Fresh Loaf

The Atlanta City Council has decided that Police Chief Richard Pennington must comply with an oversight committee’s request to release documents related to the police shootings of Kathryn Johnston and Pierre George.

According to an Atlanta City Council spokesman, the Committee on Council:

Issued a subpoena at the request of the Citizen Review Board to compel Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington to produce requested documents as well as the criminal investigation file regarding the police shooting of Kathryn Johnston.

Issued a subpoena at the request of the Citizen Review Board to compel Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington to produce requested documents as well as the criminal investigation file regarding the police shooting of Pierre George.

UPDATED: Cristina Beamud, executive director of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board, tells CL:

“On behalf of the board, we’re very pleased. And we thank the Committee on Council and, most importantly, Chair Felicia Moore for her support on this issue. The public still has a lot of questions about what went wrong, and what we can do to make sure [what happened], or something similar, doesn’t happen again. And we don’t think there have been enough answers if people are still asking those questions…It’s very difficult to give constructive criticism unless you know what caused it and how it can be prevented.”

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More than a year and a half after its creation, Atlanta’s Citizen Review Board has started investigating cases of police misconduct.

The board was formed in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving-eve 2006 killing of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who was repeatedly shot in her home by two Atlanta cops serving an illegally obtained warrant.

According to a press release:

On November 13, 2008, the Atlanta Citizen Review Board held its monthly meeting and considered its first seven complaints.  The Board voted unanimously to seek further investigation or information concerning three of the complaints and to refer two of the remaining four complaints to the Atlanta Police Department Office of Professional Standards.  The remaining two complaints have already been investigated by the Office of Professional Standards.

The ordinance requires … that the complaints fall into six specific categories of alleged misconduct.  The categories include abusive language, false arrest, false imprisonment, harassment, excessive force, and serious bodily injury or death which is alleged to be the result of a sworn employee of the police or corrections departments.  The four cases that were dismissed were either untimely or did not fall into the classifications authorized by the Ordinance.

So I guess the board doesn’t hear allegations of bribery or corruption — just garden-variety brutality. Best leave complaints about systemic ills to the APD’s in-house Office of Professional Affairs, huh.

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Now that the FBI has concluded its investigation into the death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston at the hands of two Atlanta cops, the police department has formed a task force to conduct its own internal probe of Johnston’s killing.

Here’s what Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington said (in a press release) about the creation of the task force:

Following the November 21, 2006 death of Ms. Kathryn Johnston at 933 Neal Street, I asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to commence an independent investigation into Ms. Johnston’s death.  The scope of the FBI investigation included allegations of criminal acts as well as other misconduct. I would like to thank the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office for their help and assistance in conducting this investigation regarding criminal misconduct. …

The Atlanta Police Department should be given an opportunity to review the actions of its own employees for the purpose of determining whether administrative charges are appropriate. If it is deemed appropriate, adminstrative action will be taken against officers as warranted.

My question is, where does the city’s newly created Citizen Review Board — a board that came into existence as a result of the Johnston killing — fit into all this?

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Percentage of graduates in the last two Atlanta Police Academy classes who’ve been arrested or cited for a crime: 36

Of the 33 total graduates, number who became officers: 33

Number of those graduates who’d been denied jobs with other law enforcement agencies: 12

Minimum number of graduates who’d been deemed psychologically incompatible for work at another police department: 1

Number of officers the Atlanta Police Department should employ to ensure public safety, authorities say: 2,000

Number of officers currently employed: 1,700

Number of Atlanta officers indicted in a 2006 botched raid that left a 92-year-old woman dead: 3

Of those, number who blamed pressure to meet arrest quotas as the impetus for the raid: 3

Months after the raid that the city created a Citizen Review Board to review police misconduct: 4

Number of police misconduct cases that the board considered in its first 18 months: 0

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, International Brotherhood of Police Officers

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