Airborne Combat Engineer

Robbers: Choose your victims wisely

(WSB Radio) -- A 14-year-old Atlanta boy is dead and police are looking for his accomplice after they tried to rob an ex-Marine in Forest Park [an Atlanta suburb]

Lt. Amy Wright tells WSB the man was in his vehicle at the Parkside Crossing apartments using his laptop.

"He was looking up some stuff on the internet. He heard a tap on his window. He looked up and saw a shotgun pointed at his face."

The robber demanded the laptop, but the ex-Marine produced his own gun and shot the robber dead.

He's also a recruit in the Atlanta Police Academy, but not a sworn police officer.

Forest Park Police also want know why the robber picked that apartment complex.

WSB 750 Atlanta

Another robber bites the dust

An employee of a Stone Mountain [GA] nonprofit association that helps war-torn refugees shot and killed a robber who forced his way into the office Tuesday evening around closing time, authorities said.

Both robbers were armed with handguns, and one of them acted as a lookout, Hodge said.

The other demanded the victims' wallets, then put his gun to one employee's head and ordered him to open a safe, Hodge said.

When the robber turned his back, the other employee grabbed a gun from his desk and fired several shots at the robber, Hodge said.

The robber collapsed and died near a rear door of the World Relief, an immigrant resettlement agency at 655 Village Square Drive, according to DeKalb County police spokesman Marcus Hodge.

TE | AJC | 10/23/2007

Recently, a bank robber was mortally wounded by a guard at a Riverside bank in Riverside, GA, dying at the front entrance as he tried to run.

It's great to read of outcomes like this; vs. the DeKalb Co. [GA] pawn shop owner who was killed by a robber a few weeks ago, and the store employee who suffocated from duct tape applied by a robber in Marietta [GA] Monday. (They've arrested the guy [Fox 5 video] who probably did that, after finding his finger prints in the store. Great police work! As good as one of the many crime TV shows.)

It would be far better to not read about robberies at all, but we know that's just wishful thinking.

Robbers who think they're safe because they're holding the gun better think again. Losing one's life in a two-bit hold-up, after holding a gun to another person's head, is a pitiful way to leave this world.

Bank robbing can be hazardous

A bank robber in Riverdale, GA ran into more than he bargained for when a rent-a-cop actually fired his gun. He became DRT (dead right there).

They're looking for the other robber.

WGCL 46 Atlanta

It's rare for bank robbers to be shot at in the bank these days. The guard might even get in trouble for it. But, it makes for a great deterent.

Cops zeroing in on GA murderer in Illinois

A DeKalb County murder suspect wanted for the shooting deaths of his ex-wife and the stepfather of his girlfriend was being hunted overnight in a suburb of St. Louis.

St. Louis radio station KMOX reported early Wednesday that a manhunt was under way in Fairview Heights, Ill., after a man believed to be Julian Walker fled a police traffic stop.

Walker was believed to be driving a tan 1994 extended cab GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck with Georgia tag ADG7118. [It has a chrome tool kit in the bed and a dented left front fender.]

See Walker's photo a few posts down. If you see him or his truck, call 911. Do not approach.

UPDATE:  The morning news is reporting Walker fired a shotgun at officers in Fairview Heights, IL when they spotted him walking from his truck, then fled on foot.  They now have him isolated in a wooded area near the railroad tracks.  He may have already been apprehended (or suddenly ejected from the game of life for a flagrant personal foul) by the time you read this.

UPDATE: Police found Walker dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound around 10AM. End of story.

11Alive News, ATL

How dumb is it to keep driving a vehicle after a nationwide bulletin has provided the tag number and a detailed description? Most perps are at least smart enough to steal (or hijack) another one. But, this guy obviously is was not in a logical state of mind. He shot a young boy's mother right in front of him, because she (his estranged wife) wouldn't give him enough time with his kids.

Tennessee court rules on pellet gun used in robbery

The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled a pellet gun used in a robbery is not a deadly weapon.

“The intermediate appellate court held that the CO2-powered pellet gun is a deadly weapon (under state law) because it is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury when operated as intended,” Justice William Barker wrote. “We respectfully disagree.”

In its opinion, the state’s high court takes an entirely different tact, judging whether a weapon is deadly not by the perception of the victim but by the intent of the suspect.

“If an item is not a deadly weapon per se, it will only be considered a deadly weapon if the defendant in a particular case actually used or intended to use the item to cause death or serious bodily injury,” the opinion stated.

Knoxville News

an unfortunate ruling -- see optional ACE comments in the continuation

Don't assume it won't happen in your neighborhood

.. and definitely don't assume being able to call 911 provides protection.

On a normally peaceful street (Fairview Ave., which intersects with W. Ponce de Leon just three blocks down the hill from the Court House Square) near Downtown Decatur, GA (a normally peaceful little town which has less than 3 violent crimes per thousand residents a year); a woman sleeping upstairs in her house just before 11PM was awakened by two young males (who busted through her front door and ran up the stairs), one pointing a pistol at her head and demanding money.

If you've never had a loaded gun pointed at you, with a nervous person having a finger on the trigger, you can't imagine how terrifying it is. You start thinking about this possibly being your last few seconds alive.

Irritated when she only had $20 to give, the boy (young man) shoot her in the hip (the shot exciting a buttock) and in the upper leg.  (She will recover. She's very lucky in that regard. Had either bullet hit the femoral artery, she might have bled out before medics could stop the bleeding and give a transfusion. It is almost impossible to stop the bleeding without special gear and training, due to the location of the artery, and it's spurting out.)

Her house is only blocks away from the Decatur Police Station, and Decatur has 911, of course.

The pitfalls of PC housing percentages

One man was shot and killed and another man was wounded after a gun battle inside an Atlantic Station  apartment building Friday afternoon, police said. Police found large amounts of marijuana in the apartment.

[AJC, 20JUL2007] [AJC, 21JUL2007]

Back in March, a man was shot dead on a street in the development. The victim didn't live in the development. ACE can't find any report of the shooter ever being caught, so we don't know where he lived.

What are we seeing?

1. a trend, which will gradually get even worse?
2. the result of building a development with a bridge over to an area infested with low-lives?
3. just a couple of isolated incidents from which no general deductions should be drawn?

Only time will tell.

Unconfirmed word is the developers agreed to have 20% low income housing in the nation's largest brownfield development, 138 acres just across the I-75/85 connector from Midtown Atlanta (more about it, and more photos, in the continuation). Some say developers agree to this either to get approval for the project or to be allowed higher density housing (more people per square foot), or both.

Atlantic Station website

More rambling on subsidized housing (including Techwood and some of Decatur's projects) in the continuation, if you're interested.

Private police patrols

Atlanta residents frustrated with chronically understaffed city police are piecing together their own private police force neighborhood by neighborhood.

Dozens of Atlanta neighborhoods, from up-and-coming areas like East Lake and East Atlanta to the Midtown and Downtown business districts to tony Druid Hills or funky Lake Claire, supplement Atlanta police with their own private patrols.

Patrols have even spread outside Atlanta to Gwinnett County, with residents of Flowers Crossing subdivision and businesses along U.S. 78 paying for private police.

DLB/ AJC

Ft. Bragg wives are buying more handguns

Officials with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said they don’t have an accurate way to measure whether the number of women applying for handgun permits has increased significantly.

Jaime Heflin (23) thinks most people, whether they are comfortable around guns or not, are more concerned about using their guns when an emergency comes.

“I think most people worry about actually shooting someone,” said Heflin.

She said that safely firing warning shots into the floor can be enough to scare off intruders and alert neighbors who can help.

“Just because someone breaks into your house doesn’t mean you have to shoot them,” said Heflin. “But you should know how to defend yourself, in case you have no other choice.”

Fayetteville Observer

Robbery is becoming a more risky business

A legally armed 71-year-old customer at a Subway in Plantation, FL, seeing a robbery going down and fearful for his own safety, killed one and sent another one running, wounded.  See the video report.

The Conservative Scalawag sees some anti-gun bias in the reporting.