Atlanta Police pushing toward 2,000 cops (low crime, buying, office)

[rzzz]

ATL definitely is not a police state. It's more like the opposite where you can do just about anything and get away with it.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

A "military, police state"? How so?

My thoughts exactly. But let's not stop them from going back the wonderful, free, Northern. Why, they might just consider residing in the fair New York City...where the NYPD has a secret police task force that profiles, detains without charge, and intimidates Muslims and muslim looking people:

NYPD secret police spying of Muslims ends New Jersey surveillance | World news | guardian.co.uk


PS, that's not just biased reporting. On recent trip I saw the said task force pull people over three times. The most shocking was a middle aged couple who's only crime was the man was wearing a turban and driving a nice car in a working class neighborhood.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by 2Easy

Interesting. It sounds like a lot compared to other cities it's size. As many as Long Beach, CA and Miami combined, but I guess that geographically Atlanta is over twice the size of both of those. On a per capita basis only a handful of major cities have that many officers (NY, Chicago, DC, maybe a few others). I guess when you consider that Atlanta is actually only a city of 450,000 or so, but is the center of a much larger metro area it makes some sense. There's much more going on in Atlanta compared to Long Beach or El Paso, but I dunno...still sounds like a lot. Maybe improving policing techniques by using things like Compstat as other cities have done might be more cost efficient.

WHile the resident population is "small" (half a million isn't really that small), we do have a very large daytime population that almost doubles during the week each day. We're also a large convention and event location with millions of tourists each year. I actually think 2000 cops is too small for the task at hand, but this is a good development none the less.

[mattee01]

They wouldn't need so many cops if they were doing something besides picking up every homeless person or guy who had a beer outside and throw him in the detention center and try and get a couple hundred dollars or even 1,000 from em.

[cqholt]

APD does a great job. The guys at Zone 6 really care about the residents and neighborhoods they patrol. They always make it to KNO and NPU-O meetings every month.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by tonygeorgia

I see you can never please everyone. Years back when it weren't this many police everybody said the city was going down hill/etc and now that we have enough police we are a police state lol

I'm really glad we're getting more officers in Atlanta. As others have said, the city gets a ton of visitors and daytime workers and students that it has to deal with.

It just seems to me that in general society needs to make sure we don't become over-policed and over-criminalized. I know those are big social questions but it's important to stay alert.

APD does an excellent job overall.

[glovenyc]

One would think that the combination of a high unemployment rate and thousands of military men and woman returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Atlanta would have no problem recruiting police.

[HurricaneJ213]

Unfortunately many of the returning veterans will not qualify for one reason or another, partially due to the liberal "police state" types who seem to be taking over the country. They are afraid of having officers on the street that won't put up with the increasing disrespect being shown to the badge.

Anyways, please don't believe the hype about reaching 2,000 officers. They are hiring people that could NEVER get hired in a city that supports its officers or pays well (i.e. Chicago, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Portland, LA, etc.). This magic number is nothing more than a smokescreen, and a way for a certain someone to pat himself on the back and look like he's accomplished something.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by HurricaneJ213

Unfortunately many of the returning veterans will not qualify for one reason or another, partially due to the liberal "police state" types who seem to be taking over the country. They are afraid of having officers on the street that won't put up with the increasing disrespect being shown to the badge.

Are people fresh from foreign combat the best candidates for your local police force? US citizens might think they should not be treated the same as Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

[tonygeorgia]

Originally Posted by HurricaneJ213

Unfortunately many of the returning veterans will not qualify for one reason or another, partially due to the liberal "police state" types who seem to be taking over the country. They are afraid of having officers on the street that won't put up with the increasing disrespect being shown to the badge.

Anyways, please don't believe the hype about reaching 2,000 officers. They are hiring people that could NEVER get hired in a city that supports its officers or pays well (i.e. Chicago, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Portland, LA, etc.). This magic number is nothing more than a smokescreen, and a way for a certain someone to pat himself on the back and look like he's accomplished something.

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