Critics: Atlanta cops falling short of ‘Atlanta Eagle’ mandated reforms

205 were not sustained

7 were sustained resulting in

6 suspensions

11 complaints remain under investigation

Source: Atlanta Police Department

A review of complaints lodged against Atlanta police since 2010 reveals the department violated a court order requiring a full accounting of alleged officer misconduct, an attorney who filed a lawsuit against APD said.

Missing are complaints filed internally, said Dan Grossman, lawyer for the owners of The Atlanta Eagle gay bar, where a botched raid in September 2009 by APD’s vice squad led to a lawsuit against the city and 35 officers.

A settlement was subsequently reached in which the city agreed to implement a number of reforms, including providing the court with every complaint of police misconduct from December 2010.

Achieving those reforms has proven to be a challenge. Last month, the city was given 90 days to implement training outlined in the agreement after Grossman charged APD is not training officers on the U.S. Constitution’s protections from illegal searches and seizures. So far, none of the reforms has been put into practice, Grossman said.

The absence of internally generated complaints — filed by supervisors or fellow officers — is a potentially crucial omission, he said, pointing to one case of which he had prior knowledge.

It involves a complaint lodged in September 2014 by Decatur attorney Sarah Walton, who alleged she witnessed a friend, Alonzo Davis, being Tasered without cause.

“Yet they classified this as an ‘internal’ rather than a ‘citizen’ complaint, even though their own report listed the complainant as two civilians, Ms. Walton and Alonzo Davis,” Grossman said.

Whether that was an aberration remains unclear. Since APD did not include internal complaints in the court-ordered index, it’s impossible to know.

Atlanta police declined comment, citing ongoing legal action.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently obtained a copy of the index, which catalogued a total of 1190 complaints for everything from allegations of physical abuse to falling asleep while on duty. Of those complaints, 302 were for maltreatment or unnecessary force.

Roughly two-thirds of the complaints were classified under the violation “Appropriate Action Required,” which, according to APD’s policy manual, encompasses being “considerate of the rights, feelings and interests of all persons, (providing) the necessary and appropriate service” and “performing official acts in a lawful, restrained, dignified, impartial and reasonable manner.”

Or to put it another way, any violation that does not fall under a specific standard operating procedure, such as unnecessary force,”Does that include, say, illegal search and seizure, or something else the public should be aware of? We don’t know,” Grossman said.

Cris Beamud, former head of Atlanta’s Citizen Review Board, said APD’s use of vague classifications is not uncommon among law enforcement agencies.

“Some departments are better at it than others,” said Beamud, now director of Miami’s Citizen Investigative Panel. “The reason we keep data is to show trends, but without going through these cases individually there’s no way to know if there’s a problem or not.”

The data revealed other problems with the department’s handling of excessive force complaints. Nearly 10 percent of the cases were not adjudicated within the court-mandated time frame of 180 days.

Meanwhile, Clayton Adams, an attorney representing a Creative Loafing freelancer arrested last November while taking a photo of protesters in downtown Atlanta, said it took him four attempts to successfully file a complaint on his client’s behalf. During a court hearing in April, Atlanta police said they never received the initial complaint, filed online in February. Adams provided screenshots of the submissions.

“The website is set up to not generate a paper trail, which is what we wanted,” Adams said. He has since re-submitted the complaints via email and certified mail.

“This is a system that functions to deny accountability,” he said.