Atlanta proposes to spend $1.6million on private police force for wealthy suburb
Atlanta GA January 1 2021
Atlanta city council members have proposed a $1.6million plan to create a private police force in one of its wealthiest suburbs just days after a seven-year-old girl was fatally shot by a stray bullet.
Kennedy Maxie died from her injuries on Saturday night, five days after she was shot in the back of the head while riding in a car with her aunt and mother in Buckhead, Georgia.
The young girl had just finished Christmas shopping with her family at the Phipps Plaza mall in the affluent Atlanta suburb, also known as the ‘Beverly Hills of the East,’ when several men in a nearby parking lot got into a fight that led to gunfire.
Police have been examining surveillance footage from the scene in an attempt to identify a suspect, but no arrests have been made so far.
Kennedy’s death marked the 155th homicide victim in Atlanta this year – the highest total since at least 1998, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Buckhead is known as Atlanta’s commercial and residential district, famed for its high-rise buildings and shopping centers, hotels and mansions.
The neighborhood is a historically wealthy district and was once ranked the ninth richest zip code in the country with a median price of homes of $1,460,595, according to Forbes.
Bloomberg named Buckhead the 20th richest zipcode in the nation in 2011, when the average household net worth there was $1,353,189.
The average household income was $280,631.
Because of this, Buckhead is often called the ‘Beverly Hills of the East/South’, in reference to the upscale city in California.
Buckhead is also known to have a few notable residents, including Georgia Republican Kelly Loeffler.
Loeffler is currently running to retain her US Senate seat in the runoff election on January 5 against Democrat Raphael Warnock.
Today, Loeffler is among the wealthiest members of Congress. In 2009, she and her husband spent more than $10million on a European-style mansion named Descante in the Buckhead neighborhood.
In response, a number of Atlanta city council members on Monday announced they were allocating $125,000 to fund the ‘Buckhead Security Plan’, which intends to establish a private security force in the area to supplement the Atlanta Police Department, NBC reported.
The proposal, which has also been backed by the police department, the Atlanta Police Foundation, members of the Fulton County Commission, and a member of Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms’ administration, aims to increase public safety using law enforcement officers from local and state agencies.
The plan is divided into two major categories, the first being ‘Deterrence & Enforcement,’ which seeks to install more license plate readers and cameras to cover all major intersections in the neighborhood.
It also calls for a coordinated security patrol which would consist of extra-duty officers from the APD, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and private security firms, according to the website.
Under its second category, titled, ‘Policy & Procedural Change’, the proposal calls for ‘new approaches’ to ongoing issues and crackdowns on noise, ‘street racing’ and ‘spot checking overcrowding at problematic establishments’.
‘We are taking action to reverse recent trends in crime, hold lawbreakers accountable, and restore citizen confidence that Buckhead is safe and secure,’ said Jim Durrett, president of Buckhead Coalition and executive director of Buckhead Community Improvement District.
‘The partners collaborating on this effort understand the urgency of the situation and are committed to responding in ways that meet the needs of this moment and put Buckhead on a solid footing for years to come.’
Council member J.P. Matzigkeit, who was one of three members to allocate his municipal plans to the plan, said the city must ramp up its efforts in effective policing.
‘I don’t think that we’re doing effective policing right now because I don’t think we’re putting enough resources and attention to it like we are with the police reform work that we’re doing. We have to do both,’ he told Channel 2.
Fellow member Howard Shook also criticized Mayor Bottoms’s handling of the recent rise in crime.
‘It is obvious that the civilian authorities do not control the streets and cannot provide even a token feeling of safety beyond our front doors,’ he said in a statement last week.
The shooting happened at Atlanta’s Phipps Plaza, where there was an alleged argument in the parking lot. Kennedy and her family were not involved in the incident leading up to the shooting.
The shooting happened at Atlanta’s Phipps Plaza, where there was an alleged argument in the
‘To the administration, I don’t want to hear the word “uptick.” Stop minimizing our concerns by telling us that “crime is up everywhere.”
‘Spare us from the lie that the steady outflow of our officers isn’t as bad as it is. And please, not another throw-away press conference utterly devoid of game-changing action steps,’ he added.
In a statement to news outlets, Bottoms said police have ‘significant leads’ in the investigation, and urged the public to provide information ‘that will lead to the arrests of the careless and heartless people responsible for Kennedy’s death.’
In response to Shook’s comments, Bottom said highlighting the rise in violence across the United States is ‘not an abdication of responsibility, but an acknowledgement of the widespread severity of this issue.’
