Cop apologizes for saying he’d like to hit mayor

The leader of Atlanta’s police union apologized Thursday for telling City Council members that he sometimes wants to beat Mayor Shirley Franklin “in the head with a baseball bat” when he thinks about problems disabled officers have getting workers’ compensation claims approved.

“I certainly apologize to the mayor for the comment I made; it was directed at the anger myself and fellow officers are struggling with when we see her administration showing a total lack of responsiveness to these concerns,” Atlanta police Sgt. Scott Kreher said.

Kreher said the problems began about five years ago when the city turned the management of those claims over to a third party.

Kreher said five “catastrophically injured” officers, including Pat Cocciolone, who was shot in the head in a 1997 ambush that left another officer dead, and J.J. Biello, who was paralyzed when he was shot during a restaurant robbery in 1987, have routinely had claims for medication delayed by that company, NovaPro Risk Solutions.

Those delays can sometimes stretch for months, and Kreher said frustration over the delays “boiled over because there seems to be no official from City Hall that’s willing to investigate or correct these deplorable actions against our heroes.”

Kreher said the city, through NovaPro, has systematically refused to authorize payment for prescription refills for the disabled officers, forcing the officer to hire an attorney and file an appeal for a hearing with an administrative judge.

“By court rules, each side gets one chance to reschedule the hearing, so the first time it comes up, the city automatically asks for an extension, and gets it without having to explain to the court, and this delays it even more,” Kreher said.

Then, he said, “every single time, the day of, or the day before the hearing is to proceed in front of a judge, the city approves or settles the claim.”

Kreher said repeated requests to meet with Franklin about the issue have been ignored, and that frustration pushed him to say during Wednesday’s City Council budget hearing that he felt like clubbing her with a baseball bat.

The mayor was out of town Wednesday, and asked for comment, her office released a statement calling Kreher’s remarks deplorable.

“It is irresponsible for a member of the Atlanta Police Department to make such a reprehensible comment about the mayor,” Franklin’s chief of staff, Greg Pridgeon, said in the statement. “The mayor has tremendous respect for the men and women of the Police Department … we can respectfully agree to disagree but his comments today were inappropriate, inflammatory and disrespectful.”

Staff writer Eric Stirgus contributed to this article.