Fresh Loaf

OK, so maybe “wave” is a bit of an exaggeration. But there’s at least some anecdotal evidence that evacuees of Louisiana’s two most frightening hurricanes are stirring up trouble in Georgia.

Most recently, there were the alleged blue-jean-bandit copycats who struck in Buckhead after being displaced by Gustav. And earlier this week, a Katrina evacuee was sentenced to life in prison for a murder in Athens.

Hopefully, the crimes won’t eclipse the contributions and hardships of the evacuees who’ve worked to make a new life here.

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Former Atlanta millionaire and international fugitive James Sullivan is appealing his 2006 Fulton County conviction on charges that he ordered the contract killing of his 35-year-old wife, Lita Sullivan.

Nearly two decades passed between Lita Sullivan’s 1987 murder and James Sullivan’s trial. Sullivan faced the death penalty, though jurors instead opted to sentence him to life in prison without parole.

The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Sept. 9 from Sullivan’s attorneys, who claim certain trial evidence should have been suppressed, several jurors shouldn’t have been excused, the jury should have been given the option of convicting Sullivan of voluntary manslaughter, and there wasn’t enough evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

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FIRE ANTS: All U.S. fire ants can be traced back to a handful of queens that stowed away on a boat from Argentina to Mobile, Ala., in the 1930s, according to a UGA entomologist.

BRETT AND THE JETS: Brett Favre was traded early this morning by the Packers to the New York Jets, ending his historic tenure in Green Bay on a sour note.

KWAME KILPATRICK: The mayor of Detroit is ordered to jail for violating the terms of his bond.

CRACKDOWN: Atlanta police begin an “indefinite” crackdown on panhandling, drug-dealing and other tourist-worrying behavior in Five Points.

CHAMBLISS: Says he’s ready for the Democratic “onslaught” now that Jim Martin is the nominee.

TED TURNER: Naturally occurring anthrax is found on his Montana ranch.

WAIT WATCHERS: CDC researchers in Atlanta report that the average nationwide emergency-room wait time has grown from 38 minutes to almost an hour over the past decade, due to increases in patients and decreases in hospital resources.

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Blogger Shelby Highsmith (who blogs as Shelbinator) reports yesterday’s Critical Mass group bicycle ride around Atlanta was shadowed by more than a dozen Atlanta Police Department vehicles.

If you were robbed, mugged, or otherwise assaulted or injured in the downtown Atlanta area between 6:45 and 8:00pm on Friday, we bicyclists do apologize for your lack of police protection. You see, we were busy occupying about a dozen motorcycle cops and several police cruisers with our monthly bike ride.

Be sure to check out Shelby’s video.

Atlanta is an under-policed city experiencing a double-digit increase in serious crime. Is following and ticketing bike riders a responsible allocation of the police department’s resources?

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The FBI’s annual compendium of national crime stats shows a decrease in every major category of crime nationwide.

Atlanta, on the other hand, registered an overall increase in crime of 11 percent, driven by double-digit increases in the number of robberies, burglaries, auto thefts and murders.

Neither the mayor’s office nor Atlanta police Chief Richard Pennington’s office were willing to comment, but APD Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of Atlanta’s police union, blames part of the increase on sagging morale among the rank-and-file. It’s the result, Kreher says, of the city’s failure to adequately fund the department as well as what he describes as Pennington’s absentee leadership. Kreher says he hopes the mayor will replace Pennington with someone else from within the department.

City Council President Lisa Borders — who is also a candidate for mayor — calls the increase in crime “unacceptable” and says it must be addressed by city leaders immediately. “At this pace, increased crime threatens to reverse many, if not all of the gains the city has made over the past decade,” she says.

(Chart by Erin Washburn)

(NOTE: The print edition of Creative Loafing includes a mislabeled version of the chart shown above. I apologize for the error.)

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After a three-day trial that shed new light on the legendary excess of the Black Mafia Family, high-ranking BMF member Fleming “Ill” Daniels was convicted in Atlanta federal court today of one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

The jury, which deliberated for two days, could not reach a conclusion on Daniels’ second count, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The jury announced its verdict at around 4 p.m.

The government’s case against Daniels relied heavily on a half-dozen witnesses who were indicted on BMF-related drug charges in other jurisdictions. The witnesses testified with the hope of receiving reduced sentences.

One of them, a lower-level BMF member named Ralph “Ralphie” Simms, implicated Atlanta rapper Jay “Young Jeezy” Jenkins in BMF’s $270 million cocaine ring. Jeezy has not been charged in the feds’ multi-state BMF investigation, which has netted nearly 150 defendants in seven states. Both the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta and Jeezy’s attorney in New York declined to comment on the allegation.

Daniels, who faces a minimum 20-year sentence on the federal conspiracy charge, is also under indictment in Fulton County Superior Court for the 2004 murder of Rashannibal “Prince” Drummond. Drummond was shot to death in the parking lot of Midtown’s now-defunct Velvet Room.

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Testimony offered yesterday in the federal government’s cocaine-conspiracy case against alleged Black Mafia Family member Fleming “Ill” Daniels revealed a stunning allegation: According to a witness, Atlanta hip-hop superstar Jay “Young Jeezy” Jenkins received kilos of cocaine from BMF.

Jeezy has not been charged with a crime in relation to the allegation. When asked whether there is an open investigation into the rapper, Justice Department spokesman Patrick Crosby said he had no comment.

Scott Leemon, the New York-based lawyer who represented Jeezy on weapons charges out of Miami in 2006, told CL “obviously, I am not going to comment on anything. I will look into it.”

The allegation was raised in U.S. District Court in Atlanta this week by a BMF member named Ralph “Ralphie” Simms. Simms was indicted last year in a related federal drug case in L.A. He told the jury that in exchange for his truthful testimony in the case against Daniels, he hoped to receive a reduced sentence.

Simms testified that his job was to unload BMF’s cocaine from limos outfitted with secret compartments. He said he piled as many as 100 “bricks” of cocaine at a time inside the basement of one of BMF’s stash houses, an ultra-modern Buckhead mansion nicknamed “Space Mountain.” And he said that on one occasion, in the fall of 2004, he was ordered by high-ranking BMF members Chad “J-Bo” Brown and Martez “Tito” Byrth to set aside multi-kilo cocaine “shipments” for two customers. Simms said the customers picked up the coke from him at Space Mountain.

When asked by assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney who the customers were, Simms gave two names: William “Doc” Marshall, a high-level BMF co-conspirator who testified earlier in the trial, and “Jeezy.”

“Young Jeezy the rapper?” McBurney asked.

“Yes,” Simms answered.

Jeezy’s name cropped up several times in the first two days of testimony, but only in relation to his well-publicized friendship with BMF’s Atlanta-based leader, Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory. In November, Flenory pleaded guilty in Detroit to running a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces a minimum sentence of 20 years.

BMF is believed to have employed 500 people across the country in its $270 million cocaine ring — nearly 150 of whom have been indicted in seven states. According to testimony in Daniels’ trial this week, BMF only dealt in multiple kilos of cocaine, which were distributed to other cocaine dealers.

Daniels, who was described during testimony as BMF’s third-in-command under Flenory, was indicted along with 15 co-defendants last year in Atlanta. (Daniels also faces a murder charge in Fulton County Superior Court.) He is the only local defendant to go to trial on the federal charges. Nine of his co-defendants, including the rapper Barima “Bleu DaVinci” McKnight, pleaded guilty over the past two weeks. Another four are fugitives.

Jury deliberations in the case against Daniels began today. (UPDATE: Young Jeezy arrested on unrelated charges; Daniels convicted on one count.)

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Testimony in the federal cocaine conspiracy trial of alleged Black Mafia Family member Fleming “Ill” Daniels continued today. So far, three witnesses with intimate knowledge of the crew have broken BMF’s once-ironclad code of silence.

All three witnesses have pleaded guilty to criminal charges in other indictments. William “Doc” Marshall, the chief executive officer of the crime ring, which was run like a corporation, recalled buying $400,000 worth of cocaine from BMF at a time. On one of those occasions, he testified, Daniels was picking up cocaine, too. BMF higher-ups sold the coke to high-level distributors out of a stash house they operated in Buckhead, Marshall told the jury.

He also described how he helped Daniels obtain a $150,000 convertible Ferrari Modena in the name of a straw purchaser.

The other witnesses, Marshall’s half-brother Karream Sheard and one of Daniels’ alleged cocaine customers, Glenn “Gino” Hamilton, also testified.

The government is expected to call more ex-members of the storied drug crew, whose motto was “Death Before Dishonor,” this afternoon.

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For the first time, an alleged member of the multi-state cocaine crew the Black Mafia Family is on trial in Atlanta.

Fleming “Ill” Daniels has been described by witnesses in court papers as BMF’s third-in-command under the organization’s co-leader, Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory. Daniels is being tried on federal cocaine conspiracy charges in U.S. District Court. He also has been indicted in Fulton County for the 2004 murder of Rashannibal “Prince” Drummond in the parking lot of Midtown’s now-defunct Velvet Room. That case has not yet made it to trial.

During opening statements this morning, assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney described Daniels’ alleged role in the BMF enterprise, which is believed to have trafficked $270 million in cocaine across the country from two main hubs. BMF’s Atlanta hub was headed by “Big Meech” Flenory. Its other hub, in L.A., was controlled by his estranged brother, Terry “Southwest T” Flenory. In November 2007, the Flenory brothers pleaded guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise in a related indictment out of Detroit.

McBurney told the jury that the government’s case against Daniels would rely in part on co-defendants who pleaded guilty in exchange for a possibly lesser sentence. Eleven of Daniels’ 15 co-defendants pleaded guilty, most of them on Monday. The rest remain fugitives. Among the guilty pleas was the rapper Barima “Bleu DaVinci” McKnight, who did not agree to cooperate with the feds. (more…)

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From Forbes.com’s recently published Best Places For Business And Careers special report:

One metro that made a big jump was Atlanta, which improved to sixth from 25th last year. Its ranking benefited from strong job and income growth and a big reduction in crime.

From this blog, yesterday:

Crime was up 11% city wide in 2007, according to statistics recently posted on the Atlanta Police Department web site.

So who’s right?

Both of us, possibly.

When Forbes says Atlanta, they’re talking about the entire metro area. They’re also considering data gathered over a five-year period. I don’t know exactly how many counties Forbes counted over how many years, so I don’t know precisely what they’re talking about when they say crime has dropped.

When CL says crime is up in Atlanta, we’re referring to the actual city of Atlanta, not the metro area.

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Good news for burglar alarm and pepper spray salesmen. Bad news for the rest of us.

Crime was up 11% city wide in 2007, according to statistics recently posted on the Atlanta Police Department web site.

Last year there were 129 homicides in Atlanta, up from 110 in 2006 and just 89 in 2005. The biggest increases were in robberies, up 21%, and burglaries, up 20%.

Each of the city’s six police zones experienced overall crime increases with Zone 1 (west Atlanta), Zone 4 (southwest Atlanta) and Zone 6 (east Atlanta), experiencing the highest increases.

At-large council member Ceasar Mitchell says, outside of worries about the economy, increased crime is the issue he hears about most often from constituents.

Both Mitchell and at-large council member Mary Norwood blame police recruitment and retention problems for part of the increase, as well as the de-activation of the city’s narcotics squad for much of 2007 – a move that followed the killing of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a botched November 2006 drug raid. However, both stop short of criticizing Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington or his leadership.

District 12 Council Member Joyce Sheperd, who represents several Southwest Atlanta neighborhoods in the Zone 4 police district, is more direct.

“He’s not a community-oriented police chief. He’s more of a stats man,” Sheperd says.

“Even though we may not be happy with him, trying to look at someone else at this point is not practical,” she says, blaming the city’s budget crisis and what she calls the city’s “strong-mayor/weak-council” structure, which means that any replacement might not survive in the post past the end of Mayor Franklin’s term in January 2010.

“Who could we get to come to Atlanta at this point?” Sheperd asks.

Charles Pippin, a resident of Southwest Atlanta’s Capitol View neighborhood (in Sheperd’s district), complains the city’s failure to increase the force size has left his neighborhood under-patrolled. Pippin and a group of neighbors formed a group called Capitol View Security Alliance last year. With membership dues, the group pays off-duty Atlanta police officers to patrol the neighborhood’s streets.

“Why can’t the city hire more officers?” Pippin says. “They’ll say it’s money, but if you get people feeling secure about these neighborhoods, more people will move in and your tax base will increase.”

Neither the mayor’s office nor the police department were available for comment.

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