View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > June > 23 > Entry
Crime and Punishment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thefts from cars are again becoming the summer event with our local crooks.
As I look these reports over I see the same thing again and again. The items stolen were sitting right there, in plain view, ready to be taken if someone so chooses to walk the path of crime! At some point, it becomes a “victim-compliant” crime.
I have been on record on television, radio, print media and several Moose Lodge speeches as saying that if you will just remove the opportunity, i.e.: the items to be stolen, you will increase the risk, i.e.: the time and noise it takes to break into your car and then start looking around. Don’t make it easy.
Please call 911 if you see anyone walking through the public parking areas in your apartment complexes, looking into cars or even loitering when it seems odd to do so, for instance, at 2 a.m. If you would like literature on thefts from cars, please send me an e-mail and I’ll be glad to send it to you.
Robbery
Berkley Trace
A man said someone knocked on his door. He answered it and spoke to a man who told him that he needed to talk to him outside. When he got outside, another man, whom he knows, pulled a gun and accused him of stealing his computer. They made the victim go back inside, remove his clothing, and lay down on the kitchen floor. The suspect, who, if you remember he knows, then let two females, who the victim also knows, into the apartment. The bad persons took some money and a small amount of pot that then left in a black Pontiac Grand Prix.
Assault A man reported that while at a party in the 1000 block of Pitts Road, he spoke to a woman and then when he left, a man walked up to him and hit him with a beer bottle causing a deep laceration on his face.
Theft
Hampton Drive
A man called the police and accused another man of stealing his computer monitor. The other guy said he was at the guy’s house but didn’t steal it but neither guy had a receipt. The other guy said he’s bought electronic things from the first guy before when the first guy was short on cash. The report said they were friends until this tragic incident.
Roswell Road
An employee of a restaurant stole $150 from the register while the other employees were tied up. She left and was last seen running down Roswell Road. The employee was earlier confronted about drinking on the job.
Windridge Drive
The resident of an apartment said a woman whom he knows, while in the apartment, took several bottles of medication from his bathroom. She stopped by several days before wanting to purchase sleeping pills from him. The victim told the officer the woman fell and hurt herself while on the drugs she took.
Kingsport Drive
Someone stole a pink and blue 26-inch women’s power-climber bike from her patio. (LOCK and chain your bicycles to something sturdy if you leave them outside.)
Fraud, Forgery, and I.D. Theft
Scott Valley Road
The victim reported that someone accessed her American Express Card number and charged $3,000 in airline tickets on it.
Burglary
Aldwych Lane
The victim said someone pried the back door and got into the apartment. The stolen items included a 47” flat screen TV, Surround Sound system, PS3 and games, king size bed.
Spring Creek Lane
Someone entered the victim’s apartment through a bedroom window and took a DVD player, 50 DVD’s, two loaves of bread and a box of cereal.
Northridge Road
The victim found forced entry, through the door and into his apartment. He reported a laptop and his Garfield watch missing. He suspects a former roommate.
Hammond Drive
A woman reported that her residence was burglarized. She returned home and found a key in the door and a fire extinguisher outside. She said she was told by the management that a fire inspection would be conducted on that date. She said her Dell laptop and just over $500 cash are missing.
Mt. Vernon Hwy The victim reported that three extension cords, electric saw, and a box of trash bags were taken from her storage shed.
Castleton Drive
Someone pried the rear window on the back porch of a home and took a Wolf stainless steel six-burner range.
Arrests
5500 block of PDR
Officers received a call to a medical office after an employee saw a man trying to steal a laptop from an office on the 6th floor. The lookout was given on a man in black pants, white Polo-type shirt. Another responding officer saw a man walking alongside PDR. The man matched the suspect lookout. The officer detained the man and as he questioned him, the lookout was expanded to include a bag which description matched that the man had on him. The suspect, whose name is omitted at this time because I can’t verify his age, was arrested for Burglary. At the time of arrest, he made a rather brilliant comment to the officer. He told the officer that he couldn’t understand why he was being arrested since he only tried to steal the laptop but didn’t actually get it.
27-year old Ruben Perez of Linwood Drive in Smyrna, GA was arrested after a man called police regarding two men who had just stolen his tailgate from his truck and put it into a Cadillac Escalade. The victim followed the men who abandoned the car. The officers found the tailgate and a gun. The officers also found and arrested Perez who was hiding, noisily, in the bushes nearby. The officer said Perez was acting in a suspicious manner— by the way hiding anywhere at 3 in the morning will create some suspicion. Perez was then identified by the victim and taken to jail.
Bright Ideas * 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).
Instant Karma 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
Joseph Manzanares, 19, pleaded guilty in April to disorderly conduct in Commerce City, Colo., after police were called to a domestic disturbance, as he and his ex-girlfriend, who are the parents of a toddler, fought over which local street gang’s colors (hers or his) the kid would wear.
Least Competent Criminals Should’ve chosen another career: Joshua Crowley, 22, was charged with robbing a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Camas, Wash., in March after being chased down, wrestled with, and subdued by passerby Mary Chamberlain, 66.
*Courtesy of Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird www.newsoftheweird.com
AND FINALLY.. Detective Sandy and I will be on vacation next week. This means that we’ll be at the beach engaging in such activity as frolicking, drinking things with umbrellas in them and lying around not answering our cellphones.
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