Full Of Juveniles Not Using Seat Belts
January 22, 2014 8:51 PM   Subscribe

 
First world problems?
posted by Dhertiiboi at 8:53 PM on January 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


This is pretty much Atherton.txt. Buncha bored richies minding everybody else's business.

That said, I love the particular deadpan, just-the-facts ma'am style of police blotters. There's an art to it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:55 PM on January 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


These are great!

And if you like those, you'll love this.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:56 PM on January 22, 2014 [7 favorites]


These are someone's idea of a joke, right?
posted by dg at 8:57 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


These staffer writing these blurbs must be great at poker by now.
posted by desuetude at 8:59 PM on January 22, 2014 [6 favorites]


Rich people are dumb as shit.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:59 PM on January 22, 2014 [15 favorites]


I love that on two separate occasions, people called the police because someone rang the doorbell.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:00 PM on January 22, 2014 [16 favorites]


Locally here, the "Tolosa Press" has a first-class Police Blotter page (sadly only accessible as a pdf) but sometimes featured on the Bad Newspaper blog.

Recent examples cut-and-pasted...

Pismo Beach: A caller reported seeing
a steady flame showing in a window on
the 500 block of Cypress. It turned out
to be a fireplace.

Arroyo Grande: A caller on South Elm Street
reported hearing noises and people
crying outside. He also said that he
might be schizophrenic or paranoid.

Los Osos: A family feud was into the
lightning round at 9 a.m. in the 1400
block of 3rd, as somebody no doubt
didn’t want to go to school.

San Luis Obispo: Someone reported an abandoned, purple Isuzu Trooper parked behind Spice Hunter on Suburban. Turned out it was stolen so the mother and car re-u-union was only a phone call awaaay...
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:08 PM on January 22, 2014 [9 favorites]


Where did I see this earlier today, with commentary that pointed out that the vast majority of people who get moving violation tickets or driving without a license tickets in Atherton are Latino? Which did not surprise me in the least.
posted by rtha at 9:10 PM on January 22, 2014


When I was in college, the police blotter always reported, "John Doe was transported to Local Hospital for a sprained ankle" when it meant "John Doe had serious alcohol poisoning."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:11 PM on January 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


I would love to write the police blotter for a slow news town.

The duck refused medical treatment.
posted by phunniemee at 9:15 PM on January 22, 2014 [12 favorites]


I love how many times they called the police because someone delivered a package. Weren't they expecting their packages? From the moment I order something online, I stalk my front porch until the box appears!
posted by headspace at 9:18 PM on January 22, 2014 [7 favorites]


Jealous. It's nice to live in a place where criminals don't feel welcome.
posted by MattD at 9:20 PM on January 22, 2014


My only complaint is that one where Redwood city is circled. Redwood City is not Atherton. And raccoons are a real problem! Those animals probably *were* loitering and creating a nuisance. NO I AM NOT PRESUMING THE INNOCENCE OF SMALL BEARS, OKAY?!
posted by sarahnade at 9:20 PM on January 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


Oh man. This makes me miss Weeds' early seasons, which were just perfect deadpan satire of the tedium and despair of wealthy California suburbia....
posted by schmod at 9:23 PM on January 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Wait, they missed the big one: "A mother sought advice on how to help her daughter with a Facebook issue."
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:31 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


This is an odd bookend to a day where this was the first thing I read.
posted by mazola at 9:34 PM on January 22, 2014


I love how many times they called the police because someone delivered a package.

Pretty sure it means "someone who was not white rang my doorbell".
posted by elizardbits at 9:34 PM on January 22, 2014 [24 favorites]


don't know why they called the police, if I was a bored rich Californian house-spouse I'd be all, hello random stranger let's have a drink oh this it's just my silk robe and it's all fallen open oh my can I get you another
posted by The Whelk at 9:37 PM on January 22, 2014 [27 favorites]


My aunt, who lives in a small town in Wyoming where people hardly ever even lock their doors, would sometimes read out the " Crimes log" in the newspaper to us when we'd visit.

One of her favorites was a teen who had the police called on him because he 'talked back' to his grandmother. They made him apologize.
posted by misha at 9:38 PM on January 22, 2014 [8 favorites]


What would you expect? It's Atherton, the antiseptic, old money Principality that adjoins the up-and-coming hamlet of Menlo Park, populated by the new breed of I-came-late-to-Facebook/Groupon/Twitter types - and, just north of the Principality of Nouveau Riche de Palo Alto. The tiny Principalities of Mountain View and Los Gatos are trying to close the gap, but they don't have a chance. SOMA, in San Francisco is the real thing, but will soon be swept clean by Twitter and Facebook self-driving people-plows designed by Google that shepherd the homeless and hapless and middle class across the Bay Bridge to the "New Bay Boroughs" of Oakland, Albany, Richmond, Emeryville, etc.

Bottom line: when life becomes all about Self-prepossessive preciousness - even a dripping faucet that's out of sync can look like an adventure, or an invasion.

Remember the helpless, chubby characters in the movie Wall-e, on their starship? That's Atherton.
posted by Vibrissae at 9:39 PM on January 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


Here's the blotter for Lake Oswego, a suburb of Portland. One of my favorites is:

"7/8/13 10:37 p.m. Some weird juveniles took a watering can to the park, took photos of it, then returned it."

A few others:

3/10/13 9:49 p.m. After getting into a verbal fight with his parents, a 13-year-old boy was found hiding in the yard next door. He was wearing a ghillie suit.

3/20/13 10:45 p.m. Two suspicious men wearing suits were seen entering a bank on Mercantile Drive. It turned out they were bank employees.

5/10/13 4:15 p.m. A suspicious chunk of feces was discovered by a man pressure washing a roof on Juarez. The washer has saved the feces and taken photos of it for any future investigation.

5/13/13 5:43 a.m. A man had such a bad dream that police were called.

5/14/13 9:53 a.m. A man is searching for the wallet he threw in the trash a couple months ago.


7/11/13 3:05 p.m. The sounds of a zipper being zipped, a puppy, a child and an adult were heard over a wireless open line.
posted by gucci mane at 9:45 PM on January 22, 2014 [7 favorites]


This is like reading notes from hanging out with my grandmother.

A resident worried that her kitchen light was broken. Police responded but resident insisted she was the only one who could climb on the chair to look at it because "she'd already lived her life." Police replaced florescent tube, light reported to be in working order.

Man reported to have lived in the building for a hundred years but never talk to anybody informed that mail was not delivered today.

A resident told police that a blind woman's friend is looking for a man strong enough to carry the blind woman's old door to the basement. Police responded that they didn't know any men strong enough for that, either.

A resident reported brown shoes stolen. Police responded and found tan shoes in resident's closet; resident had misremembered how light brown they are.

Police assisted woman who had dropped her mother's keys down the trash chute.
posted by rue72 at 9:52 PM on January 22, 2014 [22 favorites]


Many folks here will remember this, but see also The Arcata Eye: MeFi FPP; Language Log article; story about the first compilation; story about the second compilation; and 48 pages of archives spanning 2010-2013.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:52 PM on January 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


The difference between the circled blurbs and the surrounding municipalities is the interesting part.

"A bunch of people got lightly stabbed but not bad enough to go to the hospital".

below that

"A lady saw a suspect hummingbird loitering near a birdbath".
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:02 PM on January 22, 2014 [19 favorites]


I grew up in a white/hispanic small town of 12,000 with exactly one (!) resident black family, but a university with an enrollment of about 5,000. This sort of thing frequently appeared in the police blotter:

647 S. Main: police responded to a call about a burglary. Resident said stereo missing, a neighbor recalls seeing a suspicious black male in the area, possibly a university student.

1020 W. Wyoming Ave: police investigated the vandalism of school bus, questioned a black male in a nearby rental house.

252 N. 6th: police responded to a frantic phone call of an elderly gentlemen who feared for his life because of "black power extremists" organizing on the nearby campus.

700 N. 4th: police respond to complaint of schoolchild being taught evolution, possibly by black teacher.

200 S. Abilene: officers notice flames and gunshots, arrive on the scene to find several dozen members of the 10th Street Baptist Church and Blessed Church of Christ congregations in a heated melee over the use of music during worship. A black college student is suspected of inciting the conflict.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:05 PM on January 22, 2014 [6 favorites]


rtha, here's the article you are thinking of: Brewster found a bit of a surprise when he looked at vehicle code violations: Between February and July 2013, “175 out of the 182 drivers cited have Hispanic names.
posted by ambrosia at 10:22 PM on January 22, 2014 [6 favorites]


"...a dispute between a landlord and tennant involving 'assault with frozen food'..."

I hope it was individual frozen peas.
posted by ShutterBun at 10:57 PM on January 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


And if you like those, you'll love this.

Félix Fénéon is on twitter, too.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:01 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


It looks like the local HOA has been issued guns.
posted by pracowity at 11:48 PM on January 22, 2014


Last year I moved from the downtown eastside of Vancouver to Victoria on the island, which is kind of like Canada's retirement home mated with a University frat party. Surreal. Anyways the local police force has a blog which occasionally passes on the most ridiculous stories of this nature. Here's my personal favorite:
Posted on: Tuesday, December 11, 2012
08 December 2012 – 0645 hours – The victim started her car up in front of her residence early in the morning to warm it up prior to leaving for work. She ran back inside the house for a few moments and when she returned to leave she saw that the car was slowly pulling away from the curb and heading down the street.

The woman ran after the vehicle as it continued on its way down the street and managed to get the driver’s door open and confront a male suspect who she now found behind the wheel. The suspect kindly offered her a ride. The victim declined, preferring instead for the suspect to get the heck out of vehicle as a better alternative.
The suspect agreed to the alternative proposal and took himself out of the woman’s car. As she was already late for work she carried on and did not contact police until later in the day. Nevertheless the suspect was obliging enough to assist in the investigation by leaving his ID inside the car.

When officers caught up with the suspect later in the afternoon he was extremely apologetic and embarrassed by what he had done. He told the officers he had been experimenting with magic mushrooms but had no better rationale for what he had done. He had already written an apology note to the victim before the officers arrived.

The suspect also assured the officers he would stay away from the victim and her car forever and never explore the effects of the little fleshy psychotropic fungus again.

As the woman was content with the apology note and police action, no charges will be laid.
posted by mannequito at 12:38 AM on January 23, 2014 [46 favorites]


From my local police report this week:

"Duck stuck in ice behind Mill Pond Animal Hospital, Mower Rd."

You would think our problems would be a bit more evil, since we're only a mile or two from Hell.
posted by HuronBob at 3:18 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


you know, digging a hole in a street is actually kind of impressive. you can't just get out there with a shovel..
posted by ninjew at 4:20 AM on January 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


It's nice to live in a place where criminals don't feel welcome.

Well, not the *poor* ones, anyway.
posted by D.C. at 4:43 AM on January 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


Man, rich people are paranoid.
posted by dinty_moore at 4:53 AM on January 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


I grew up in a fairly well-to-do upper-middle class suburb. One day, some CDs disappeared from my father's car. The car was parked outside and he forgot to lock it. Also, the CDs were classical music CDs borrowed from the library. My father was required to pay in upwards of thirty dollars in fines due to the missing CDs. Needless to say, this prompted my family to begin parking both cars inside the garage at all times and to ask the police to make evening rounds in the area to combat the recent crime-wave.

I think somebody on our block also had a snow-blower disappear... from the garage... that they forgot to close when they went on vacation.
posted by deathpanels at 5:01 AM on January 23, 2014


What's wrong with picking fruit from trees in a vacant area? Usually they just fall to the ground and rot if no one picks it.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:20 AM on January 23, 2014


No one as tacky as the Athertonians have any right to wealth. let's take their land and money and give it to someone with at least an iota of taste.

how did I know this would be about Atherton before I even followed the link?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:37 AM on January 23, 2014


Eyebrows McGee, the running joke of our college paper was that the blotter would always end each item with the same words: "college charges were filed".

An unidentified male was transported to hospital after attempting auto-fellato. College charges were filed.

A banana was stolen from the dining hall. College charges filed, but the banana is expected to file an appeal.
posted by dr_dank at 5:46 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Obscure Reference: So recently I was reading a history of Cambodia that noted that Khmer Rouge cadres would forbid starving villagers from picking fruit, letting it rot instead. Their justification was that that fruit belonged to Angkar ("Angkar," meaning "The Organization" was the only name that the Khmer Rouge gave to the people under its control for the first several years of its rule). Taking fruit that belonged to Angkar was theft — and what right had any villager to steal from mighty Angkar?

Yes, that's right, I've blasted right past Godwin's Law all the way to comparing Athertonians to Pol Pot. That place gets so far under my skin that I've lost all ability whatsoever to be reasonable about it. I'm amazed other people can look upon its hideous empty desolation without seeing red...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:48 AM on January 23, 2014 [11 favorites]


Sounds a lot like the town I grew up in, except we had the occasional pseudo-Satanic ritual murder.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:51 AM on January 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Lying on the ground, possibly writing!?!??! Landsakes!

Then again, I got trailed out of a similar place as Atherton by the cops for driving a pickup truck on a Sunday morning down the main drag ...
posted by tilde at 6:19 AM on January 23, 2014


If you look at the police reports for Belle Meade, in Nashville, roughly 1/3 are "suspicious vehicle outside residence" that turn out to be "the help" in some form or another:

- Suspicious older sedan. Subject was a landscaper working in the area.
- Suspicious vehicle near residence. Was valet parkers.
- Suspicious red sedan sitting in front of the residence. Driver was waiting on his employer to cut trees at the residence.
- Suspicious beige Ford Taurus with Missouri license plate. Vehicle was being driven by a subject doing appraisals in the area.
- Report of a middle aged white male wearing a flannel shirt sitting on a rock stoop. Subject was a construction worker waiting on help to guide him backing his vehicle.

Also, a lot of "Black male doing non suspicious thing"

- Black male walking a dog. No contact/Gone on arrival. Officers checked around the residence at the home owners request
- Black male carrying a backpack walking towards Harding Rd. Officers witnessed subject get on a bus

Also:

- Resident was hearing strange noises again. Officers have been to the residence multiple times for same complaint. Officers checked the area and could not hear any strange noises.
posted by ghharr at 6:20 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


hey, let's put together a mefi meetup in atherton.

let's find a vacant property to shamelessly hang out on and pick fruit from.

we could maybe even lay down and write a little.

no, seriously, let's do it.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:24 AM on January 23, 2014 [13 favorites]


it has to occur at an odd hour
posted by ninjew at 6:25 AM on January 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


Yes. Someone should bring a Buick so we can test your handle, YCTAB.
posted by tilde at 6:25 AM on January 23, 2014


Other dudes are living in the ghetto (whoa whoa whoa whoa-oooh)
But born in Pacific Heights don't seem much betto

We're white punks on dope
Mom & Dad moved to Hollywood
Hang myself when I get enough rope
(Can't clean up, though I know I should)

White punks on dope
White punks on dope
White punks on dope
White punks on dope
White punks on dope
Where'd you get it?
You gave it to us!!
White punks on dope
(Jeezus, I can walk!!)
White punks on dope
White punks on dope . . .

posted by Herodios at 6:39 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


The suspect also assured the officers he would stay away from the victim and her car forever and never explore the effects of the little fleshy psychotropic fungus again.

As the woman was content with the apology note and police action, no charges will be laid.


Canadian justice is swift and merciless!
posted by Random Person at 6:50 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sounds like the Marblehead MA blotter, where the endless WARS OF THE LEAF-BLOWERS are chronicled daily.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:59 AM on January 23, 2014


My favorite Atherton police blotter entry was about a woman who called the police one night to complain about a large light in the sky. Upon arrival at the woman's house the police determined that the light was the moon.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 7:11 AM on January 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


This sounds like some of the notes that stage managers have to take on each night's performance. After a good while into the run, when all the kinks have been worked out, those can get pretty slow.

Someone told me about one show he'd worked on where there was a kid in the cast, and he bumped his knee onstage or something; the stage managers' notes that night drily noted that "the problem was fixed via the use of one Spiderman band-aid".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:15 AM on January 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


My favorite Atherton police blotter entry was about a woman who called the police one night to complain about a large light in the sky. Upon arrival at the woman's house the police determined that the light was the moon.

There will always be a moon over Marin San Mateo.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:36 AM on January 23, 2014


What's wrong with picking fruit from trees in a vacant area? Usually they just fall to the ground and rot if no one picks it.

Technically I suppose it would be classified as trespassing, but again, pretty sure this just means "a possibly poor person got food for free and I don't like that sort of thing in my neighborhood!"
posted by elizardbits at 8:04 AM on January 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


self-driving people-plows designed by Google that shepherd the homeless and hapless and middle class across the Bay Bridge to the "New Bay Boroughs" of Oakland, Albany, Richmond, Emeryville, etc.

Or you know, like Piedmont.
posted by bitdamaged at 8:04 AM on January 23, 2014


Technically I suppose it would be classified as trespassing

Nah, it's cool.
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God. (Lev 23:22)
I'm pretty that makes it OK, so long as we're playing "Dirty White Boy" as loud as possible while we do it.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:13 AM on January 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


What's wrong with picking fruit from trees in a vacant area? Usually they just fall to the ground and rot if no one picks it.

It does NOT belong to you, so you may NOT touch it! Now don't give me any more lip, young man!
posted by aught at 8:16 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


"...a dispute between a landlord and tennant involving 'assault with frozen food'..."

I hope it was individual frozen peas.


I hope it was David Tennant.

This thought is making me so happy right now.
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:26 AM on January 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Well, not the *poor* ones, anyway.

Rich criminals are perfectly safe to live near as their crimes tend to be systematic rather than local.
posted by atrazine at 8:41 AM on January 23, 2014


I'd suggest LeLiLo's Police Beat, but the price on Amazon's gone up to $99 for paperback. Cheaper for me to drive to Bar Harbor and buy it in town.
Selections.

posted by MtDewd at 9:01 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I always like Campus Police Blotters, which include things like "Suspicious Smell" and in the case of one Seven Sister College, the eternal reporting on the doings of "Suspicious male." (Usually someone's boyfriend who got lost on the way back to her room.)
posted by jetlagaddict at 9:12 AM on January 23, 2014


After getting into a verbal fight with his parents, a 13-year-old boy was found hiding in the yard next door. He was wearing a ghillie suit.

This kid shows promise. He's not just going to his room, slamming the door, and sulking like most angry 13 year olds - he's thought out a rather creative method to deal with it. Putting on a ghillie suit can a pain in the ass even when you're perfectly happy, not to mention when you're angry.

Now I wish I had a ghillie suit and for that matter, a backyard with some foliage for those rare times when I am angry and just need some time alone to be angry. To sit in the bushes and think while the oddly pleasant feeling of "Ah ha, you can't see me!" slowly counteracts the feelings of anger. This kid was onto something here.
posted by chambers at 9:34 AM on January 23, 2014 [12 favorites]


Wow, I want a ghillie suit!
posted by Mister_A at 10:46 AM on January 23, 2014


No police blotter discussion is complete without a link to the FPP on the Rochester, NH blotter.
posted by dhens at 10:52 AM on January 23, 2014


I don't care what the peanut butter looks like in that zip code. Unless they get some sort of rich people discount for living there. It's not fair for them to have all the money and all the discounts and the peanut butter to prove it.
posted by krinklyfig at 6:49 AM on January 24, 2014


At one time the Atherton police department was known for their Volvo police cruisers, but later went with more conventional US built cars.

Now the city manager wants them to drive Teslas.
posted by eye of newt at 4:56 PM on January 24, 2014


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