PATCH VOICES: Kirkwood is 'Grateful' in Arrest of Suspected Killer

by Earl Williamson

Neighborhood Planning Unit-O (the communities of Kirkwood, East Lake, Edgewood, and the Villages of East Lake) are grateful for the aggressive investigation by Atlanta Police Department Zone 6, the FBI, and U.S. Marshals that led to an early identification of suspects and a quick first arrest. We look forward to additional arrests and in particular to an aggressive prosecution by the DeKalb County District Attorney.

NPU-O is also grateful to Zone 6 APD and in particular its command staff Maj. Timothy Peek and Capt. Shaw for the aggressive and focused response to the disproportionate escalation in the number and intensity of Part I Crime experienced by Kirkwood in 2013. Such a response is critical when a community bears the brunt of dangerous crime and Kirkwood and its neighbors in NPU-O are grateful for APD’s effectiveness in this regard.

Sadly, and most importantly, none of this returns Xavier Arnold to the family who love and miss him and to the community who will not experience the benefit of his art, his military service, and what he would have contributed to us all. This is the true cost of crime to us all.

NPU-O finds it unconscionable that some would use the loss of this young man and the grief of his family to advance their own small and manipulative goals rather than truly join with the whole community to attain transparent and substantive solutions to the locations and sources crime that bedevils and threatens us all.

Mr. Williamson, a Kirkwood resident, is chairman of NPU-O.