The Chief: Erika Shields wants to change the way Atlanta police tackle crime
Atlanta Police Department chief Erika Shields has a lot of progressive ideas, such as having APD build relationships with the city’s top 100 young offenders to help break the vicious cycle of arrests and jail. But will Atlanta's next mayor keep her around?
GA Supreme Court hears Atlanta Falcons Stadium appeal
This morning, the Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments on whether or not the city’s issuance of $200 million worth of bonds to help fund the $1.2 billion retractable-roof facility is constitutional.
What inspired Payne Lindsey to create the Up and Vanished podcast
With several more episodes to go in his scheduled series, Payne Lindsey looks forward to following new evidence—and even hopes to persuade Ryan Duke to do a jail house interview. “My audience has learned, as I have, not to jump to conclusions,” he says. “We just want to find the truth—wherever it leads.”
Teen who says Dekalb cop beat him talks
Antwan Wheeler remembers that he and two of his friends were walking along a residential street to a nightclub for teens in South Dekalb when he first spotted the police car slowing as it came over the hill. It was December 23, 2010, just after 8 p.m. A fifteen-year-old with an extensive criminal background, including two felony convictions, Wheeler had had run-ins with this particular cop before. And even though he says he wasn’t breaking the law at this moment, he was bracing himself for the usual hassle and interrogation.
Jack Barsky was a KGB spy with a double life. Today, he’s a dad living in Covington, Georgia.
Anyone who’s watched an episode of The Americans, the FX series about Russian spies living undercover during the Cold War, has gotten a taste of the life Jack Barsky lived for more than 10 years as what U.S. intelligence called an “illegal.”
Why did Georgia execute more prisoners in 2016 than any other state?
Last year, at a time when the use of death penalty had dropped to historic lows nationwide, Georgia executed nine people convicted of murder, more than any other state. Don’t expect that pace to continue.
Not surprising: Gun stores outnumber museums and libraries in much of North Georgia
Conventional wisdom—and decades of TV cops shows—may lead you to believe that the city is dangerous and undereducated while the suburbs are havens for all things intellectual. In some places those stereotypes may well hold true.
Billboards advertise a $25,000 reward for tips in Cotrona case
After East Atlanta Village resident Patrick Cotrona was [fatally shot last May][1], his sister Kate Cotrona Krumm drew attention to his case by posting a poignant hand-lettered sign on a telephone pole near the spot where her brother died. Block letters on a big sheet of cardboard paid tribute to a “brother and a kind and loving son and uncle and friend.” On Thursday afternoon, Krumm unveiled another sign—a massive billboard advertising a $25,000 reward for tips leading to the arrest of two people suspected in the death of her brother.
How Georgia’s criminal justice reform law almost left former inmate Aron Tuff behind
In June 1995, Aron Tuff was charged for his third felony conviction and put behind bars for with mandatory life without parole. Twenty one years later, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's criminal justice reform almost forgot Tuff—but the Southern Center for Human Rights didn't.
WWTPT? (What Would Tyler Perry Trademark?)
As further evidence that he always gets what he wants (well, everything except an Oscar), Atlanta film mogul and Caribbean island owner Tyler Perry has won a trademark battle over the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” This despite the fact that the other party, Kimberly Kearney, reportedly filed for the trademark months before Perry ever did. No, Tyler Perry did not coin this phrase. (Nor did Kearney.) But evidently, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, that doesn’t matter.It occurred to us that this could be the beginning of an avalanche of applications with the Trademark Office by Perry and his sycophants. Heck, if he can have “What Would Jesus Do?”, it’s only a matter of time before he attaches his name to other phrases. And so, we can expect the following soon:
