Archive for September, 2009

Some of the recent reports filed with Sandy Springs Police:

Robbery, burglary and theft

5400 block of Meridian Mark Dr.: A woman reported that she was outside her work building smoking a cigarette. A male came up to her and grabbed her arm and then told her “Give me all your money or you’ll die.” She told the man she didn’t have any money and he then fled. She was not injured. The man was last seen headed to the nearby Marta station.

5800 block of Roswell Road: PD got an alarm call at a retail store at around 2:30 a.m. The officers found that someone threw a concrete brick through the window and then took two televisions. They used a cutting tool to dislodge the TV’s. A cutting tool was left behind and later processed for prints.

8000 block of Roswell Road: A woman reported that someone took $900 in shoes from her apartment.

Summit Springs Drive: Someone stole an outside table and chair set valued at $200.

Assaults

Northridge Crossing: A woman on reported that she …

Continue reading Sandy Springs police blotter »

Here’s one piece of conversation you won’t hear this week:

“Boy, we need the rain.”

Well, we needed it and we got it. We were begging for rain two years ago and now we’re waking up each day to the dreary, foggy morning that adds to the already-gloomy mood that’s usually reserved for Monday mornings.

It’s like living in Seattle. It puts everyone in a bad mood. I hate it when the folks here at work are in a bad mood. They have guns. I don’t like it.

What the water can do is scary and impressive. Overflowing creeks and rivers can devastate low-lying areas. It’s unimaginable, but people are swept away.

I live on a hill, on the top of a subdivision that is on a hill. Flooding is not going to happen. We’re more likely to have consecutive days of non-stop thermal convection or frontal-lifting clouds. (As if I need to tell you that.)

What I found instead was a magical world of mushrooms in my yard. These monster mushrooms wasted no time in taking advantage of the …

Continue reading After all the rain, I’m ready to dry out a bit »

Rain + mud + trees = Danger on the roads

It’s wet outside. We are working overtime to clear some of these mudslides, flooded roadways and downed trees. Stay off the roads unless you have to drive and be careful of standing water, especially in the turns.

With all the rain, trees are hitting the ground all day and all night. If you’re driving at night, slow down and use caution, especially in tight turns. Keep an eye out for downed branches and trees and now, mudslides

Face it, you’re going to be late, so get over it and just cruise along and be smart. Put in some mood music in the CD player. Maybe Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago,” featuring the following mellow tracklist:

1. Flume

2. Lump Sum

3. Skinny Love

4. The Wolves (Act I and II)

5. Blindsided

6. Creature Fear

7. Team

8. For Emma

9. Re: Stacks

Recent reports to Sandy Springs Police

Robbery: A man reported that he had an i-Pod for sale on Craig’s List. A caller said that he was interested in it and wanted …

Continue reading Hazardous road warning, plus this week’s blotter »

By Steve Rose

History repeats itself over and over. Some things are sure to cycle back around a second and third time. Here’s hoping disco is not among them.

Things within things will also cycle. Crime is constant. Patterns, series and trends all cycle around within it, around it or whatever — you know what I’m saying … I think.

Lately there have been several high-profile cases where women were targeted. Kristi Cornwell, a former probation officer has been missing since the early part of August. She was believed to have been taking a walk near Blairsville. Meredith Emerson was abducted and later murdered in the Dawson Forest area of north Georgia. Although women have always been the target of that especially creepy kind of stalker, it is only periodic that several are abducted or victimized in what seems like a short time.

Right now, self-defense classes are big. Sandy Springs Police offers a monthly course in self-defense. I did an interview this morning with a radio …

Continue reading Memo to women: How not to make yourself a victim »

By Steve Rose

Assaults

200 block of Northwood: A guy called the police and said his drug dealer beat him up.

Cimarron Pkwy.: A man called the police and said that a woman blocked his car with hers and this caused an argument when he asked her to move. The woman said that the man had a stick and this was threatening to her. She said she parked her car in front of his because she assumed he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The man said he had a stick because the woman lets her dog loose and said stick would be his protection. The woman said she didn’t let the dog loose.

Those of you with children will recognize this scenario. There is a need for “time out” for adults.

200 block of Windridge Drive: A man named Charles called the police and said that as he walked up the steps to his apartment, Kevin punched him in the face, causing a swollen eye and a missing tooth. They had been in an argument just prior to the call.

700 block of Summer Crossing: A woman called the …

Continue reading Sandy Springs blotter: Assaults and thefts »

How many of you out there have guns? (Don’t answer. It’s a blog. It’s just an opening. Read on.)

I have, well, several. I’m not a “gun person,” meaning it’s not a hobby, nor do I spend a ton of money on them. But since it is in the line of my work, I keep them, maintain them and practice with them.

Now then, there are those who subscribe to the theory that guns should be controlled. I don’t know how they would do that. There are too many out there. And you can’t control the bad guys because they don’t believe in registering as “bad guys.” When they get caught with guns, they face additional felony charges, but one of the more unfortunate facts of crime is that bad guys can get access to weapons.

This isn’t about gun control, by the way. Nope. What I’m saying is that I’m amazed at the number of people who have one or two weapons and have no clue as to when they last practiced with them, cleaned them or where the heck they came from in the first place. It’s been up in the closet …

Continue reading Own a gun? Are you prepared to use it? »

Sandy Springs PD officers received a call to a home on Sept 1 around 15 minutes after midnight. The resident saw a man in the back yard, looking into a window of the home. The officers got a lookout and a few minutes later found a man who matched the description.

The officers asked the guy what he was doing and he replied he was going around looking to solicit customers for his grass-cutting business. Asked why he chose the midnight hour to advertise door to door, he said he forgot to set his watch.

This is a common problem. I often forget to set my watch and suddenly realize it’s midnight when I thought it was only 5:30.

It gets better. After the victim ID’d the man, they told him that he was the former grass-cutter for the area, but he was let go for setting fires in the resident’s mailboxes.

He was transported to jail.

More people with serious issues

Officers received a call to an apartment on a complaint of an argument between two roommates. The complainant said that …

Continue reading Sandy Springs police blotter: People with serious issues »

A Missouri woman was tricked into wiring about $4,000 to someone in England after receiving faked messages from a friend on Facebook asking for help, police said Wednesday.

Jayne Scherrman of Cape Girardeau wired the money through Western Union after receiving what she believed were several requests for help from her friend, Sgt. Jason Selzer said.

Police were notified about the scam on Aug. 26, Selzer said. They believe someone took over the Facebook account of a Cape Girardeau County resident, Grace Parry, changed the password so she couldn’t access it and sent out messages saying she and her husband had been detained in London and needed money. (Source: Boston.Com)

It was only inevitable that scammers figured out an easy way to bilk someone out of money using Facebook.  Why not? You add friends, friends of friends, cousins of those friends of friends and whoever else requests it. After a while you’ve got 14, 594 friends and not a clue who half of them are.

In this case, …

Continue reading Tips so you don’t open the door to being scammed »

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” — Albert Einstein

This kid earned a triple Einstein:

A school bus, leaving a school in Roswell, was headed for the only bus stop in Sandy Springs — at Abernathy and Roswell Roads — and passed the intersection of Sugar Mill and Roswell Roads, just north of the Northridge Road intersection.

A student who was a passenger on the bus decided not to take the bus to the Abernathy Road but instead to exit the bus near his apartment where the bus was currently passing. He opened the emergency exit at the rear of the bus and jumped out.

Although the bus was not moving at the speed limit, it was still moving and his landing was not smooth. The student suffered non-life threatening head injuries and a number of abrasions. He was taken to North Fulton Hospital. Charges are pending.

Among other recent reports filed with Sandy Springs Police:

Thefts

5900 block of Roswell Road: The …

Continue reading Sandy Springs blotter: Stupidity has no age minimum »