Please don’t feel discouraged if I refer you to existing problem-solving resources within the city government–I come in when those avenues have been exhausted. However, if yours is an issue that I can help solve, I’ll engage in that process as quickly and effectively as I possibly can.

–Very best, Steph

[Here's the mayor's Press Release announcing citizen advocate.]

On Monday, I became the City of Atlanta’s first ever Citizens Advocate, and while the title may be new, the work itself is something I have done with greater or lesser degrees of success as a journalist for many years.

Like most journalists, I have listened to the citizens, become acquainted with the problems they have encountered with their government, investigated the source of those problems and researched some solutions for them. As the city’s Citizens Advocate, I will still do that, but with a measure of authority that will allow the taxpayers more control over their government and ensure greater accountability.

Every city department has a resolution process in place in terms of customer service or professional standards. In those cases where problems have proven resistant to the city’s traditional channels of resolution, it will be my job to investigate what went wrong, identify those policies, procedures or personnel that have proven to be roadblocks to resolution, and present a report of my findings to the administration.

No doubt some of you may be concerned about my future; you might even be shocked that I have chosen this path. I am grateful for your concern, but it’s important to note that Mayor Kasim Reed didn’t just ask me to join the team, he asked me to join the team and bring my criticisms with me.

I think that it would be very disingenuous of me not to take the job. After all, what kind of person would I be if I continue to offer criticism of the city, but I am not willing to do what I can to help solve its problems when given a perfect opportunity to do so?

The city will publicly announce the job a little later and will offer more information about it at that time.

Thank you, as always, for your faith in me. I hope I will continue to be worthy of it. SR

He also has a chipped pelvis.  In answer to some inquiries: The Ramage Report has not been informed of any leg injury.

Anymore information would be appreciated. Let’s pray he’s okay.

They do not seem to understand that when one quibbles that a very real crime problem is overshadowed by perception, they are actually creating the old problem of “the lady doth protest too much”:  Their protestations seem to hint that all is not as it appears.

Why this fixation on perception? Why the need to undermine and discredit the citizens? Once again, the AJC has set itself opposite residents far more aware of their own circumstances than any news reporter possibly could be.

When a woman in Grant Park says she doesn’t feel comfortable opening her garage door until her car doors are locked and her engine is started, I trust her judgment. As a journalist and an advocate, I would never imagine that it is my job to question the common sense of residents who are far more familiar with their neighborhoods than I am.

 I do believe the Atlanta Police Department does a heck of a job with inadequate equipment and personnel—and congratulations is certainly in order for the lowered incidence of crime, but we must always remember that most crime goes unreported. Not just in Atlanta, but everywhere. I personally have known people who were robbed who did not report it. Why? They were traumatized and scared, afraid that somehow the perpetrators would find out they’d reported them and come back for more. Or, they felt intimidated by the whole process of reporting a crime. APD officers themselves can attest to instances when they’ve practically had to beg a victim to step up and give them details for a report.

So, it’s important to understand that when residents say they don’t feel safe, they aren’t just basing this on crime numbers—which fall prey to a number of factors outside the power of citizens. They are also basing their feelings on things that they know have happened in the neighborhood that the police may not know about. They also have a sense of things about to happen in a way that the APD can’t: They know when they see someone in the neighborhood who doesn’t belong there, or people “fund raising” whose paperwork looks a little dicey who are probably casing houses for burglaries, for example. They may not report these things to police, but they are aware of them and these very real factors and circumstances contribute to their common sense conclusion that all is not well.

That is not merely perception. That is fact.

It is not the police department’s job to market the city.

The APD is not in the business of advertising or image managing.

It is police officers’ job to fight crime and to tell the truth about it. Truthfulness matters so much in the APD that an officer can be fired simply for not being truthful. No wonder the APD—under Chief George Turner, which was not the case under his predecessor, Chief Richard Pennington—is not so eager to get on the “perception” bandwagon in order to discredit citizens. Turner tells the AJC that “Until our citizens feel safe, our work is not done.”

Correct.

Turner is featured in the AJC article talking about community policing, getting out there and staying in touch with residents. That’s important, and saying that citizens are unable to accept reality does not help him or his officers in achieving that goal.

Because no matter how much we may want to compare this year’s numbers to that year’s or this city’s numbers to our city’s numbers, the fact is that we all live only in our neighborhood, only in this year, and these numerical comparisons carry little weight against the things we see on our own streets.

Please note the Atlanta Police Department’s Zone 6 Beat Redesign Informational Meeting planned for TODAY, Thursday, March 31st has changed locations.
 
The new location is the Entrepreneurium, 1599-A Memorial Drive SE, Atlanta 30317. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m.

The Daily Mail, a British paper basing its coverage on that of Atlanta’s own WXIA, Channel 11, begins its story with Hood’s apology for killing Athens Clark-County Police Officer Elmer “Buddy” Christian last week and his statement that “you know, they killed my brother. They were going to kill me.”

An apology offered with an excuse isn’t quite an apology, but it made great TV. Hood gave himself up to authorities three days after the killing on the condition that he be allowed to surrender on live TV because, he claimed, he was afraid of cops.

His orchestrated spotlight-grab has a lot to do with why the story reached the British tabloids and other international outlets. It also, let’s face it, plays into time-honored stereotypes about Southern law enforcement and blacks.

Officer Christian was white and his accused killer is black.

But it’s important to note that 43-year-old Tony Howard, another Athens-Clark County Police officer shot by Hood, is black, too. Hood, who was wanted in connection with a carjacking, is accused of shooting Howard in the face and chest before fleeing the scene of a traffic stop and going on to shoot and kill Christian.

This is a well-worn problem with news coverage and consumption; put a black person and a white person in any kind of proximity in a dramatic story and its racial aspects tend to drown out the facts.

The much bigger and more troubling story is the astonishing rise America has seen in violence against police officers over the past few years. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, Inc., in 2009, 47 officers were shot and killed nationally. In 2010, that jumped to 59. So far this year, there have been 22. (Many more were killed in on-duty automobile accidents or duty-related illnesses.)

Their deaths represent not only a loss to their families, but far-reaching tears in the fabric of our society. They take an oath to uphold the law that protects us all. When they are killed in the process of doing that, their killings represent an assault on order and justice; all law-abiding citizens are threatened when a police officer is killed in the line of duty. That’s why it’s a big deal.

Such police officer deaths also leave a trail of heartbreak in their departments.

Added to the physical damage that Officer Howard is dealing with, is the psychological burden that very few of us could ever really understand.

When a police officer loses a partner or coworker to a criminal’s bullet, they never forget it. They never stop reviewing the tape, so to speak, asking themselves what they could have done differently to prevent what happened.

Patricia Cocciolone, an Atlanta Police officer who was providing back-up for Officer Rick Sowa in 1997 when he was killed while responding to a domestic dispute in the Lindbergh area, still has nightmares about trying to shoot the perpetrator, but the bullets aren’t working, she can’t seem to hit the target. She sometimes wakes in tears. Keep in mind that “Coach” herself took a bullet at point blank range from the perp as she lay injured on the ground, and you may begin to understand the level of responsibility and self-sacrifice that these officers feel for one another.

That is the path ahead for Howard. Even after his body has healed, he’ll be reviewing the events surrounding his fellow officer’s death for years to come. His police chief told news reporters that Howard woke in the hospital urging his fellow Athens cops to go get the killer and trying to give them pointers on where they might find him.

Howard needs love and support and understanding. He needs to know that he did the best he could and that what happened to Officer Christian was not his fault. He certainly doesn’t need to turn on his TV and see the thug who shot him and killed his friend making excuses for what is morally indefensible.

The 36-person unit is scheduled for training March 28 through April 1. It will be under the command of Lt. J.D. Patterson.

With the APD stretched thin already, false alarms present a dangerous waste of police resources, a problem Atlanta shares with other cities.

North of Atlanta, at the Sandy Springs Police Department, Lt. Steve Rose says suburban traffic ensures an alarm call takes about 45 minutes for each officer who responds, and sometimes longer. The SSPD gets between 800 and 1,200 calls for alarms each month. Most, he says, are false, which creates hazards that go beyond mere inefficiency.

DeKalb County Police received 74,452 alarm calls in 2009 (the most recent numbers available), of which 73,136, or 98 percent, were false.

“Nationally, we know that about 99 percent of all alarms are false,” says Marietta Police Chief Dan Flynn, chair of the alarm management committee for the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP). “It is an enormous problem for police.”

Alarms, he says, both false and valid combined, account for about 10 percent of the demand on police across the country.

Read more of my story on false alarms and what they cost us at The Buckhead Reporter, where I’m currently helping out a little:

http://www.reporternewspapers.net/2011/03/24/false-alarms-slow-police-cost-taxpayers/

They feel that a contract is a contract and they came to work for the city under certain assurances, not the least of which was that the pay is not great, but the pension isn’t bad. Now they are threatened with reduced retirement income, even after years of making sure that a portion of their paychecks was put toward their later years.

The mayor, however, says the city cannot afford to continue paying out pensions at its current rate. It will go broke, he says, unless something is done. He has invited anyone with a better idea for saving the city some money to bring it forward.

So, now’s our chance.

I’ll start: Work with surrounding governments and the state to form a metro-area-wide police and fire agency. Fewer than half a million taxpayers fund the City of Atlanta’s police and fire services and yet, everyday, 1.5 million people come into the city to work and play. While they’re here, they get their laptops stolen or their cell phones boosted, or they have heart attacks or crash their cars.

My tentatively named Atlanta Metropolitan Public Safety (AMPS) would address that imbalance. Why not make sure that those who benefit from the services are paying for them? It also enhances crime fighting by knocking down jurisdictional walls that help hide perpetrators.

How big should it be? Sharper minds than mine need to figure that out. Some say all of Fulton County should be in the metro-area public safety district, while others (like me) think that the area inside the Perimeter might be right, because it has a clear and distinct boundary.  

The downside is that this is not a quick fix. It could take more than a decade to set up the metro police and fire authority. But we’d still get it finished before the Beltline.

What are your ideas? If you can think of a better way than cutting pensions to bolster the city’s budget, please share it in the comments section below. SR