ATLANTA – A legislative committee hearing Wednesday to begin exploring violent crime in Georgia turned into a debate over “broken windows” policing, which focuses on improving the appearance of neighborhoods to discourage crime.
The crime wave in Atlanta that began last summer can be traced in part to a deterioration of the city’s look and feel, said state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee.
“There’s garbage flowing down the street,” he said. “There’s graffiti. There are people living and sleeping everywhere. There’s aggressive panhandling. We’ve got to come together to fix this.”
Butch Ayers, executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, said blight fosters violent crime.
“It creates an atmosphere of lack of commitment, attention and public safety,” he said.
Ayers suggested a return to mandatory minimum prison sentences for using a firearm in the commission of a crime would help reduce the revolving door of repeat offenders frustrating police chiefs around the state.
Mandatory minimum sentences were popular during the 1990s, when state legislatures and Congress took away judicial discretion over sentencing by passing laws requiring minimum sentences for a host of crimes.
But Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, said broken windows policing and mandatory minimum sentences have been shown to lead to mass incarceration that targets low-income minority communities.
“If we return to those older policies, we will return to an attack on Black, Brown and poor citizens of our state,” she said.
Several witnesses who testified Wednesday as the Senate committee launched an expected series of hearings on rising crime said the best way to address the problem is boosting police presence.
Col. Chris Wright, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, said hiring enough law enforcement officers to accomplish that goal is a challenge. He said salaries aren’t high enough to attract recruits willing to do a difficult job.
“These front-line officers deal with the worst of humanity,” he said. “The salary has never been appealing for them to do the things they’re asked to do.”
Wright said recruiting has become an even tougher task since the “Defund the Police” movement began last summer as an offshoot of civil rights protests in cities across America.
Wright said the state patrol began a trooper training school last month with 71 recruits, well short of the goal of 100. Today, that cohort is down to just 49, he said.
But Wright told the committee Georgia’s new Crime Suppression Unit is making progress.
Since the multi-jurisdictional agency formed in April, the unit has made 12,208 vehicle stops and issued 8,503 citations, he said. Those stops led to the arrests of 212 fugitives – including 16 murder suspects – and the recovery of 67 stolen weapons and 161 stolen vehicles, he said.
Vic Reynolds, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the Crime Suppression Unit is an example of a growing partnership among law enforcement agencies that is starting to pay off.
“We probably have the best relationships we’ve had in a long, long time,” he said. “We can pick up the phone and work with [each other] day in and day out.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A state authority with the ability to bring together local police agencies could help curb the growth of crimes involving motor vehicles, law enforcement officials and representatives of vehicle rental companies said Tuesday.
Georgia ranked fifth in the nation with 26,907 auto thefts in 2019, Terri Blackmer, director of the Georgia Office of Insurance’s Criminal Investigation Division, told members of a state House subcommittee.
While auto thefts fell slightly in Georgia last year, the total nationally jumped by 9.2%, a trend Blackmer attributed to job losses during the coronavirus pandemic and budget cuts by law enforcement agencies financially strapped by the pandemic’s economic impact.
Thefts of catalytic converters from motor vehicles quadrupled last year, costing American consumers an average of $3,000 to replace them, she said.
Catalytic converters, copper wiring and aluminum wheels are increasingly being targeted by thieves because the prices of such metals have risen substantially, said Derick Corbett, senior vice president of external affairs for Pull-A-Part, an Atlanta-based chain of auto parts recyclers.
“As the value for these commodities increases, so does the crime,” he said.
Recyclers like Pull-A-Part and car and truck rental companies have turned to security cameras, electric fencing and anti-theft devices inside vehicles to discourage break-ins.
But thieves are evolving their techniques to match what’s being done to stop them, said Harshida Davis, group risk manager in Atlanta for the car rental company Enterprise Holdings.
“Criminals now are able to identify the technology,” she said. “They work around it.”
Street gangs are responsible for a lot of the crimes involving motor vehicles in Georgia, said Jared Coleman, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation assigned to the Gang Task Force.
He said gangs are active in 157 of the state’s 159 counties. A survey in 2019 found more than 1,500 gangs in Georgia with more than 7,000 members.
“The threat is growing,” Coleman said. “We’re seeing it every day in the headlines.”
Steve Levetan, Pull-A-Part’s executive vice president, said at least 13 states have created authorities with jurisdiction over crimes involving motor vehicles.
Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Michael O’Connell said an authority would improve communication between local police agencies investigating crimes that occur in multiple jurisdictions.
“It help would us centralize intelligence,” he said. “The intelligence around auto theft is only shared if investigators talk to each other.”
“We know there’s no magical silver bullet,” Levetan added. “But we have seen demonstrated cost-effective results from these authorities around the country. … They have reduced vehicle crimes.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit contesting state Rep. Shea Roberts’ election victory last November.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices upheld a lower court’s decision rejecting a challenge to election results showing Roberts, D-Atlanta, defeated incumbent Rep. Deborah Silcox, R-Sandy Springs, by 377 votes in Fulton County’s House District 52.
After the election results were certified, Sandy Springs resident Warren Schmitz filed a petition in Fulton County Superior Court claiming a variety of irregularities.
The trial court dismissed Schmitz’s challenge last April, determining that he failed to properly serve Richard Barron, Fulton County’s director of registration and elections, with notice of the lawsuit.
Schmitz appealed, arguing the trial court lacked authority to dismiss the case. But the high court disagreed.
“[W]e have long held that it is the responsibility of the person bringing an election contest to ensure that the proceedings move in an expeditious fashion, including by ensuring that all defendants and other interested individuals are given proper notice of the election contest,” Justice Charlie Bethel wrote in Tuesday’s opinion.
Bethel went on to explain that Roberts filed several motions last March stating she had never been properly served with notice of the lawsuit. One day later, the trial court ordered that she be served.
Then a few days later, during a virtual hearing, the trial court noted that it did not see any attempt to have Roberts served in the case.
“Schmitz did not exercise diligence in seeing that she was served despite receiving notice of defects in service at least as early as the date of Robert’s intervention in the case and the filing of … a motion to dismiss raising the issue of insufficient service,” Bethel wrote.
Roberts defeated Silcox 17,069 to 16,692, according to the certified results.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black’s U.S. Senate bid is attracting support from a significant number of Republicans in the General Assembly despite former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Herschel Walker.
Black announced Monday the endorsements of 55 GOP legislators, including Georgia House Majority Leader Jon Burns of Newington and the chairmen of the legislature’s two appropriations committees, Rep. Terry England of Auburn and Sen. Blake Tillery of Vidalia.
“I have worked with these leaders on everything from agriculture policy to food safety and petroleum issues, and they know me, my priorities, and my determination,” Black said. “That familiarity makes their support that much more important to me, and I am very grateful for it.”
Black’s list of legislative endorsements announced Monday also included House Majority Whip Matt Hatchett of Dublin, 16 House committee chairs, Senate Majority Caucus Vice Chairman Larry Walker III of Perry, and six Senate committee chairs.
Black landed endorsements earlier from former Gov. Nathan Deal, ex-U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, and three Republican members of the state Public Service Commission.
“Gary Black has proven to be one of the hardest working, most straightforward leaders I know,” said Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
“I have seen firsthand how he solves problems, builds relationships, and helps people in every corner in our state. As our next U.S. senator, nobody will be a better advocate for Georgia.”
Black’s support from Georgia elected officials could position him to wage a spirited Republican primary campaign against Walker, the University of Georgia football icon who jumped into the race last month at Trump’s urging. Trump formally endorsed Walker earlier this month.
Walker’s virtually universal name recognition among Georgia voters gives him an advantage over Black and two other Republicans vying for the Senate nomination: Latham Saddler, an Atlanta banking executive and former Navy SEAL officer; and Kelvin King, a small business owner and Air Force veteran also from Atlanta.
The winner of next May’s GOP Senate primary will take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in the general election in November 2022.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – One of Gov. Brian Kemp’s former top staffers is Georgia’s new commissioner of human services.
Candice Broce, a former communications director and chief deputy executive counsel in the Kemp administration, was sworn in Thursday to lead the state Department of Human Services (DHS). She also will continue to serve that agency as interim director of the Division of Family and Child Services (DFCS).
Broce is a great fit for both roles, Kemp said.
“Given her experience serving in numerous leadership roles in my administration and her demonstrated commitment to public service, I have no doubt she will continue to make the state of Georgia proud as commissioner of DHS and interim director of DFCS,” he said.
Broce also has served as the state’s chief operating officer. Before joining the Kemp administration, she was legal counsel for elections and legislative affairs in the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
Broce succeeds Gerlda Hines at the DHS. Hines was sworn in Thursday as the new state accounting officer.
Hines was named to head the agency at the beginning of July. Before that, she was the department’s deputy commissioner and chief financial officer.
Hines also held finance-related positions in the Georgia Department of Community Health and the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and was a policy analyst with the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget.
“She has a wealth of experience and is a respected, valued leader in state government,” Kemp said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
