MPSA Mailbag 2/15/2011
What the neighbors are telling us. As always, mailbag items do not necessarily represent MPSA position…
Email #1 – I was on my bicycle heading across 10th street into Piedmont Park. I stopped on the far right side of Charles Allen next to the sidewalk and waited for the light to change for my direction. In the far right lane on 10th street was a black sedan, probably 00′s model, similar to a Nissan Altima with very dark window tint heading west towards Piedmont Road. The front bumper was missing and the bumper looked like it had been ripped off. The black sedan slowly rolled into the middle of the intersection directly in front of the Charles Allen gate and stopped. A silver SUV (GMC or Chevy) directly behind the sedan pulled around the sedan and continued east. The driver of the black sedan rolled down the window and started yelling at me about wanting to fight, run me over with his car, and other stuff I can’t remember interlaced with profanity. The driver, the who I believe was the only person in the car, was a black male, late 20′s or early 30′s, with at least some gold in his teeth. Still yelling at me, he turned his car across 10th street through the intersection and onto Charles Allen facing south. He then U-turned from the south lane around until the car was directly behind my bicycle. He then rolled his car slowly into the back on my bicycle, bumping me. He didn’t bump me hard enough to knock me off. Just enough to jolt my bicycle slightly. The driver rolled the car back a few feet and at that time, I saw that 10th street was clear and the light was about to change for my direction so I rode across 10th street into Piedmont Park. I wasn’t able to get a license plate or see which direction the car went after I made it into the park. During the entire incident, I never said anything to the driver or made any gestures towards the driver. I know there are cameras at the Charles Allen entrance of Piedmont Park but I’m not sure what their field of view is.
Email #2 [I live at or near] 9th and Myrtle Streets. When I woke up this morning I noticed that a strange sign was bolted to the stop sign outside my house. It it a wooden cut out sign the same size as the parking sign with a black gun spray-painted on it. The person who did it went to a lot of trouble to cut the wood, paint, drill holes and bolt it to the Stop sign on the corner. It was so strange that it scared me a little. I took pictures and then removed the bolts and took it down. Since I took it down, I have been told there are at least 2 others on Myrtle Street. Do you know anything about this? MPSA NOTE: Amy Wenk of Midtown wrote this up and posted pictures at http://midtown.patch.com/articles/definitely-not-a-sign-of-peace?ncid=M255. We have no idea who is behind that, nor is their intended statement clearly discernable. The patrol will continue to remove the signs upon discovery.
Email #3 - This morning as I was leaving for work at 8:30 there was a man on our front porch looking through the windows and glass doors. I asked him why he was there and he said he was meeting “Candice” there. I told him he had the wrong house and he fumbled with some excuses and said he was calling Candice on his phone. I asked him to leave our yard. He was driving a green Ford Sport ZX2, GA license # AVK 6528. I reported it to the police via 911 and they did come later to check things out at our house. The thing that concerned me was that this guy wasn’t terribly quick with his responses, which made me feel he was making stuff up. The last time this happened at our home (again, first thing in the morning on a week day) we discovered later that our house had been burglarized.
Email #4 - While walking by the Silver Grill I heard something hit the ground. I turned around and noticed a silver car getting ready to leave the lot, they had just thrown a brown leather satchel type brief case out of the car. When I stopped and looked, from Monroe, they saw me, and one of the four young black males hopped out of the car and retreived the briefcase. As I was reaching for my camera, they were yelling among themselves, as they sped away. I got a picture of them leaving. It just seemed suspicious. APD came out and took the information, and about the same time someone else had made a call regarding the same car.
MidtownAlert
A number of people have signed up with MidtownAlert, a Twitter-based service in which folks can send out an urgent alert on their own to the neighborhood without having to wait for us to assess the situation. We have modeled this after the system they have going in VaHi. Fortunately, not much has been happening but it is nice to have one more convenient tool. To date, only three alerts have gone out:
- An elderly woman with dementia who wandered away from the nursing home on St. Charles
- A traffic alert on Monroe Drive on this past Saturday evening
- A monthly reminder not to leave valuables in your vehicle (something we do in lieu of an idle and useless “test” message).
More information the MidtownAlert page…
Beltline Cleanup
In the past month we have held two clean-ups along the Beltline, with focus on the Virginia Avenue Bridge and Park Drive Bridge. In conjunction with the Virginia Highland safety group, we will keep the areas under the two bridges clean and free of vagrant encampments. There are numerous safety issues involved with the campers.
We have been getting reports of a very menacing individual vandalizing, setting fires, and confronting people in the area of 10th & Monroe. We also believe this individual is the one making much of the the big mess under the Virginia Avenue bridge. Police are investigating this pattern, but if anyone has had any encounters with this individual please report the situation to 911, and then contact us at first convenience.
While we are at it, we would like to introduce you to another source of neighborhood news. Amy Wenk, the editor of Midtown Patch, regularly writes about neighborhood interests. She reported on the two recent Beltline cleanups (see below). In addition to other media outlets around town, we urge you to also put Midtown Patch on your daily watch list and to sign up for a daily email with the latest articles from Midtown Patch.
Media Coverage:
- February clean-up: Midtown Patch – Volunteers Pick-Up, Paint Underneath Park Drive Bridge
- January clean-up: Midtown Patch – Midtown, Va-Hi Volunteers Clean Up BeltLine Bridge
Bluelight Blotter 2/15/2011
Incident #1: Purse stolen from unlocked car - In the early morning hours of January 26th, an officer on routine patrol in the neighborhood spotted a suspicious male carrying a large red purse. Upon questioning by the officer, the suspect claimed to have found the purse at Krispy Kreme. According to the police report, an inspection of the purse turned up items belonging to a female in the neighborhood. Police woke her up to inquire about the purse and its contents. The victim did not know the purse had been stolen from her vehicle. The vehicle in her driveway showed no signs of forced entry. When confronted, the suspect admitted to snooping on private property and helping himself to an unlocked vehicle with valuables. Police immediately arrested the suspect and transported him to jail. Police also returned the purse to the victim and urged her to keep it in a more secure location.
Incident #2: Drug sales results in robbery - Police recently received a call on 5th Street concerning an alledged robbery. Upon arrival, the victim reported to the responding officer that he was robbed of his wallet and cell phone. The victim further admited in a written statement that he is selling drugs from his residence. The victim believed that the black males returned after a drug sale and robbed him of his drugs along with the wallet and cell phone. The victim claimed that he normally sells only to select customers, but sold to these two males as an exception.
Incident #3 - During the early morning hours of February 10, 2011, a resident in the 800 block of Penn Avenue reported that he was awakened to burglars in his home. He recognized one of the four burglars from the streets, since he had previously allowed this subject to stay at his house for two days. Upon confrontation the primary subject threatened the resident with a brick. The victim therefore fled the house to call police. Police on the scene found that the suspects had removed a safe from a hallway closet and left it in the back yard once they apparently concluded that it was too heavy to carry further. Shortly thereafter, Police arrested four suspects in a traffic stop, and sent them to the Fulton County jail for booking. The victim’s safe became the subject of a warrant when police dogs brought to the scent alerted to the presence of drugs. We anticipate that the story will unfold much further in the near future. Most noteworthy, drama of this nature has taken place at the residence before, and the resident also shows up in Fulton County records for previous incidents.
Discount on Motion Sensors
According to the VaHi safety folks, Intown Hardware has graciously agreed to give a 15% discount on select motion sensor lighting during the month of February. Here are the details:
1) Motion sensor lighting and fixtures can be ordered at Intown Hardware during the month of February (they will not have them at the store to purchase for the discount, but the order to delivery time is pretty fast)
2) Discounted prices range from about $10 to $25
3) Orders placed by Wednesday at 2:00p.m. will arrive on Friday of the same week and there are no shipping charges
4) This is a great opportunity for everyone to enhance their home security in an extremely cost effective way.
Sponsors
Many thanks for our community sponsors! While the majority of our funding comes from residents and small businesses, a significant portion of our neighborhood patrol funds comes from the following sponsors:
