ATLANTA — The race to outrun crime and get ahead of it could soon pick up speed.
Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant has asked state and local law enforcement agencies to a Crime Strategy Meeting on Wednesday afternoon at Atlanta Public Safety headquarters downtown, to “address targeted areas that are plaguing the Metro Atlanta area,” the Chief’s office wrote in a news release on Monday.
“The topics of discussion: street racing, violent crimes and water sales,” referring to young people gathering at major intersections trying to sell bottles of water to drivers who are stopped at red lights, causing many drivers to complain of feeling their safety is threatened.
It is a rare summit of law enforcement from across the region.
In the City of Atlanta, there have been more homicides in 2022, so far, than in 2021 during the same time period.
Many state and local police agencies are already pooling resources in an ongoing, joint, anti-crime operation that, they say, is claiming significant results—by going after street racing.
It turns out, as innocent as many street racers say they are, that the Georgia State Patrol is also finding out that a lot of other people who are attracted to street racing are on the run from police.
That’s a big reason police continue to be attracted to street racing, too.
The latest numbers from the Georgia State Patrol, released Tuesday, show that since April 2021, when troopers and local police began going after street racing on the weekends, they have been arresting more than just street racers.
In all, as of the weekend of February 12-13, 2022, according to the state patrol, the investigations and enforcement by the Multi-Agency Crime Suppression and Street Racing Enforcement Detail (click here for the detail's first news release, in April, 2021, on the GSP website) have resulted in more than 13,000 citations and arrests for various violations and crimes.
Troopers and police trying to shut down street racing events have, for example, caught 23 murder suspects, 384 other wanted persons, recovered nearly 300 stolen vehicles, and arrested more than 500 DUI suspects, according to the GSP.
As early as this past July, the state patrol’s Josh Lamb was telling a committee of the Georgia House of Representatives that, initially, they were going after street racing just twice a month, and they quickly found out that that that wasn’t often enough.
“After the first couple of weekends,” Lamb said, “we realized when we were not in Atlanta assisting to suppress crime, it (crime), once again, trended upwards. So now we are there every weekend—Atlanta-based troopers, other troopers from around the state. APD officers (and other local police) team up with the troopers and DNR rangers. We form a formidable team.”
The past weekend, the crack-down marked its 40th weekend since April.
And its track record is one reason that Wednesday’s Metro Atlanta police summit will look at street racing and violent crimes.