Tag: crime

Oh Atlanta #886

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: Kroger grocery stores in select (read: predominantly black) Metro Atlanta areas have implemented enclosed aisles in order to reduce theft; shoppers feel the motivation behind them are racist

Kudos to CBS46 for such a captivating screen grab that made this so easy to get sucked in.  But yeah, shoppers accusing Kroger for making them shop “in cages,” because these particular stores are in predominantly black areas, totally legit motivation.

It’s kind of funny to me the sheer persecution complexes of the people who are complaining about having to shop in enclosures.  And while I don’t disagree that the optics are poor, and it does suck when you’re a law-abiding citizen, having to suffer the indignity of having to shop inside a cage because of the shitheads that steal, when the day is over, Kroger and any other business with the goal of making money, are going to make choices that protect profit, over slighting anyone’s collective feelings.

But I’m going to go ahead and take the side of Kroger in this situation, and deem the whole allegations of racism as bullshit baloney.  Kroger isn’t trying to be racist as much as it’s more likely that they’re acting on statistics and numbers; it’s unfortunate that there’s a strong correlation between high theft and the stores that are in predominantly black neighborhoods, but if the numbers say that enclosures are necessary to implement, they’re going to implement them, regardless of the demographic of the area.

If there were high theft rates in Kroger stores in Peachtree City or Roswell, you better believe Kroger would implement the enclosures in those stores, and make Karen, Susan and Carl shop inside cages too.  It just so happens to be the case that the stores in South Fulton, Forest Park and Covington have the theft rates that warrant implementing the enclosures in those particular stores.

So everyone mouthing off about how Kroger is being racist needs to stfu and take a minute to understand why there are enclosures in their stores instead of knee-jerk whipping out race cards and expecting anyone to give a shit.  The numbers are all that matter, and the only color that influences any decision is green.

lol South Fulton #437

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last took some time to write about some buffoonery going on in the Metro Atlanta area, but a combination of time, timing and often times the fact that I haven’t really been seeking them out nearly as fervently as I had in the past has led to this particular type of draft.

But I saw this particular article, and then like riding a bike, it all came back to me pretty quickly why I always liked writing about the bullshit that occasionally happens here, because they tend to hit levels and tangents that I really wonder if people living in other cities see like we do here in Atlanta.

Long story short, the City of South Fulton AKA the part of town I used to live in, bought a tank.  Despite their insistence that they didn’t buy a tank, they dropped nearly $400,000 on a heavily armored vehicle known as a “BearCat.”  It basically looks like the Christopher Nolan Batman version of the Batmobile Tumbler after Bane seized control over all of Batman’s shit after he drove him into exile.  The image above is the aforementioned Batmobile, but the link provided will take you directly to what the new South Fulton tank looks like, and frankly there’s not a tremendous amount of difference between the two.

Sure, I’ve made tons of jokes about the rapidly degrading, warzone-like conditions of South Fulton since I got the fuck out of dodge, and it’s no secret to anyone paying attention to local news that the crime rate and magnitude south of I-20 is a tad bit higher than the rest of the Metro area comparatively, but I can’t really agree that introducing a tank into the arsenal of the horrifically undermanned police department is really going to do much for the entire area other than make people think the wrong message is being sent and/or a tremendous waste of money.

Obviously, there’s a lot of speculation that getting a tank is more or less a great big toy expenditure by some bureaucrat trying to play politics and send some sort of bold messaging to whomever might be paying attention, and ultimately in the end, nothing consequential is probably actually going to happen to the buffoons who green-lit the purchase of a tank.  But in terms of the all-important perception-is-reality mentality of the world, it does seem like it would look a little embarrassing if there’s some pretty low-tier misdemeanor weapons incident, but then the Batmobile shows up with some regular cop cars at the scene of the crime.  More so, if the presence of a tank is interpreted as an act of aggression and it escalates the situation and then there are three dead black teenagers at the end of the day, laying slain in front of, a tank.

But hey, the whole thing is being sold as this “protecting the police” narrative, so that alone is going to easily garner a lot of support for it as a whole.  And I definitely am a proponent for protecting the police, but I can’t help but think that $377,000 might have been better spent hiring, several more cops, because I think strength in numbers might be more protective for police units than, a singular tank.  But hey, if the mayor of South Fulton wanted a tank, well now he’s got one.  I’d say I can’t wait for it to start showing up on the news, but the sad reality is that nobody ever hears of South Fulton on the news unless there’s some tragic killings or embarrassing faux pas, to where the existence of a tank probably won’t matter if it’s in the equation or not.

So yeah, the City of South Fulton has a tank now.  Neat!

If omens were a thing, it’s good I’m skipping Dragon*Con this year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure I’ve written about it already, it’s hard to keep track when everything is kept offline, but I’m not going to Dragon*Con this year, and I’m frankly at peace with that choice.  At the same time, I don’t see the need to make an announcement over social media or anything because I’m really nobody, and nobody is going to care anyway.  I also don’t want to be perceived as a downer dunking on the con, because I don’t dislike the convention one bit, it’s just that I can’t seem to find the magic recipe in order to actually have a good time anymore.  So instead of risking impeding the anticipation and excitement for others, I’ll just keep quietly to myself writing my thoughts on a brog that isn’t even online.

But back to the point, if omens really did exist, then I think it’s a good thing that I’m skipping out this year.  I’m not sure how many outside of Atlanta actually heard, but at the Sheraton AKA the hotel where goers usually have to go pick up their registrations, there was an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which is basically pneumonia on steroids not too long ago, and the hotel has been under a lot of fire and criticism about their sanitation and safety.  A lot of people were afflicted with the ailment, and there was one reported death attributed to it.

There was a lot of speculation on whether or not the hotel could get the green light before Dragon*Con or not, to which of course they would, because Labor Day weekend is such a cash meteor for the entire city, that the Sheraton is going to damn well make sure that they can take part in collecting from the money printer as well.  But the fact of the matter is that they did do a rush job in order to get cleared, which they supposedly are, but skeptics like me can’t help but wonder just what shortcuts were taken in order to get the green light, and honestly short cuts are what probably led to the hotel becoming a ground zero for Legionnaires’ in the first place.

Thankfully, I’ve never been a Sheraton guy, as most of my friends and I have always been Marriott people.  But I definitely know people who are staying at the Sheraton, and of course they’re going to be a packed house, and I certainly hope that nobody comes out of the weekend with any weird ailments or reason to believe that the Legionnaires’ outbreak wasn’t adequately taken care of, in pursuit of money.

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I will never understand people who leave guns in their cars

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A trend I’ve noticed in the general metro Atlanta area over the last few months is the sheer rise of car break-ins happening all around city proper, and the seemingly hopeless south side of the city that I once lived in myself but just a few years ago.  And not just any ordinary smash-and-grabs, where thieves are looking for whatever free shit that happened to be in sight which compelled them to break-in in the first place that they could flip for some quick cash, but thefts where thieves are searching out, and way more often than I thought should be considered normal, stealing guns.

My old neighborhood’s Nextdoor, that I’ve admitted to not being able to unsubscribe to for the sheer amount of unintentional entertainment I get out of it, has seen way too many threads over the last few months of people detailing all the cars that have been broken into, where among other things, guns were stolen.  Not just at their homes, but when they’re out at dinner, or out at Publix, or any of the nearby shopping areas where people would park their cars in public.

But it really boils down to the fact that I have to ask, why so many people even bother keeping guns in their cars in the first place?

Personally, I have no real qualms with the second amendment.  I do question why ordinary citizens would need SEAL team grade sniper rifles or assault rifles, but ultimately I don’t have a problem with people getting firearms with the intent to protect themselves.  It’s only when things go dark and people are using legally obtained weaponry to do bad things, is where I raise my eyebrows, but we can’t control the rest of the world no matter how much we’d like to be able to sometimes.

Back to the topic on hand though, I’m not so much flabbergasted at the repeated instances where people are having guns stolen from their vehicles, as much as I am curious to why people are bothering to leave guns in their cars in the first place.  License to carry, I get that, but that also implies that you’re actually carrying, and not leaving your firearms in vehicles that are one locked door away from being obtainable by absolutely anyone.

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The implications of this are not good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Get ready for Cryme Tyme: the City of South Fulton passes the “Ban the Box” ordinance which no longer makes job applicants have to disclose if they have a criminal background

Shortly after New Years, I hit a freshly formed pothole, and blew a flat.  I was not pleased about it, since ultimately it’s an incident that nobody is really held accountable for, and I was out $500 in order to replace all my tires, since they were pretty much due for a change.  Regardless, I went on the internet and tracked down the protocol for reporting the pothole to the county, and within two days, I got a message stating that the pothole was resolved.  I drive on this stretch of road regularly, and I can confirm that it was patched pretty immediately.

I’ve stated that I’m still on my old neighborhood’s Nextdoor, since I can’t bring myself to walk away from the source of unintentional trainwreck entertainment, especially since it’s a subscription that not just anyone can get access to unless they live (or lived) there.  One issue that has been fairly persistent in my old hood (aside from theft, vandalism, celebratory gunfire, ordinary gunfire, bodies being found in the trunks of abandoned cars outside of Publix), is potholes.

They’ve been so problematic, it’s gotten to the point where it’s even been on the local news, with hopes that public exposure will shame GDOT into fixing it immediately, to which I’m not actually sure if it’s worked this time, because this tactic has been employed so many times.  Otherwise, this is an issue for the City of South Fulton, because its within their jurisdiction and they’re responsible for the infrastructure of themselves.

Needless to say, the response has not been swift, probably not been addressed, and I’ve seen numerous threads about all the cars that have fallen victim to the same potholes.  Sure, maybe they all shouldn’t be on 22” low-profile wheels more susceptible to blowing out on potholes, but that’s another story, but frankly people shouldn’t expect their tax-paid roads to be completely pocked with deep and detrimental potholes in the first place.

The point of all this introduction is that if people thought living in the City of South Fulton was bad before, imagine what it’s going to be like when anyone who ever wants to work for the city, will no longer have to disclose any criminal offenses they’ve had on their records?

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They deserve a pizza party!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is news: the arrest rate of NFL players is down

Why is this news?  Is this something to be proud of?  As the article itself states, a single arrest is one too many, and the fact that this is even a story in the first place is just another reminder of just how much of a problem it is that there are all these football players with too much money and privilege acting like they’re above the law and finding out the wrong way that they’re not.

But whatever though, it’s not like it’s new knowledge that the NFL is garbage these days, and they should be looking to celebrate and champion any and every little thing that might possibly be construed as a massive victory, like the fact that fewer of their players are getting arrested; or as I’d like to phrase it, fewer NFL players are actually getting caught at being the shitheads that so many of them are.

Frankly, if they’re crediting stiffer punishments as reason why arrests are down, imagine how much faster they’ll drop if the punishments got even stiffer?  In the world outside of the pampered world of professional athletes, if a guy got arrested for drunk and disorderly, or worse, sexual assault, they’d get fired on the spot and their lives would likely be ruined.  But NFL players just get slaps on the wrist and suspended for a few games in a sport that plays 16 games a year.  I’d bet money that if the NFL punished players like the real world punished citizens, the arrest rate would drop even more than it has over the last 10 years.

It doesn’t matter if you’re Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck or Ezekiel Elliott or Josh Norman.  Get arrested, void of contract, full-year suspension, or just cut outright, and have to earn your way back.  Fuck anyone who breaks the law for whatever stupid and selfish reason, and punish them all the same and indiscriminately, like ordinary people.

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Too easy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

You don’t say – Atlanta rapper who goes under the name “Young Thug” is arrested and faces up to eight felony charges

Man, who could have seen this coming?  A guy who goes by the name of Young Thug, arrested for doing the kinds of things that young thugs are known for doing, like having drugs, threatening people, distributing drugs, among all other charges.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this guy, because shockingly, he’s had run-ins with the law several times over, over the last few years, but it does not seem apparent that regardless of how much his rap credibility increases, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still subject to do dumb shit under his own volition.

I think the funniest part about this is that it all started with getting pulled over for suspicion of too-dark window tint.  It’s one of the most ticky-tack bullshit violations to be pulled over for in the first place, and no doubt that there was some racial profiling involved with the cop’s decision to pull him over in the first place.  Don’t get me wrong, I see cars all the time with window tint that’s got to obviously be illegal, so I’m a little surprised to see someone actually getting pulled over for it in the first place.

Lo and behold, it turns out that the car is driven by a minor celebrity, and holy shit did he have a lot of drugs in his possession at that time.  Naturally, there’s a gun in the car too, because how can anyone be a young thug without having a firearm as well?  The legality of its ownership is never mentioned, although one can easily speculate.

Either way, it’s the shocker of the century that Young Thug is arrested; again, and it’s not one of those things where anyone can even pull the race card.  The guy had a car that raised red flags, and upon further inspection, it turned out that there were plenty of reasons to arrest the guy.  It’s not like he’s actually going to serve any time, because if the guy can seemingly get back out on the streets after skipping out on warrants and threatening the lives of other people, it’ll be a short stay in incarceration before he’s back out on the streets, and probably not long afterward before he’s busted again for some stupid shit.