Monday, February 16, 2009, 5:17 PM
Opinion
By Stephanie Ramage
Is Mayor Franklin "lying" about crime? Is Chief Pennington crippling the APD? Flamingo, anyone?
This morning someone asked me what I wanted from the APD's Chief Pennington. I responded, "Either a dramatic change of approach or a dramatic change of address."
I'm tired of the suffering of good, hardworking people being ignored--and when I say that, I mean the good, hardworking cops, too. Can you imagine how demoralizing it must be for a police officer to disappoint himself and the people on his beat through no fault of his own, but simply because Mayor Franklin, through furloughs, has robbed the officers of their necessary back-up and support?
Yet Franklin says the city has made "huge strides" in lowering crime rates thanks to the programs put in place by Pennington.
I am sick and tired of the spin.
I didn’t get to see the “Georgia Gang” news commentary program this weekend, but I wish I had.
Apparently Phil Kent cited my recent column, “APD reports and Chief ‘Spinnington’” in saying that Mayor Franklin is "lying about crime" in Atlanta to make her administration and her police chief look better.
In an op-ed piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Feb. 12, Franklin said the city is "safer than it has been in decades." She likes to tout the the additon of 300 officers to the APD during her administration, but you notice that she never mentions the attrition rate which has stuck the APD with a continuing shortage of 400 officers, a situation that endangers the lives of cops and citizens alike.
She had to reach all the way back to 2002 to spread stats over seven years to conjure up a citywide decrease in violent crime. She and Pennington act as if part of the city being targeted by violent criminals for the past two years is of no consequence as long as the neighborhoods who hire their own security patrols can balance out the stats. And that's really what's happening here folks: Some neighborhoods like Midtown have seen a drop in violent crime because, lucky for them, they're affluent enough to chip in on security officers. Buckhead, on the other hand, simply razed its most problematic area--look, no neighborhood, no crime problem--and rebuilt it. And it's because of those private efforts that violent crime has dropped enough in those areas that they can more than balance what the crime-plagued southeastern corner contributes to the stats. But those were largely private efforts; Franklin and her pal Pennington can stop taking credit for those.
So, did Mayor Franklin mean to intentionally mislead people about crime in the city?
Anytime one talks about public officials and untruths, it’s a tricky business to know how much they know and whether the things they say are outright lies or merely manifestations of shameful ignorance or just political self-preservation at the expense of the citizenry.
I don’t know which it is in the case of Mayor Franklin and Chief Pennington, but I do know that it is not true that violent crime is down across Atlanta. There's a chunk of the city that's seeing an undeniable increase in violent crime, even according to the Atlanta Police Department's own numbers. At best, Franklin is unaware of the truth. At worst, she knows the truth and isn’t telling it, which is lying.
Violent crime has increased demonstrably in the southeastern corner of the city. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it’s worse than is being reported by the APD, and even the numbers as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution—however apologetically—show an increase.
Just check out the stats listed in a Feb.8 AJC story with the bizarre title, “Though Atlanta Crime is Up, Violence Overstated.”
Looking at stats for the Inman Park/Little 5 Points area in years 2006 and 2008, one can see that there has been a 200 percent increase in rapes and a 53 percent increase in robberies in the past two years.
In an e-mail written in reference to the AJC’s article, Inman Park resident John Hines writes that the APD stats as analyzed by the AJC seem to indicate “that violent crime is sharply up in Inman Park from an already bad year in 2007 although it is down for Atlanta citywide…”
In Inman Park, the “numbers show a 19 percent increase in violent crime... from 2007 to 2008, and a 30 percent increase from 2006 to 2008 … violent crime [has] increased very sharply in the fourth quarter of 2008, from an average of 2.5 [incidents] per month in the four preceding quarters to an average of 10 per month in Q4…”
(East Lake/Kirkwood, from 2007 to 2008, experienced the biggest jump in violent crime of any neighborhood: 53 percent.)
Furthermore, in East Atlanta, the numbers show a 14 percent increase in violent crime from 2007 to 2008.
So, for the sake of City Hall, let’s recap:
1. In Inman Park, violent crime increased by 19 percent from 2007 to 2008.
2. In East Lake/Kirkwood, violent crime increased by 53 percent during that same time period.
3. In East Atlanta, violent crime increased by 14 percent during that time.
You notice the AJC’s headline didn’t say crime was down, nor did it say that violent crime, specifically, was down. Instead, the AJC chose to put in its headline a phrase that essentially tells residents and The Sunday Paper that we’ve blown crime problems out of proportion: "Violence overstated." And this only a week or so after the AJC gave cover to Pennington with a Q&A piece that allowed him to poo-poo citizens' concerns.
Well, who exactly is the AJC accusing of “overstating” violence? It’s certainly not the APD or Franklin or the AJC itself. Who, then, shall we blame for making such a fuss about a murder, numerous home invasions, assaults perpetrated by groups of young men with guns, and numerous rapes? That would be the victims, I guess, and since the Sunday Paper believes them and we have reported accordingly, that would also be us.
They can call it overstating, I call it facing the facts.
Please join me in a solidarity protest with East Atlanta Village by putting pink flamingos in your yard to draw attention to what Johnny Hollywood, owner of 13 Roses Tattoo is calling Franklin and Pennington's "birdbrained" approach to public safety.
He writes:
"We are asking residents of East Atlanta/Grant Park/Ormewood Park and surrounding areas to stand up and be counted: By putting a couple of Flamingos in their front yards to symbolize the addled birdbrained leadership of the City of Atlanta and our call for Pennington’s to get out ASAP.
Flamingos are already in the streets and in our yards over here – and we expect to see many more. We plan on distributing 300 additional Flamingos to residents here on Wednesday – and more are available through ACE Hardware in EAV and of course, some residents have told me they’ve already gone ahead ordered theirs online."
The launch party is Wed. 2/18 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Joe's Coffee in East Atlanta Village. I will see you there.
With crime on the rise (sorry APD, but it REALLY is), is it any surprise that concealed carry weapons permit applications are up as much as 79% in some metro communities? People are tired of being "soft targets" and for good reason.
samJ
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 5:33 PM