As arrests go, this was about as small potatoes as you get.
Aeman Lovel Presley was piggybacking behind a paying rider at the Georgia State MARTA station. He was gate jumping, ripping off taxpayers for a $2.50 fare.
But the actions of a couple of alert MARTA cops and an eagle-eyed supervisor led to the arrest of a man investigators say is a vicious serial killer who murdered four people. The cops were both good and lucky, which probably saved other lives.
The facts of the case and fortuitousness of the arrest would make for a rousing, if unbelievable, episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” In fact, the writers wouldn’t dare script it like it really went down, the viewers just wouldn’t buy it.
Atlanta police had only recently linked the homicides of two homeless men as they slept downtown, a hair stylist near a Decatur restaurant and a mentally ill man man in a Stone Mountain parking lot. Just hours before Presley entered the fare gate, Atlanta police issued a very public and emotional plea describing details of the killings, including the unusual gun used in the crime spree.
Presley’s arrest on what might be seen as a Mickey Mouse infraction shows the value in enforcing the basics.
Officers Lashi Smith, James Williams Jr. and Sgt. Oliver Delgado hear it all the time: "What are you doing wasting your time with fare evasion (or littering or public drinking)? You should be going after real criminals.
But the foundation of any good policing effort is to keep an eye out for the minor infractions, which can be entry points for further investigation. It’s the blocking and tackling of law enforcement.
When it comes down to it, officers Smith and Williams look like they would do well at blocking and tackling. Smith is built like a nose guard. Williams resembles a left tackle.
The two relatively new officers, both of whom have less than three years on the MARTA force, told me they were on an undercover detail late Thursday morning when they saw a thin man lingering around the gate, a classic sign he was looking to shadow someone in.
After he did, Smith and Williams quickly converged, asking him about his Breeze card. The man nervously rocked back and forth, his head down. Smith asked the man to settle down and stand against the wall.
As Smith turned Presley around to be handcuffed, the suspect tried to bolt. As I said, the officers are like the left side of the Falcons’ line; the gate-jumper was immediately on the ground, handcuffed.
The two officers try to work briskly and inconspicuously in such situations. When in plainclothes, they don’t want would-be Good Samaritans thinking they’re witnessing a mugging and jumping in to help the wrong side.
Presley was hustled into a nearby holding room, where a search of his backpack found a loaded silver .45-caliber revolver and 27 more hollow-point rounds inside an ammunition box.
“Once I saw that gun, my eyes lit up light a Christmas tree,” Williams said.
Delgado remembered APD’s description of the gun. “The size of the cylinder caught my attention.” He said “cowboy re-enactors” like the weapon. The cops also discovered that Presley is a felon and is wanted on drug charges in Los Angeles.
Soon, Atlanta detectives had the alleged murder weapon and were beginning to wrap up a case they had just pieced together. They announced yesterday that Presley had confessed to the hairdresser’s murder.
For the MARTA cops, the enormity of it all is still sinking in.
“It’s still surreal,” said Smith. “The small things sure can turn into big things.”
The stepped-up enforcement is part of a campaign to clean up the transit system’s image, so potential riders won’t feel they’ll be accosted by hoods, creeps and garden-variety ne’er-do-wells. Williams and Smith figure they each make six or seven arrests a week, mostly fare evasions, along with busts for drinking, pot-smoking, panhandling and disorderly conduct. Plus the occasional pick-pocket.
“Those who fare-evade will shoplift, will urinate on platforms, will do all sorts of things,” Williams said. Next thing you know, the system will resemble the background of a “Mad Max” movie.
The arrest was not unlike big pinches that patrol cops make from mundane traffic stops.
“The fare gates are our stop sign” said Delgado.
I called Lou Arcangeli, a former Atlanta deputy chief who started as a beat cop. He was impressed by Delgado’s quick determination that the squirrely fare evader might be someone much more sinister.
“The guy who connected the dots was the one who was really on his game,” he said. “You have to give MARTA credit. It takes a lot for a police force to have the right officers at the right spot with the right attitude, armed with the right information.”
The Broken Windows theory of policing, which aims to nab the folks committing small infractions before they move up the crime ladder, has gotten a bad rap lately. It has led to over-zealous stop and frisk programs and hurt the reputations of some police forces.
“But quality-of-life enforcement is the foundation of policing,” Arcangeli said. “When you’re talking about taking back a neighborhood, you’re talking about cleaning it up, going after littering, enforcing code violations. If you don’t deal with the little things, people will perceive you as weak.”
And sometimes the little things will pay off a jackpot, as in this case, maybe the biggest bust these three officers will ever have a hand in, even if they have long careers.
“It’s like hitting the police lottery,” said Williams, shaking his head in wonder. “You catch a serial killer.”
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