Vehicle with out-of-state plates smashes into front gate of Atlanta FBI office, driver arrested



A car with out-of-state plates smashed into the front gate of the FBI's field office in Atlanta, Georgia. The driver of the vehicle is in custody, according to authorities.

Just after noon on Monday, a vehicle rammed into the barrier at the FBI's Atlanta field office in Chamblee, Georgia.

The orange-colored vehicle was identified by law enforcement as a Buick Encore with South Carolina license plates.

According to witnesses, the driver attempted to infiltrate the FBI field office by following closely with a government employee's car that had gained entrance into the FBI facility. The alleged infiltrator's vehicle reportedly collided with the front gate of the FBI facility. Authorities said a pop-up wedge barrier prevented the man from driving into the FBI facility.

According to NBC News, "When needed, the cheese-like steel triangles can raise so one surface or its bollard-like forms face a potential intruder at a vehicle-stopping height. They're often rated by federal entities for their ability to stop vehicles based on their weight and speed upon potential impact."

The driver exited his vehicle and attempted to gain access to the FBI facility. However, the man was allegedly immediately tackled by law enforcement.

"Several of our special agents who were passing by apprehended him," said Peter Ellis, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta office. "He was not associated with this facility."

The FBI said the man was "not associated with this facility."

Bomb squads were sent to the crime scene to investigate the suspect's vehicle, but no explosives were found.

FBI spokesperson Tony Thomas stated that no weapons were found in the vehicle.

DeKalb County Police allegedly arrested the driver on Monday.

Ellis pointed out that the suspect was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Authorities had not determined a motive for the incident.

The suspect is still in custody as of Monday night.

The suspect has yet to be publicly identified.

The FBI stated, "Currently, we are looking into both state and federal charges."

No injuries were reported in the incident.

Car rams into gate at FBI building in Atlanta www.youtube.com

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Police bodycam video shows Atlanta cop making football tackle on shoplifter accused of stealing big-screen TVs from Target: 'I don’t want to go to f***ing jail!'



Police bodycam video shows the moment an Atlanta cop makes a football tackle of a man accused of stealing two big-screen TVs from a Target in Georgia.

Around 5:30 p.m. on Monday, an officer with the Atlanta Police Department was flagged down by a security guard at the Target on Caroline Street.

The security guard informed the officer that a man was suspected of stealing a large-screen television and had returned to the retail store to steal another one. The suspect was stopped at the store's exit by security as he attempted to roll out a big-screen TV, according to a statement from the Atlanta Police Department.

Bodycam footage shows the officer taking out a stun gun as he approached the exit of the Target. As soon as the suspect spotted the police officer, he sprinted back inside of the retail location. The fleeing man ran to the entrance of the Target and escaped outside with the cop in pursuit.

The wild bodycam video and footage from the police cruiser show the officer make a football tackle on the suspect in the middle of the street outside of the Target.

The suspect yelled, "C'mon man! I didn't do s**t!"

The officer instructed the man to "stop resisting" arrest.

The suspected thief screamed, "I don't want to go to f***ing jail! I don't want to go to jail!"

The man can be heard on video making guttural noises.

The suspect yelled, "Please stop, I need to go to the hospital!"

Video shows the officer and suspect tussling in the middle of the street with witnesses and cars nearby.

An onlooker assisted the cop in restraining the suspected shoplifter.

Finally, police reinforcements arrived and the suspect is arrested.

The Atlanta Police Department said the officer suffered minor scrapes during the physical altercation.

"This is a great example of how quickly things can change for our officers and how important it is our officers are prepared for anything they might face during their shift," the Atlanta Police Department said of the encounter. "The officer’s training kicked in and he remained calm and in control, despite the suspect’s repeated attempts to overpower him during the fight."

Police did not name the suspect or the charges he faces.

(WARNING: Graphic video)

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Video: Alleged pregnant woman who 'clearly smelled' of alcohol pummels Spirit Airlines employee



Video shows an alleged pregnant woman attacking a Spirit Airlines employee at the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia on Sunday night.

Police say that 29-year-old Que Maria Scott – from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct charges in connection with the alleged beat-down of a Spirit Airlines employee.

The woman went into a fury after she was told by the airline employee that she would not be able to board her flight because of her aggressive behavior, according to the New York Post.

The woman allegedly told the employee that she was from "West Philly" and was going to "beat our a**, other airport employees told police.

The police report stated, "Rhoden stated that the passenger made a statement to other passengers around that she will beat a b***h up if she does not get on the plane."

Witnesses said the woman was "irate and using abusive language toward others involved at the scene."

An airline employee called 911 to report an argument at the gate. As police were responding to the call, officers were reportedly notified that the dispute had escalated into a full-blown physical altercation.

Video catches the moment that a woman violently attacks Spirit Airlines employee Jasmine Rhoden. The attacker goes beyond a barrier and tackles the female employee to the ground. The pair tussle and kick each other while they are on the ground.

"Ms. Rhoden stated that Ms. Q. Scott put her boarding pass in one of her pockets, pulled up her sweat pants and proceeded to attack her by swinging her arms and hitting [the victim] on the left side of her face," the incident report noted. "[She] then stated that Ms. Q. Scott began to pull her hair at the scene and pulling her into a barrier that was at the location causing them to fall to the ground."

Eventually, three men rushed to break up the fight and separate the women.

A Homeland Security officer reportedly held Scott until police officers reached the scene.

After being arrested, Scott allegedly told police officers that she was six months pregnant.

"Rhoden stated that she clearly smelled alcohol on Ms. Q. Scott, even though Ms. Q. Scott claimed to be pregnant," according to the police report.

As she was being taken away in handcuffs, Scott said, "I didn't do nothing to nobody. You really just got me booked. It's cool. I'm gonna remember your face in my head forever."

Atlanta Police Department officers booked Scott into the Clayton County Jail early Monday. She was being held on $1,500 bond.

(WARNING: Graphic video)

\u201cThere was a fight yesterday at Atlanta Airport. They were both added to the no fly list. \ud83d\ude33\u201d
— Everything Georgia (@Everything Georgia) 1682954283

Frustrated Atlanta cops lament young woman killed over a bowling ball: 'This is truly an atrocity'



A young woman in Atlanta, Georgia, lost her life this week as a result of an argument over a bowling ball, police said, describing the incident as an "atrocity."

According to WSB-TV, officers responded to reports of shots fired outside the Metro Fun Center in southwest Atlanta just before 11 p.m. on Thursday night. When they arrived, they discovered the body of a 31-year-old woman later identified as Lakevia Jackson.

Jackson had reportedly been attending a celebration at the amusement venue — which includes a bowling alley, arcade, and roller skating rink, among other entertainment options — when she got into an argument with an unidentified man.

The argument reportedly escalated and spilled into the parking lot, where the man is believed to have opened fire on Jackson, killing her, WAGA-TV reported.

Lt. Ralph Woolfolk, who commands the department’s homicide unit, lamented the senseless tragedy in conversation with reporters Thursday.

"This is truly an atrocity," Woolfolk said, not mincing words. "We talk about conflict resolution time and time again, and once again this is an escalated dispute in which a young lady has lost her life over a bowling ball."

Police only have one suspect in the case, but as of Friday morning, he had not been identified. The incident was reportedly captured by surveillance video and investigators spent Thursday night collecting ballistic evidence and speaking to witnesses on the scene to piece together what happened.

"We will find the person who’s responsible. You know who you are. Go ahead and turn yourself in. We assure you that we will bring you into custody," Woolfolk said.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that about 41% of homicides in Atlanta this year have resulted from disputes that escalated to gunfire. Homicides are also up in the city since the start of the year.

Law enforcement officials have begged city residents to stop the violence. Just this week, Atlanta Deputy Police Chief Charles Hampton urged residents to put their guns down, suggesting that police presence alone is unable to keep up with the crime.

"Even if we had cops on every street, some of these instances we would not be able to prevent," Hampton reportedly said during a press conference Tuesday. "We need people to be human beings, treat one another with love and respect, put the guns down, and resolve these conflicts peacefully."

Atlanta 'machete man' scaring customers, 'terrorizing' residents with knife-waving rituals. He can't be removed due to unwilling police and the COVID eviction moratorium.



Business owners and residents in Atlanta's Kirkwood neighborhood are complaining that an individual performing daily knife-waving rituals is "terrorizing" customers and visitors, but the "machete man" reportedly can't be removed.

What are the details?

"I pass him [and] I immediately get alarmed," local salon owner Kelsey Womack told WAGA-TV this week before recounting the first time he showed up on the block.

"I came back to the business [and] tried to warn all of the clients and the staff that there was someone out there that didn't look sane with a weapon," she recalled.

The man, 33-year-old Brandon Barkley, has several knives and — based on video footage — what appears to be a sword. He regularly waves them in the front lawn of the home where he is staying and sometimes even in the street.

Yet police have said his behavior doesn't amount to a violation of the law, instead characterizing the situation as a "civil matter." WAGA reported that police have been called on the man repeatedly since he first showed up a few months ago, yet he still remains.

I-Team: Atlanta business owner says man with machete scaring her customers www.youtube.com

When reached by the news outlet this week, Barkley insisted that he means no harm to anyone and classified the performances as religious rituals. He added that he's simply "a passionate person who talks about God."

But according to Invitation Homes, the property management company that owns the home he's living in, Barkley is a squatter. The group has tried earnestly to evict him, but the process has reportedly been slowed by DeKalb County's COVID-19 eviction moratorium.

What happened in August?

Things reached a boiling point in August when Barkley was caught on surveillance video threatening passersby with what later was identified as a stun gun.

"He was shocking the Taser, however it works. The client who was outside said, 'Do not come at me with that Taser,'" Womack said.

Several believed the stun gun to be an actual firearm and called the police. Shortly after, Barkley was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated assault.

According to WAGA, Invitation Homes changed the front door lock and put up a no trespassing notice. But only days later Barkley, still holding a key to the backdoor, returned claiming to be out on bond.

"He assured us he owns the home, has the keys, and that his knife performances are part of his journey to becoming an angel," the news outlet reported.

Anything else?

Barkley and his mother claim that he paid $20,000 in cash to a couple to live at the home, but no documentation has been submitted as proof.

Barkley's mother added that her son does not have any mental health issues, he's just "really into God."

Horowitz: Georgia’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally lock up violent criminals



Atlanta is now one of the greatest hot spots in the country. No, not for coronavirus, but for the epidemic of violent crime that is threatening the suburbs as well as the urban areas. With the crime situation in Atlanta now worse than in some cities in blue states, Gov. Brian Kemp has announced support for anti-crime legislation during the upcoming special session of the legislature this fall. Other red states need to follow suit before more people are murdered and harmed.

With the greatest surge in crime in over a generation, the key is for conservatives to harness this opportunity to finally lock up the criminals rather than allowing the session to be hijacked by distractions, feel-good proposals, simply throwing money at a policy problem, and downright weak policies promoted by the criminal leniency-industrial complex.

Atlanta is the new Chicago. Murders are up nearly 30% this year after the city already experienced the highest number of homicides in 2020 in over two decades. There is even a crisis of rampant shootings on interstate highways in the broader metro area (with nearly no arrests), as well as carjackings, which often involve criminals bumping into cars from behind so the victims can be carjacked when they get out of their cars to check for damage. There are shootings on metro trains and even in Lenox Mall in Buckhead, which is a high-class mall.

It's imperative for conservatives to ensure that the legislative agenda is focused on removing all impediments to locking up violent criminals, not simply throwing more money at police or programs. The elephant in the room is that repeat violent offenders, particularly juveniles, are often barely punished for their crimes, resulting in more violent criminals on the streets than ever. Despite the record crime, Georgia's prison population plummeted 16% from February 2020 to July 2021, after steadily declining in the preceding few years. Shockingly, after plummeting during COVID, the county jail population is still below pre-COVID levels, which is astounding given the record increase in new crimes.

Despite the rampant violent crime among juveniles, there were just 29 juveniles in Georgia prison convicted as adults, compared to around 100 just a few years ago. Given the number of violent juvenile gang members and carjackings, this number is appalling. There are 40 criminals on death row, half the number from just five years ago, despite the increased homicides.

According to the Atlanta Repeat Offender Commission, in 2017 and 2018, just 23 percent of repeat offenders arrested by Atlanta police were sentenced to any degree of confinement by Fulton County Superior Court judges — a decrease of nearly 14 percent from those sentenced in 2016. The most common sentence issued by a Fulton judge was "time served." One can only imagine what those numbers look like now, with more "criminal justice reform" in place, not to mention the COVID jailbreak.

In other words, in order to restore the justice deterrent, Republicans will have to finally kick their fear of incarceration and push legislation that will lock up more criminals. Legislation they should pass during the session should include the following:

  • An even stronger anti-gang bill than the one they foolishly rejected in 2020, which would make it easier to prosecute gang members across state lines, incentivize prosecutors' offices to prioritize those cases, and slap on extra mandatory sentencing for crimes committed in furtherance of gang activity or as part of expectation of membership in the gang.
  • Toughen juvenile sentencing for violent and repeat offenders, particularly those affiliated with gangs.
  • Allow prosecutors, not judges, to decide whether to charge a juvenile defendant as an adult.
  • Toughen sentencing on carjackings.
  • Toughen sentences on those convicted of violent crimes who are then caught in felony possession of firearms, and certainly those who go on to commit crimes with firearms.
  • Mandate that any violation of parole result in automatically serving out the rest of the sentence.
  • Lower the threshold to hold people without bond or with higher bond for certain violent crimes, as well as repeat offenders.
  • Fund prosecutors' offices with special grant programs designed to enforce specific statutes against repeat offenders that will result in the longest prison times. After years of weak-on-crime policies, there is a massive backlog in cases of violent felons. There's an even greater need to fund prosecutors than to fund the police.
  • Build more prisons and courts. They should use some of the COVID funds to pay for this, because even Biden blessed the reprogramming to combat crime. Why not use it to lock up more criminals that he likes to coddle?
  • Limit the discretion of judges to allow repeat felons to serve their maximum sentence on probation. Under Georgia's recidivism statute, conviction of a second felony can result in automatically being sentenced to the maximum time. However, judges have wide latitude, as we're seeing in Fulton County, to suspend or switch to probation the maximum sentence.
  • Strengthen the "three strikes" law. Under current law, someone who is convicted of a fourth felony must not only serve the maximum term but is not eligible for parole. That needs to be tightened for certain crimes. If one of those convictions was for murder or rape, he should lose a chance for parole after the third conviction, and depending on the subsequent convictions, he should serve life.

The biggest fear of Republicans preventing them from getting tough on crime is the threat of being called racist. However, criminal justice deform and jailbreak are the ultimate racist policies. As of mid-May, 94% of all shooting victims in Atlanta this year were black. Nearly every homicide victim from last year was black. By not locking up the gangbangers, carjackers, and robbers, officials allow the most dangerous criminals to remain on the street. They terrorize all sorts of people, but black victims are the ones who pay the ultimate price for it.

Republicans will never have another opportunity like this when the stars align to do the right thing on public safety. Recently, Fulton County voted in a new DA, Fani Willis, who defeated the previous Soros prosecutor and is actually stronger on crime than many Republicans. Now is the time to do surgery on the criminal justice system, not just pay for some band-aids. It's time for criminal justice reform to mean what Reagan envisioned it to mean – reforming the system to work for victims of crime, not just criminals.

VIDEO: 82-year-old fights off gun-wielding carjacker, tackling him to the ground



Incredible surveillance footage shows an 82-year-old man fighting off a would-be carjacker wielding a gun at a gas station in Atlanta, Georgia, last month.

What happened?

"I'm just glad to be alive," the elderly victim, who has chosen not to be identified, told WAGA-TV in an interview about the incident.

He described to the local news outlet how he was just pumping gas at 2:30 in the afternoon in southeast Atlanta last month when he was approached by the suspect.

"I thought he was going to shoot me," the victim said. "As I put my gas nozzle back and was getting ready to get in the car, I turned around and he was there with a gun in his pants, and showed part of it. He just said 'Give it up' and I asked 'To give what up?' and he said 'You know what I'm talking about. Give me them keys.'"

Video of the incident released by the Atlanta Police Department then shows the victim hurriedly grabbing medical records from the front seat of the car when he saw an opportunity to fight back against the assailant.

"I saw he wasn't looking and I grabbed his arm with the gun in it and we started 'tussling' and we hit the ground," the victim recalled. Footage shows the assailant's gun was tossed in another direction during the scuffle.

82-year-old tackles suspect in armed carjacking attempt www.youtube.com

What else?

After getting up off the ground, the suspect allegedly grabbed the gun again, pointing it at the victim, saying, "Do you want me to shoot you? Don't make me shoot you, man."

The elderly male then ran into the convenience store seeking help, while the suspect attempted to steal the car. But after the suspect was reportedly unable to get the vehicle to start, he fled the scene.

"Oh, it scared me! It scared me. I thought he was going to shoot me," the victim recalled, adding that criminals are now starting to pick on who they assume to be vulnerable people.

"They are getting desperate. That's [why] they are changing to the most vulnerable people now," he said. Only in this instance, the suspect definitely misjudged the vulnerability of his target.

By releasing the video, Atlanta police hope the public will assist them in identifying the suspect, who they reportedly described in a police report as male teenager with dreadlocks.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers' Atlanta tip line at 404-577-TIPS (8477). The full video of the incident made available by the Atlanta Police Department can be seen below.

Attempted Car Jacking Suspect from 580 McDonough Blvd on 3/11/2021 youtu.be