Chattanooga Pulse

A weekly roundup of the newsworthy, notable and often head-scratching stories gleaned from police reports from the Chattanooga Police Department, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, the Bradley County Sheriff’s Department and the Dalton Police Department.

• Getting to know your neighbors is not only a nice way to make friends, but also can help fight crime.  An alert resident on Fort Sumter Drive called 911 when he noticed a pair of teenagers breaking into his neighbor’s house.  He confronted both of the suspects, who quickly fled.  Unfortunately for them, Hamilton County deputies responded very quickly, stopping both of the teens within blocks of the home.  The pair were arrested and charged with aggravated burglary.  Because of the alertness of the neighbor, combined with the quick response from deputies, neither teen was able to make off with any of their ill-gotten gains.

• Prostitution may indeed be the world’s oldest profession, but that still doesn’t make it legal.  Chattanooga police officers once again conducted a sting in the area near Clifton Hills Elementary school last week and had more success than they had anticipated.  Using undercover officers posing as prostitutes, they not only were able to arrest 17 men on charges of patronizing prostitution, they were also able to arrest three ladies of the evening who were apparently unhappy with the unwelcome competition.  And, as is the case with about 99 percent of prostitution arrests in the city, the charges were bumped up because all the illegal activity occurred within 1.5 miles of a school.

• In spite of hundreds of past stings and seemingly countless television shows documenting the practice, there still are men stupid enough to believe everything they see online. A Walker County EMT was arrested by federal authorities after he discovered to his dismay that what he thought was an underage girl looking for sex with an older man was in fact an undercover agent.  The EMT had engaged several undercover agent in online chats and then traveled to Catoosa County to meet with what he thought was a teen girl.  Instead, he was confronted by members of the Northwest Georgia Crimes Against Children Task Force and is now facing charges of attempting to solicit a minor child for sex.

• The owner of a now-defunct used car lot on Hixson Pike apparently didn’t think his business plan through very clearly.  Chattanooga police fraud investigators arrested the used-car salesman on charges that he took vehicles from people and, instead of selling them on their behalf, altered the titles and kept the proceeds for himself.  Not too surprisingly, the vehicle owners weren’t very pleased with this system and reported him to authorities.  He’s now facing charges of theft over $60,000, eight counts of forgery, eight counts of falsifying a title, and failure to deliver title. What kind of world do we live in when you can’t even trust a used-car salesman?