Thursday, May 7, 2009
News Police furloughs may have helped Midtown shooters escape
Posted by Andisheh Nouraee on Thu, May 7, 2009 at 1:03 AM
"I requested the air unit for assistance but I was advised they were furloughed tonight."
Those chilling words are from the police incident report written by APD Officer Nicholas F. Parete after Monday's robbery and shooting of Georgia Tech student Patrick Whaley outside his apartment near campus. A Georgia Tech police officer spotted the suspects, but lost track of them when they ditched their stolen car and ran behind houses near the campus.
"Let’s not lose sight of the fact that ultimately it is the level of crime that is important, not the number of police officers."
And those chilling words are from a February 12, 2009 AJC opinion column written by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
Can we go ahead and have the Mayoral election now? We need this moron out of the city.
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the Mayor's plan to end furloughs screws the police even more. they will return to work but have to pay more for health insurance, essentially meaning that they will be paid at furlough levels but working full time. it is noteworthy that Atlanta Police do not get paid much to begin with.
Looks like the police offer is playing politics with his incident report. I many how many other officers list the furloughs as an excuse for not catching the bad guys. Andy, you really need to get your panties out of wag and write something nice for a change.
Hey S. Dekalb Voter: Mentioning that he could not get the air unit to respond to a crime scene tells me that there was a possibility of catching the suspects! You must be bedding down with someone from the mayor's family, because you seem to be the only one that supports her. Every comment you make is pro-Franklin and anti-Police. I hope you need a cop some day when you travel through the city, and you have to wait two hours for a response because of the furloughs! Then maybe you'll understand who is to blame here.
The inept council is to blame for failing to raise taxes $35 last year to ensure there were no furloughs. And you're right. I can't stand the police.
It seems to me that the "political" course would have been not to mention the (perception of) lack of air support due to the furloughs. As I see it Officer Parete was putting our safety over his own self-interest by including this particular fact in his report. And that's all it is - a fact. Parete didn't editorialize. He simply gave a full description of the incident. In other words, he did his job, politics be damned.
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