A devastating ambush in Dallas took the lives of five officers and rocked police departments around the nation.
But metro Atlanta cops won’t lose their focus, they insist. Undeterred, they will suit up again and step back into the cross-hairs.
Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said times are frightening for the 1,940 officers on APD’s force.
“In my 35 years of policing I don’t believe we’ve ever been in a position like this,” he said Friday, adding that law enforcement officers who follow the rules pay for the “actions of a few officers.”
Officers from the suburbs feel the same weight.
“It’s just kind of the new norm,” said Detective Zachary Frommer, of the Roswell Police Department. “Though I hate to say it that way.”
This weekend, however, the new normal for metro Atlanta law enforcement will mean intensified vigilance.
Acting police chief at Georgia State University, Carlton Mullis, said starting Thursday night officers were traveling in pairs.
The Cherokee Sheriff’s Office is stepping up patrols for the weekend. According to Lt. Jay Baker, the department will add as many as 15 deputies to the roster for the next 72 hours.
They are reacting to increased tensions in an already-fractious national debate taking place face to face and on social media. Internet trolls broadcast repugnant tweets, applauding the killings, while others blamed the Black Lives Matter protesters for inciting the violence. A country already divided over the issues of racism and police violence became even more divided.
“We have all seen protesters’ chanting about killing cops, and those encouraging that type of activity are a danger to every community in America,” said a statement from Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren.
Lance LoRusso, an attorney who is a former police officer with the Cobb County Police Department, agreed. “The leaders (of Black Lives Matter) are anti-law enforcement, as they’ve demonstrated by their social media posts and public statements… Some of the rhetoric can lead people to do crazy things.”
But Frank V. Rotondo, executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, countered that the protest in Dallas was peaceful, and that mental illness and the proliferation of guns had more to do with the violence than the protest movement.
For these cops, being under the gun is nothing new. On Friday, a few hours before the killings in Dallas, a man called 911 in Valdosta to set up an ambush, and exchanged gunfire with a police officer dispatched to the scene. One of the bullets hit the officer below his protective vest, wounding him in the stomach, but he was in stable condition Friday.
Earlier in the same day, a man stopped by a Roswell police officer fired shots at the officer, but missed.
Bad guys with guns will always make the life of a cop dangerous. But in the meantime, the events in Dallas have prompted the greater community to pour out its support for law enforcement.
In Norcross, police Officer C. Matyac found an encouraging note on his car Friday morning that read, “Thank you for serving! You are appreciated!” The words were scrawled on a pink sheet of paper adorned with a wide-eyed cat. “Stay safe. Watch your six.” It was signed the “proud sister of an officer.”
Friday morning Chief Butch Ayers of the Gwinnett County Police Department sent out an email to his officers and employees reassuring them that “we have the overwhelming support of our citizens,” and he included some lines from emails he had received from Gwinnett citizens.
One of those emails read: “Know that there are many more of us out there who love you folks, pray for you and would never treat you with disrespect.”
In Dallas, crowds lined up to hug police officers, and Kyle Archer of the Rockdale County Sheriff's department was also offered both hugs, handshakes and prayers.
Norcross police Chief Bill Grogan said he received several “thank you’s” and handshakes while eating lunch Friday. Such gestures are appreciated, he said – but he also wished “we could get that every day.”
At a press conference Friday Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed stood in front of a wall of high-ranking uniformed officers interspersed with members of the faith community and the heads of the Atlanta FBI office and the Georgia State Patrol, to discuss the city’s plans for public safety during the upcoming protests and the weekend ahead.
He said Atlanta police would show “restraint” but they would not allow one tactic of protesters — the blocking of interstate highways — to be repeated. “I want to send a clear message,” said Reed, “that this behavior around our freeways is not going to be tolerated.”
Turner said his officers protecting public safety at protests will not be outfitted in tactical gear, but added that they would follow “tactical changes” that won’t be evident to the casual observer. He said he is telling officers to “stay vigilant” and to “stay professional” and to remember their training.
As they go back to work, these officers will have to hold their grief and fear in check.
“One thing thing people forget about those murders of officers,” said former cop LoRusso, “is that the rest of the department finishes their shift, and the next day they put on the same uniform that attracted those bullets. Those officers, they kiss their families goodbye and they go to work.”
Shannon Volkodav, a former Atlanta police officer, has been a deputy with the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office for nearly seven years. She said the events in Dallas were “like pulling a scab off a wound.”
“I know how painful it is to bury friends and coworkers one at a time,” she said. “I can’t imagine doing that times five.”
“The weight of this badge seems a little heavier today, but you pin it on anyway and go to work just like you do every day,” she wrote in a posting on Facebook. “You find a way to brush the horror aside because you can’t afford any distractions in this line of work. Your duty awaits you just as it always does.”
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