Tag: Atlanta Police Department

“We are giving you one chance to hear our message before we are forced to take action against you,” the letter said, vowing that he wouldn’t be arrested that night. On June 30, 2015, Vincent Stephenson sank into the front pew of the crowded sanctuary and was given a choice: keep dealing and face the full extent of the law, or accept help and leave that world behind.

Beat cop, homicide detective, special victims unit officer, police lieutenant, crisis negotiator—Trudy Nan Boyce did it all in her 27-year career with the Atlanta Police Department. And during her retirement, she’s turning her experiences into crime thriller fodder.

In other words, Atlanta, don’t look for police body cameras any time soon.

Is graffiti artistic expression? Vandalism? Criminal turf-staking? The lines between what’s acceptable and not have blurred.

Atlanta Police Lieutenant LeAnne Browning recalls her days as a patrol officer. “Our lieutenants would say, ‘Okay, I want you to look at the beat books so you can know what’s out there on your beat.’ Well, the beat books are like this thick with reports,” she says, holding her hands a couple of feet apart. “And you’d sit there and thumb through it all, and there was no time because they were then kicking you out of the precinct to handle calls.” She pauses before pointing to her computer screen. “That’s the old way of doing things. This­—it’s right here.”

A family dispute is flaring in a cramped kitchen in southeast Atlanta when Ashley Gibson arrives. Gibson is five foot three, with pearl earrings and pink-painted fingernails, her hair swept into a high bun that recalls her cheerleading years. Despite her slight stature, Gibson doesn’t flinch.

It was more than intuition that drew a Norcross police officer to an extended-stay hotel. A computer program in her police cruiser had advised her to scope out that very hotel, at that very hour. When she arrived, she spotted a suspicious-looking man.

For decades we’ve heard talk of the need to “do something” about Boulevard, the blighted thoroughfare that runs through the Old Fourth Ward and the King historic district.