Atlanta Metblogs » ajc

Curious about your local crime stats? Here’s a resource.

BOHO Moe — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:02:07 +0000

The AJC’s website has created this tool that allows Atlantans the privilege (privilege?) of using a simple drop down menu to choose their neighborhood and see its recent crime statistics. Go ahead and click the hyperlink. It’ll make you look like the local “informed citizen” at that cocktail party you’re attending tonight.

I knew my neighborhood had about 250 break-ins last year. Now I can stay up-to-date with who’s getting robbed and where!

Enjoy…

The Hat of a Murder Police

Will — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:37:10 +0000

It may be my favorite book: David Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. This is the seminal text that fathered NBC’s 1990′s opus, Homicide: Life on the Street, and grand-fathered HBO’s masterpiece, The Wire. One of the standout characters of the book became one of the standout characters on network TV. He was Andre Braugher’s Frank Pembleton, a central Homicide detective with a terrific, even classic look. He wore a fedora.

Not long after I first moved down here, I saw a homicide detective on the local evening news. It’s a city, people kill each other. What caught my attention was his hat. Then I forgot about it. Later, I saw another homicide detective with another, similar hat that also caught my eye. At least two of Atlanta’s murder police wear fedoras. That struck me as old-fashioned, respectable, and classy.

Jamie Gumbrecht’s article on police fedoras in the AJC reveals that it’s more than just a fashion choice by a couple of individual cops. “In the early 1990s,” Gumbrecht writes, “it became less fashion statement, more symbol. Solve a case, earn a hat.” As the article points out, it’s not a trend but a tradition, and Atlanta’s homicide unit is tapping into that tradition for symbolic power.

It’s a great little article about culture and style: Read “Respect the Hat: Fedoras more than fashion for Atlanta homicide detectives,” and check out the article’s gallery of the hat squad.

Slow News Day

Seth — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:17:30 +0000

Sorry. I’m not all that good at gallows humor.

Anyhow, the local news is all about local news in the form of the AJC cutting staff and WXIA’s news director stepping down.

Me? I get all my information from the internets and the watercooler (an actual watercooler who bears a resemblance to Wall-E).

I rarely watch the TV version (save for the weather, how Atlantan of me) and I occassionally link/blog the paper version, though I prefer CL’s reportage and their blogs.