Decatur Police Alert: Armed Carjacking Overnight in Downtown Decatur, Two Suspects in Custody
Decatur Metro | February 19, 2014From Decatur Police…
On 2-19-14 at approximately 1:34 am, Decatur Police responded to a carjacking in the 200 block of Sycamore Street. The two victims were sitting in a parked vehicle when approached by four black males, two of which were holding handguns. One suspect placed a handgun to the temple of the driver and demanded money and the vehicle. The driver complied. A second suspect, described as approximately 5’6 – 5’8 and wearing a red or orange cap, tan “Carhartt” style jacket and dark pants, demanded the passenger’s phone and struck her in the face with his fist. The four suspects entered the vehicle and fled south on Church Street. Neither victim was injured.
Officers then responded to a vehicle accident in the yard of a house in the 900 block of South Candler Street and located the victim’s vehicle. One witness reported seeing two black males run from the vehicle onto Driftwood Terrace and a second witness reported seeing two black males run from the vehicle south on South Candler Street. With the assistance of a DeKalb PD K9 unit, Decatur officers located two of the suspects, one in the woods on Driftwood Terrace and one behind a home in the 200 block of Brower Street, and took them into custody. Both suspects are juveniles.
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not good at all, but even as some anxiety begins percolating in me, and my imagination whispers, “our Mayberry is turning into South Central LA”, i wonder if, in fact, this kind of thing hasn’t been going on ever since i moved to Decatur in ’95, but because we didn’t have social media (multiple blogs, Facebook, and Twitter have distributed this story less than 9 hours after it happened) we weren’t aware of it, and that ignorance was bliss.
Rick is spot on that most of us are simply unaware of the crime that happens on a weekly basis all over Decatur and surrounding areas. DPD officers face extremely difficult situations and their hard work and positive contributions are often times never even acknowledged. Thank you DPD for your service to our community.
What do you think is going to happen with a gentrified neighborhood right up next to a “not so good part of town”??
Is there anyone that has/can do the research? Because I don’t believe that is true. I think there may have been more drug/alcohol related crimes but I would be surprised if Decatur has seen this many burglaries & now, not to mention, armed robberies .
I would truly be interested in the actual statistics.
Agreed. If for no other reason, Decatur wasn’t low hanging fruit in ’95 w/ $750k homes full of $2k flat screens and $700 tablets owned by people who refuse to own guns, all only a couple of miles away from where it appears many of these thugs live. Time to build a moat.
Not all of us refuse.
It’s too bad there aren’t more guns as part of that low-hanging fruit. Those fetch more money than flat screens.
Decatur sure would be a great place if it weren’t surrounded by he Land that Time Forgot.
…owned by people who refuse to own guns…
Classic!
Hey now. Some of us still live in small houses with obsolete electronics. And dogs and guns!
I am shocked to hear that people in Decatur pay 2 grand for flat screen TVs. Are they cased in gold or something?
I pity the fool who steals our Eastern European knock off TV we bought through Woot!
My 6 year old, 720p Sony was a lot less than $2k when purchased brand new, way back when. If I left it out on the curb I’m not sure if anyone would take it!
Paint some gold trim
I encourage you to avoid the term “thug.” Thanks.
why?
thug: n. 1. a violent person, esp. a criminal; a ruffian
Why exactly would I stop using the correct term?
GANGS: from Decaturish “Maj. Timothy Peek, commander for Atlanta Police Department Zone 6, said Kirkwood’s recent rash of burglaries are gang-related. Peek spoke during a Feb. 10 Kirkwood Neighbors Organization meeting. The next day there was a burglary on Knox Street, part of a series of burglaries in Kirkwood and Decatur that may be related.”
The 200 block of Sycamore Street is near the downtown MARTA station where there are usually police officers. I know it was 1:30 in the morning, but that’s pretty brazen.
I’d be interesting in knowing if we’ve had a demographic spike in the 16-25 age group. That’s the main driver of crime increases, having a large share share of the population that’s the prime age for crime. But I suspect we are more aware of crimes due to social media rather than there being any significant increase.
whether our relative awareness has been affected by social media, or not, the numbers is still the numbers, and the numbers ain’t good
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ga/decatur/crime/#description
scroll down to “ABOUT DECATUR CRIME RATES” for some less than flattering national context for our stats.
According to that map, the CoD (where the carjacking happened) should be some of the safest neighborhoods in Decatur. I can zoom in but have to subscribe to see the crime rates by neighborhood. Any subscribers able to check a comparison?
Not to be a city line snob, but that map shows more than Decatur. I know we don’t live in a vacuum and that the surrounding areas affect us, but according to that map, Decatur itself seems pretty safe.
And to keep it safe, we need that damn moat Obama promised us! Amirite?
Maybe, but these maps can be somewhat misleading. Though the text distinguishes between violent crime and property crime, the map apparently combines both. Naturally you would expect certain types of violent crime (murder, rape, assault) to be higher where the criminals actually live, due to domestic disputes, gang altercations, etc. So it would be more useful to see a map that included only property crime if we’re going to make comparisons with other areas.
Nothing good happens after 1am.
The issue is not so much Decatur but the City of Atlanta, the greater Atlanta region. I just performed my own perusal of the FBI statistics on violent crime in the CoA from 1995-present. It appears that it took a spike in early to mid 90s, then decreased, however, due to the uncovered reporting of violent crime by CoA (early 90s to approx. 2004), these may be unreliable numbers. Also, with the influx of professionals back into the CoA, much of the underclass that creates violent criminals has been displaced to the suburban areas which are now experiencing spike in violent crime- something that was unheard of when I was being raised here. Snellville, Marietta, Peachtree City: all victims of violence because the low rents are spreading out.
Regardless, you can Google any crime bureau report and Atlanta is becoming higher and higher on list of most violent cities. Criminals won’t recognize jurisdictional boundaries, so our problem is being essentially part of CoA. We have a fantastic police department, but it can’t prevent everything from spilling over.
Have also heard from some in law enforcement that some of the increase in these types of crimes is caused by a change in the nature of the drug trade here, meaning that fewer criminals can make money from selling drugs and have turned to robbery, burglary, etc.
You tellin me the economy even affecting drug trade? Aint’ nobody safe?
DPD uses http://www.crimereports.com as their mapping tool. (DeKalb and Avondale Estates use http://www.crimemapping.com.) And of course everyone’s encouraged to join their Neighborhood Watch program (or start one if it doesn’t already exist). Nation of Neighbors is the online alerts system used by enrolled neighbors, and Sgt Ross of DPD regularly sends out bulletins. DPD is glad to attend neighborhood meetings and support Neighborhood Watch start-up efforts.
On crime statistics, If you’ll go to http://www.decaturpolice.com (nifty link to City’s page), you’ll find some of DPD’s past annual reports. 2012 and 2013 aren’t up, but Sgt. Ross kindly replied to my email on it with an excellent recap of crime stats from 1996 to 2013. I’ll forward it to DM to post.