By Jonathan Copsey / Staff

The police were very active Wednesday as they rounded up dozens of Roswell’s prominent business people and hauled them off to jail. But don’t worry - it’s all for a good cause.

Alpharetta’s finest were working with the Muscular Dystrophy Association to bring participating Roswell workers to the Fickle Pickle, which was playing as “jail” this year. Once brought in, the players had their mugshot taken behind bars and then set to work raising “bail” – donations from family and friends – to get out. Proceeds went to the MDA. Once bail was made, the jailbirds flew the coop in a limousine back to work.

By the end of the day, more than $37,000 was raised to help those afflicted with the disease.

“We have everything from hairdressers to business owners, bankers, real estate agents,” explained Betsy Grome, the program coordinator at MDA. “[We have] a little bit of everything in this area.”

For Shanetta Woods, of the Doubletree Hotel in Roswell, this was her first time behind bars for the charity. “I do a lot of charities every year,” she said. “I actually just started reading information about the MDA and decided to help out.”

Muscular Dystrophy refers to a group of diseases that affect the muscles in the body, causing progressive weakness of skeletal muscles, defects in muscular proteins and the death of muscle cells. There are more than 100 related diseases in the MD group. The MDA aims to help research and cure these diseases. For more information, visit www.mda.org.