Police Chief Turner: Southeast Atlanta Remains a Priority

The good news: crime is down about 18 percent across the city.

The bad news: Southeast Atlanta neighborhoods that have suffered a string of violent crimes, including carjackings in Glenwood Park, Ormewood Park and East Lake and four murders in East Atlanta alone, it doesn't feel that way.

Atlanta Police George N. Turner acknowledged those concerns and told East Atlanta Patch Friday that Southeast Atlanta remains a department priority.

He stressed APD is undertaking a number of initiatives, but a mini-precinct in East Atlanta, as some residents had hoped, won't be one of them.

"We are an urban city, and with urban cities come challenges," Turner told Patch. "But we will always step up and do the right thing as it relates to trying to abate issues that come up."

He also had an update on APD's Zone 3 precinct headquarters planned relocation out of Grant Park.

Turner said the city has purchased a tract on Metropolitan Parkway and Avery Road in Southwest Atlanta'a Pekerson neighborhood. (Pekerson abuts the city of East Point.)

When APD realigned its six precincts, Grant Park which had been in Zone 3, was moved into Zone 6.

But Zone 3, which covers Summerhill, Peoplestown, and Chosewood Park, among other neighborhoods, is not physically operating in its zone.

Zone 6, which is headquartered on Hosea L. Williams Drive in Kirkwood, is a leased facility and the chief said the department reviews its options every year when the lease comes up.

Whether it will stay put or move to a more central location within Zone 6, which stretches from East Lake to Grant Park and Virginia-Highland to Custer/McDonough/Guice, Turner wouldn't say definitively.

But any move to a new location would be based on staffing needs and resource deployment, he said.

Residents in the affected neighborhoods had previously suggested moving Zone 6 to the current Zone 3 building, located near Zoo Atlanta at Atlanta and Cherokee avenues, in the southwestern corner of Grant Park.

Privately, however, Zone 6 officers weren't keen on that idea, especially since Zone 3 officers grumbled the city-owned facility has several maintenance problems.