Police insist they have a plan to thwart attacks near Tech

It is becoming almost a daily occurrence. Two days after the Atlanta Police Department promised aggressive policing in the area where several Georgia Tech students have been robbed at gunpoint and a day after announcing the arrests of three suspects, the attacks are continuing.

Early Wednesday morning, Eric Mills was robbed and attacked at gunpoint on Hunnicutt Street on his way to his Centennial Place apartment complex.

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John Spink/jspink@ajc.com

A neighborhood watch sign posted at the corner of Hunnicutt and Lovejoy Street at Centennial Place Apartments looms over the scene of another street robbery Wednesday, June, 24, 2009. A student was robbed at gunpoint in the same apartment complex near Georgia Tech where a similar robbery occurred about 24 hours earlier.

Gunmen hold up another student near Tech

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“These guys were waiting for me. They were waiting for someone,” Mills said.

That robbery happened about a block from where a Georgia Tech student was robbed while walking on Luckie Street early Tuesday morning. Two people were robbed Sunday.

All week, the Atlanta Police Department has contended that it has a plan for the area. “Specifically, besides the patrols, we will not reveal our actual plan of action to the public,” police spokesman James Polite Jr. said in an e-mail in response to a series of questions from the AJC. “However, know that all available resources are being utilized in these efforts.”

In an e-mail to the Tech community, university President G. P. “Bud” Peterson wrote that he’s pleased with the level of cooperation between the school’s Police Department and the city’s. The two groups met Tuesday to review Tech’s efforts and discuss additional steps.

Peterson said the joint efforts would include increased safety checks and roadblocks, as well as more foot patrols. The city will also begin tighter enforcement and control at nearby clubs and bars, Peterson said, and is using automatic tag readers to quickly retrieve license tag information when looking for suspects and vehicles.

City Councilman Kwanza Hall, whose district includes the area, confirmed that there is a plan in place.

“They just don’t want to divulge everything they are doing,” said Hall, adding that he is familiar with the plan’s particulars. “It has to happen quickly.”

How quick is the question. The four robberies this week have placed students, as well as residents in the area, on edge.

“I’m very, very angry,” Mills said Wednesday. “If [a previous attack] happened just yesterday, why aren’t the police roaming the neighborhood and seeing people hanging around?”

Mills is a student at the University of Phoenix, a nationwide college with six campuses in metro Atlanta. Most of the other robberies — at least 11 since February — have been committed against Tech students who live in the area just off campus.

The worst of the attacks happened May 4, when two students — including one from Tech — were shot in different incidents.

Home Park, where most of the crimes have happened, can be considered a neighborhood in transition. In the area bordered by I-75, 10th Street, 16th Street and Northside Drive, it is estimated that as many as 75 percent of the residents are renters and many of them are college students.

“APD is doing everything they can. They don’t have enough resources,” said Kathy Boehmer, chairman of the public safety committee for the Home Park Community Improvement Association. “But at the same time, why are these students still walking around by themselves at night? They are taking chances going out in these areas that are being targeted by the bad guys.”

Many of the students targeted were walking alone either late at night or early in the morning. Typically, the robbers have jumped out of SUVs brandishing guns and stealing wallets, money and electronics, particularly iPods and iPhones. Aside from the two shootings, there have also been at least two carjackings.

Boehmer said when she moved to the neighborhood 12 years ago, it was actually more in transition and less stable. But safer. Now, she said she doesn’t even walk her dog after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m. out of fear.

The area is facing a shortage in police manpower. Hall said that because of city-ordered furloughs in the Police Department, Zone 5 has lost 20 officers, as well as auxiliary personnel like members of the Red Dog unit.

“It has created a negative impact on the quality of life,” Hall said. “There are other areas of city government where we can trim, but we need to double our numbers of police officers.”

So until something changes, residents and students will have to depend on the police and work to protect themselves.

Boehmer said that next Wednesday her neighborhood would take steps to start its own Neighborhood Watch Program.

“People are getting scared,” she said.