Inside the Police Reports: Money Stroll and Trailers Roll

Paycheck Pounced:

On January 15, 2012, at approximately 9:45 a.m., a man reported an armed robbery in the area of Centerville Highway and Campbell Road.

The man, who works at a nearby Waffle House in DeKalb County, had just gotten paid and was walking along Campbell Road toward Johnson Drive. Instead of waiting until he arrived home, the victim pulled out his newly acquired loot and began counting and separating his money as he walked, according to a police report.

That's when a blue vehicle zoomed by, stopped and reversed "really quickly." The victim stated that the passenger in the seat "pointed a gun at him through the window and told him to 'give it up.'"

The passenger then got out the car, and the victim threw his money at the suspect and high-tailed it out of there. The victim did not see which way the suspects went. He lost $280 to the drive-by crooks. 

Later, however, the victim could not give police much information about the two people in the car or the make of the vehicle. The victim said he had never seen the suspects before, and that the car was definitely blue.

Police provided the victim with a case number and telephone number, just in case he remembered anything.

But, really, the victim said he had his life to protect.

According to the report, "He was not trying to get killed over a few dollars, so he was not trying to look at the suspects like that."

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling:

On January 14, 2012, at approximately 4:33 a.m., police were dispatched to the 3800 block of Centerville Highway where a man reported he saw someone attempting to steal his lawn equipment. Once discovered, the suspect fled on foot in a camouflage jacket.

According to the victim, the suspect disconnected the trailer from his truck and then used a small vehicle to try towing it away. (There were tire marks in the victim's grass.)

The suspect was able to tow the trailer to the top of the victim's driveway, but  the trailer came off the hitch and "slid all the way back down the driveway coming to a stop when it collided with this neighbor's camper." (The neighbor's camper was parked in the grass between their two homes.)

When the neighbor assessed the impact, there was damage to a propane tank assembly in the front of the camper, bent jacks that hold the camper up, a broken light and fiberglass damage. The broken parts were estimated to cost about $1,000.

There were fresh scrap marks from the trailer's jack on the driveway, beginning at the top and leading to the grass. There in the grass was a camouflage mask. Police collected the mask to take samples.

As far as the victim could tell, "the suspect(s) had not stolen anything from his trailer, as they were attempting to steal the entire thing." However, the victim's trailer hitches on his truck and van were missing.

The neighbor said he's seen folks before "walking past their houses, looking back at their trailers, and even into the back window of his van." He thought they may have been high schools students.

Because the victim's trailer hitches were stolen, he could not move the trailer back to his driveway, so he left it where it was -- crashed into his neighbor's camper. He did park his truck in front of it, hoping that would deter the crooks from moving it again, and next time making off scot-free.