ATLANTA — Nearly half of all violent crimes reported in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward over the past seven months have occurred along Boulevard, a street that has become a focal point for concerns about public safety in the vibrant yet troubled neighborhood.
"They got bullets flying all down the street and stuff like that," said Andre Johnson, who lives in the area. "I'm scared. I see everything. I hear everything."
Data from the Atlanta Police Department shows at least 34 crimes against people were reported on Boulevard in the last seven months. They include murder, kidnapping, rape and multiple assaults.
"The Old Fourth Ward... is a vibrant, walkable, thriving neighborhood," Atlanta City Councilman Amir Farokhi said. "But we have pockets of crime that tend to pop up — especially during the summer time."
That's what a new, crime-deterring neighbor hopes to change. A Wingate City Lights properties spokesperson said it welcomed a Knightscope autonomous surveillance robot to the neighborhood a few weeks ago.
"It's a fully autonomous — meaning no human intervention — robot that roams around within a given space and it looks for anomalies that it can report back to a security operation center," said Stacy Stephens, executive vice president and chief client officer at Knightscope. "It's looking for things that are out of place. So it's not necessarily, 'I'm looking for John Smith, who's doing something bad.' It's what's not right in the area for that given time of day or that level of activity or this particular part of a building?"
Stephens said Knightscope first launched its robots in 2015. The one used on Boulevard is roughly 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 420 pounds.
"They are quite sizable, and they're intended to be that way because you want them to be conspicuous," Stephens said. "Robots are not out there collecting your private information... This is looking for information that's publicly available. So if you're in a public place, no different than going to the grocery store or your bank or anywhere else that you have CCTV cameras mounted."
Councilman Farokhi said this is the first time he's seen a robot like this one in the city.
"I think it's pretty clear that it's for private property and it has the Wingate logo on it. The City of Atlanta and the police department don't use a robot like that," he said. "But, maybe it's the beginning of a new era and we'll see technology pop up in ways like this for public safety. It should lead to an honest and reflective conversation about what do we want public safety to look like and what role does technology play?"
Wingate Properties said the robot would be in trial mode for a few weeks during setup. It said the data is "used, among other things, as an additional source of information to APD," and its retention policy varies.
While that could prompt privacy concerns, some neighbors said their safety was more important.
"Privacy? You need that. We hardly get that anymore," Johnson said. "But if [the robot] sees any trouble, it automatically sends the police down... so it's more safe than it used to be."