After a violent weekend left one person dead and sent 11 others to hospitals with gunshot wounds, some prominent leaders and departments in Atlanta are voicing their concerns about how the city’s residents settle conflicts.
Atlanta police said the seven shootings — which occurred in the span of about 12 hours — are not believed to be related. However, some officials said the cause of many of the incidents is the same: an inability to solve an interpersonal argument.
“The number of people who lack conflict management skills, and who opt to take a life, risk going to prison and abandoning their family and their freedom, too often over trivial things, is shocking,” Atlanta police said in a statement. “The Atlanta Police Department has always been committed to reducing crime and keeping our streets safe, but police cannot be arbitrators for every argument.”
The weekend violence began when a man wielding a knife was shot by an off-duty Georgia State Patrol trooper about 5:30 p.m. Saturday at a gas station, and the final incident occurred Sunday morning when three residents were injured when shots were fired at a home.
The man who was killed was shot Saturday evening during what authorities believe was an argument over a car.
And the violence continued into the work week. On Monday evening, a 13-year-old and 14-year-old were both shot outside of a Waffle House on Memorial Drive when a man spotted them trying to break into his car, according to police. Then, on Tuesday, a man was taken to a hospital in critical condition after he was shot in the leg during an argument on Harwell Road.
The rash of violence comes as local officials are already working to address security concerns surrounding the NBA All-Star Game, which will be played Sunday at State Farm Arena.
“These senseless acts undermine the feeling of safety our officers work so hard to provide our communities,” APD said in a statement. “The Atlanta Police Department will continue working to reduce violent crime, but some of these incidents require individuals to make better choices.”
The shootings follow closely on the heels of an intense increase in deadly crime last year. Atlanta police investigated 157 homicides in 2020, up from 99 in 2019 and the most in more than two decades.
The surge led to an outcry from rattled residents and business owners. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, interim police Chief Rodney Bryant and newly elected Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made assurances that dealing with violent crime is in the forefront of their efforts in the new year.
“A significant amount of the violent crime is related to conflict amongst acquaintances and the backlog in our court system adds delays to adjudicating offenders,” Bottoms told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an emailed statement. “While we work toward addressing the systemic root causes of this behavior, APD will continue its work in finding and holding those responsible who are wreaking havoc in our communities.”
The violence also deepened a rift between the city’s mayor and its city council. In January, council President Felicia Moore announced plans to run against Bottoms in the Nov. 2 mayoral election, citing crime concerns as her primary motivation in pursuing the office.
“We’ve seen a lot of this violence increase since mid-March,” Moore told the AJC. “And it seems a lot of it has to do with people’s inability to settle the conflict through anything but violence.”
Moore said a step toward curtailing the violence is augmenting the presence of uniformed police officers.
“We do need to make sure that we have more presence of our officers on the street that may help to mitigate people’s ability to just pull out guns and start shooting,” she said.
The Atlanta Police Department is operating at 81% capacity, according to a vacancy report obtained by the AJC. The department has 1,664 sworn officers, but 382 positions are vacant, the report showed.
Moore called the situation an “all hands on deck moment.”
“I agree that more of a police presence isn’t a solution, but it is one more tool we can put in the toolbox to solve the problem,” Moore said. “There’s no silver bullet to this issue.”
Atlanta police officials have said that despite dwindling morale, they have enough officers to keep the city safe. However, the police contend it is not possible without citizens playing an active role in the process.
“We need people to understand how important it is to settle arguments by walking away or seeking outside help,” the police department said. “No argument is worth destroying lives. Be responsible and let it go.”
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