View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2006 > June > 21
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Really grand opening for new PD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We are down to a couple of weeks before the big startup of the Sandy Springs Police Department. As we get closer, more and more ideas have been floated as to how we would begin at 12:01 a.m. on July 1.
Some of the ideas were interesting and some were more like the pre-game on NFL Sunday. I liked the part where the fireballs shot out of the big tubes and the officers would run through the banner on the way to their patrol cars. Then, on cue, they would all flood Roswell Road and drive down the street to the Waffle House.
Why not? I thought it would be fun to hire some gymnasts, dress them in uniforms, and have them do back flips out the office door and to their cars. We tried it, but four of them were knocked out by shoulder microphones that came loose.
Another suggestion was to choreograph it like a musical or better yet, an opera. If they left it with me in charge, it would turn out more like “Naked Gun.” That idea got canned.
Truthfully, most of the ideas tossed around about how we would make our grand entrance were tossed by folks outside the police department. We were a little busy at the time. We have done very well to date. We have cars and the equipment has been arriving. The uniforms look good and the guns work. We received 20 new officers this week and they are now in training. We’ll receive the 35 Fulton officers on the 1st and then we’re off and running — or, in my case, walking at moderate speed.
Shifts are set up so that officers will work 10-hours each day, four days a week and three days off. The shifts will overlap so there will be double-coverage at peak times with the longest double-coverage between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. There will also be extended coverage in the morning hours to handle the accidents.
By the way, please continue having the accidents. We’ve planned around it so don’t change a thing.
In addition, there will be a Special Operations Team called — well we haven’t named them yet. S.O.T. just didn’t sound good. My suggestion was Guys with Neat Equipment and Lots of Guns. They will have more of a flexible role being anything from traffic to crime suppression. I like the part about crime suppression.
Crime suppression is cool. It begins to immediately get some of the riff-raff off the streets and allows guys like me to catch up with all my lawyer buddies at the preliminary hearings. We talk. I say things like, “Hey, nice ponytail.”
