Decatur’s police department completed its three-year strategic plan with Chief Mike Booker giving a summation before city commissioners earlier this week. This plan is independent from the recently-completed community action plan which, in part, calls for “racially just community policing.”

Booker told commissioners the police plan includes a series of “anti-racial profiling policies,” and goes in depth outlining the relationships between the community and police.

“Twenty percent of what we do, we deal with crime,” Booker said. “But 80 percent is community relations. When we hire an officer we’re looking for someone who is empathetic to people’s needs.”

Booker, Decatur chief since 2006, said he’s been working on the plan for the past year, and with the help of consultants held 24 separate focus groups from March through September.

About the Author

Featured

The renovation of Jekyll Island's Great Dunes golf course includes nine holes designed by Walter Travis in the 1920s for the members of the Jekyll Island Club. Several holes that were part of the original layout where located along the beach and were bulldozed in the 1950s.(Photo by Austin Kaseman)

Credit: Photo by Austin Kaseman