Fresh Loaf

AJC.com skimmers may have noticed two contradictory headlines yesterday.

“Violent crime increases across metro Atlanta”

and

“Atlanta figures project violent crime drop in ‘08.”

The first story reported that, in 2007, crime in Atlanta was way up despite an overall national decline in crime.

The AJC cited crime stats issued by the FBI. We reported the increase on Fresh Loaf in June using reports available at AtlantaPD.org.

The second story noted a decrease in the rate of violent crime in Atlanta during the first six-months of 2008.

That’s the good news.

The bad news — the rate of burglaries and larcenies are up 17 and 19 percent respectively this year. Overall crime is up 9 percent so far this year in Atlanta.

Bookmark It

PARTY GIRL: An officer dealt with a 23-year-old woman passed out in the back of a car at Collier and Peachtree roads. The woman’s friend said they had been drinking at a concert venue on West Peachtree Street and at some point, the 23-year-old woman got very sick, so they called a friend to pick them up. On the way home, the 23-year-old woman reportedly vomited and defecated on herself, so her friend stopped at a gas station to check on her and call for help. Medics took her to Piedmont Hospital.

Later, the officer followed up with Piedmont Hospital. The officer said he talked to the 23-year-old woman’s father, who said she was OK now and she had been sick before going out drinking. She was awake at the hospital and laughing with friends, according to the police report. No visible injuries reported.

Get your sneak peak at this week’s Blotter here.

(Illustration by Tray Butler)

Bookmark It

STORAGE CHEST: Around 9:30 a.m., an officer talked to two women on Pine Street. The officer asked one woman for her name. “When she started speaking, she bent over to fix her shoes and when she did, I could clearly see a clear bag with a lot of suspected crack cocaine between her breast[s],” the officer wrote. The other woman said, “You got my baby’s candy in your shirt,” and reached between the woman’s breasts. “[She] was trying to push the bag down deeper in the woman’s shirt,” the officer wrote. Both women were arrested and taken to jail. Both are age 24.

Need your Blotter fix? Click here.

Bookmark It

DETROIT — Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory and his brother, Terry “Southwest T,” were sentenced in federal court today to 30 years in prison for running the $270 million cocaine empire the Black Mafia Family.

BMF, which had one of its two hubs in Atlanta, has been linked to some of the city’s more sensational crimes and some of its best-known rappers, including Young Jeezy. Jeezy was implicated in BMF’s cocaine ring during the trial earlier this year of BMF’s third-in-command. The rapper has not been charged with a crime relating to the feds’ BMF investigation.

Meech, 40, and Terry, 38, pleaded guilty in November 2007 to running a continuing criminal enterprise. They’ve been locked up since their charges were unsealed in Detroit three years ago.

“I don’t think ‘I’m sorry’ is the right thing to say,” Meech told the judge minutes before he was sentenced. “’I’m sorry’ is what people say when they get caught.”

The CCE charge — which is similar to a RICO, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations case — can carry a life sentence, though the guilty pleas all but guaranteed that the brothers would serve less time. The government was pushing for 30-year sentences, though the judge indicated in November that he might be willing to go as low as the minimum 20 years. There is no parole in the federal system.

The Flenorys are among nearly 150 BMF associates who have been indicted in seven states: Georgia, Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri and California. The majority of those cases have been resolved — most recently, the federal trial in Atlanta of BMF’s third-in-command, Fleming “Ill” Daniels.

Daniels and several of his co-defendants, including the rapper Barima “Bleu DaVinci” McKnight, who pleaded guilty to cocaine charges, will be sentenced later this year.

More details to come at clfreshloaf.com.

(Photos courtesy of DeKalb County jail, top, and Wayne County, Mich., jail.)

Bookmark It

NOT SO PRETTY IN PINK: One afternoon, a 34-year-old New Orleans woman was arrested for DUI and other charges after a car accident on Ponce de Leon Avenue. Inside the patrol car, the woman repeatedly kicked the door and said she badly needed to go to the bathroom. An officer wrote, “[She] said she had some kind of infection and she was close to urinating on herself.” The officer took her to a nearby restroom. After that, the woman reportedly asked the officer to just drop her off in Decatur because the car she was driving belonged to her “sugar daddy.” En route to jail, she promised she would not drive in Atlanta anymore. “At one point, the female became very upset and said she could not go to jail because she was wearing pink underwear, and that going to jail in pink underwear was the same as going to jail in dirty underwear.”

Get a sneak peek at this week’s Blotter here.

(Illustration by Tray Butler)

Bookmark It

HABIT MORE INTERESTING THAN MAHJONG? At a grocery store on West Paces Ferry Road, an elderly woman allegedly stole some wine. The 77-year-old blond woman agreed to let police search her purse. The officer allegedly found two bottles of wine and two packets of napkins in the woman’s purse. According to the police report, the same woman was previously arrested for shoplifting at Nordstrom at Perimeter Mall. The 77-year-old woman has blue eyes, blond hair and wore a pink shirt and white shorts.

Get a sneak peak at this week’s Blotter here.

Bookmark It