Days after they were criticized for using police officers to chauffeur them around town, Fulton County commissioners are considering a proposal that could make it easier to get police rides.
The county’s current policy prohibits commissioners from using police for transportation unless there’s a threat to their safety documented by a police report.
Now commissioners will consider doing away with the requirement to file a police report. Commissioner Robb Pitts asked the issue to be added to Wednesday’s meeting agenda, but commissioners tabled the proposal without comment. It will come up again May 21.
Last week, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported commissioners received 79 rides in recent years from on-duty police officers to concerts, the airport and a host of public events. But they didn’t file any police reports to justify the use of police drivers. And the newspaper found evidence that the rides were more about convenient transportation than protecting commissioners.
Jim Honkisz, president of the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation, called the practice of using police drivers “a misuse of public assets,” unless there’s a real threat.
“It doesn’t seem to me to be a big deal requiring a police report,” Honkisz said Wednesday.
Commissioner Bill Edwards said the change in policy would give Police Chief Cassandra Jones the flexibility she needs to handle threats against commissioners. He said a formal police report could cause trouble for someone who just lost their temper at a commission meeting.
Edwards cited an incident at Wednesday’s meeting in which a woman shouted at him and he says threatened his family.
“You don’t know what people will do,” Edwards said. “She’s angry about nothing. I don’t want to hurt her.”
As the AJC prepared to publish its investigation last week, Edwards filed a police report against a man he said recently threatened to attack him at a senior center. He said the man also began calling his office, unnerving his employees.
Police later arrested the man on a misdemeanor simple assault charge for threatening Edwards.
“You can’t take nothing lightly,” Edwards said.
Commissioners’ use of police drivers has long been controversial. Ten years ago, a public outcry about the practice led commissioners to approve the current policy. It permits police officers to be used for “executive protection” of commissioners. That protection includes driving them to public events.
But the practice is allowed only when there is a clear threat to commissioners’ safety, documented by a police report.
The AJC found commissioners haven’t followed that policy over the last five years.
Many of the requests for protection the newspaper reviewed suggest convenience – not safety – is a primary motive when commissioners seek police drivers. One request to transport commissioners to a night meeting cited the weather and the age of some of the commissioners.
Pitts’ proposal would allow commissioners to report threats orally or in writing. As in the past, the police department would be required to evaluate threats and determine if executive protection is warranted.
It requires the chief to maintain “appropriate documentation” of the use of executive protection.
Pitts, who said he has not used police drivers, said his intent is “not to make the policy easier, but to tighten up the rules and regulations” around the practice.
“I want to make sure that there is proper documentation that indicates that the use is warranted and that the police chief has an official protocol codified in policy,” Pitts said. “I believe that protocol should specifically state the criteria or standard she uses in her official capacity to identify a clear and present danger or risk to justify offering executive protection.”
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