Reminder: 2,000 police officers by end of the year?
October 20, 2009 at 10:24 am by Andisheh Nouraee in NewsYesterday the Atlanta city council approved a plan to hire 50 new police officers using federal stimulus funds.
In January, Mayor Franklin announced her intention to grow the city’s police force to 2,000 officers. The city had 1,633 officers at the time, meaning Franklin was promising to grow the size of the force by 22 percent in a single year – nevermind the department’s net loss of approximately 200 officers between October 2007 and January 2009. When critics called her proposal unrealistic, cranky Franklin lashed out.
According to the AJC, the city now has “more than 1,700 sworn officers.” I’m no math whiz, but I’m pretty sure 50 plus “more than 1,700″ does not equal 2,000.
The critics were right. Franklin’s January 2009 proposal was ridiculous.
Correction: In earlier version of this post, I incorrectly described APD’s overall size during Franklin’s two-terms. I apologize.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:15 am
I assume you think Kasim Reed’s promise to hire 750 more officers in his FIRST term is ridiculous too? I wonder if CL took that ridiculous promise into account before endorsing Reed.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Also, what stats do you have that show “department’s overall shrinkag” during Franklin’s Admin? Everything I have seen shows the dept has grown.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Hopefully, the new police chief will be able to bring more officers in and retain those that are currently on staff.
I agree with S.Dekalb Voter- that sounds like pure rhetoric to me.
Regardless of who will be Mayor, he or she will have their work cut out for them.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:27 am
SDK One word: attrition.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:49 am
S. Dekalb — you’re right. I wrote this offline and pasted the wrong version into Wordpress. I corrected and apologized above (and apologize again right here).
Official stats show APD grew from 2002-2007, then started shrinking.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Honest mistake I assume :-)
@ BOTR, if any of the current mayoral candidates solve the attrition problem in the APD, we should change the charter and allow them to be mayor forever.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Is it ELECTION DAY yet? Me and the girls were playing bridge yesterday, and we were discussing the mayoral race and how TIRED we are of all this crap. We don’t support Norwood, can’t get behind Reed, and the jury’s still out on any of the other candidates except for Keyser. (Could you imagine that kid as mayor? Ugh…)
Think about this though — don’t you think that we’re all TIRED of all the back and forth bickering between the two top Black candidates. It’s only going to make Norwood come out on top, and that’s not good for anyone. Her performance in the last televised forum was HORRIBLE! Can you imagine if a reporter grills her on something when she is mayor? She’d wilt like a hothouse flower!
October 20th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
actually, betsy, there is one thing we all agree on – we’re tired of u and your nasty mudslinging rants.
please stay off the internets.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Wesley, darling, why so worried? I don’t know what you kids would do without my sage advice. When you get to be my age, you learn a thing or two. What happened to respecting your elders? Geez Louise.
So a little birdie on the street told me that Mary Palin Norwood has another endorsement coming up…a bought one at that. I wonder what the price tag is on a Democratic endorsement to make yourself look more “purple”?
October 20th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
We’re already living in a Communist, military Republican police state. Do we really need more cops to just stare at and intimidate people downtown all day long? Because that’s all they do. I have never lived in a city like this where you have uniformed, armed cops just walking around downtown all day, staring at people, but really doing nothing other than intimidating everyone. Why don’t they clean up downtown? Then there wouldn’t be a need to turn it into a police state and they could actually go fight crime where crime is actually occuring? Imagine that. I thought when I visited Russia years ago and it was still a Communist country and I saw cops everywhere that that was bad, but downtown Atlanta is a million times worse.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:03 am
Do we really need more cops to just stare at and intimidate people downtown all day long?
No, we need more cops staring at and intimidating people in the rest of the city.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
betsy, i thought this might inspire u: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ8bdfn09Pk
October 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
How cute Wesley! Did you do this for me? It’s nice! Still doesn’t mean I’ll vote for him though. The commercial’s too long.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
yes, missus betsy, that campaign video on youtube is something i made just for u. that’s exactly how the internets work.