Articles

Pennington Reorganizes Police; Atlanta Department Units Changed, Some Officers To Be Decentralized

Tasgola Karla Bruner, AJC Staff
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 6, 2003

Saying that many systems and practices of the Atlanta Police Department have "fallen into a state of extreme disrepair," Police Chief Richard Pennington announced Tuesday a significant restructuring of personnel and services in the department he took over a year ago.

The changes call for detectives who work burglaries, auto thefts, residential robberies, assaults and larcenies to move from police headquarters at 675 Ponce de Leon Ave. to each of the six precints, or zones, throughout the city.

"You're going to get better service," Pennington said. "People in the zones will be able to work with detectives."

The remaining parts of the Criminal Investigation Division will be divided into three sections. Major Crimes Section -- investigating homicides, sexual assaults, commercial robberies and major fraud -- Special Enforcement Section, and Investigations Section.

The Special Enforcement Section will have a combined narcotics and vice unit, a new cybercrime task force and auto theft task force. The new Investigations Section will be created to oversee all the field detectives once the decentralization of certain detectives to the zone is complete.

Homicides will continue to be investigated by detectives at headquarters, along with a new special victims unit that will investigate sex crimes and crimes against children, Pennington said.

The intelligence unit will be reorganized into a homeland security unit to work with federal and state law enforcement agencies relating to terrorism, investigate gang and gun-related activity, and conduct high-level intelligence investigations.

A new field inspections unit will be created to establish protocols and monitor extra jobs and the reserve unit.

A new audit and compliance unit will oversee the crime reporting process. Pennington announced this unit after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last month that auditors hired by the chief had found 22,000 crime reports that had been unaccounted for.

In an interview later, Pennington said those numbers don't accurately reflect what his officers were doing, and the number of missing reports would probably be much lower.

Pennington said Tuesday that missing reports had nothing to do with the reorganization, but added: "Creating the audit and compliance unit does, because I want to make sure that if we have a problem it's not going to happen again."

Dennis Hammock, regional director of the Atlanta office of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said he has not had a chance to study the reorganization but has some initial impressions.

He said some officers will be pleased by some of the leadership changes, but he is concerned about the decentralization of the detectives. "You lose the sharing of criminal information," he said.

Some department officers say the organization is suffering from low pay, poor morale and old equipment.

"I think the people I choose to lead the organization will help morale," said Pennington, who said he is also interested in moving the department out of its current offices.

"I'm hoping at some point we can sit down and talk about moving out of this building, because it does impact morale," he said.

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