TRUE dialog. i have a friend I was going to approach about this, but you may be better lol. YOU have more hate than he has………….. This s** HAS to stop and it has to stop one person at a time.
By Fred
June 13, 2008 6:53 PM | Link to this
Damn, I left out something. I want to do a you tube thing Mauricio. A TRUE dialog, not some PC bs thing. Put your money where your mouth is. Email me, i’m not afraid of truth or discovering the things I thought were truth are lies. Are you?
By G. Mauricio
June 15, 2008 8:28 PM | Link to this
fred- 4 the last time, I’m not black! u want a “black/white TRUE dialoge”? find a black person! I am as white as u r. with a little Latino thrown in for flavoring of cource. what a fool ur.
By jecika gonzalvis
July 19, 2008 12:50 AM | Link to this
I have read all the article abi\out the crime. It is too much dengerous for me to read more.
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