Police coverage, or a lack of it, appears to have become the main issue in the Brookhaven cityhood vote that will take place this month.
On one side, supporters of incorporating say DeKalb County has inflated how many officers serve the area. For them, a city police force would boost patrols and help prevent crime.
Opponents, though, say the county officers are helpful and responsive. Their view is backed by DeKalb officials, who challenge the calculations by cityhood advocates.
Police protection, parks and planning are the main services the new city would offer if voters approve the July 31 referendum.
Everyone agrees on one thing: DeKalb police officers who work out of the north precinct are top-notch professionals.
"They are excellent officers. It's the bureaucracy and management above them not putting enough of them on the street," said J. Max Davis, president of Brookhaven Yes. He lives in Brittany, one of the neighborhoods that pays DeKalb officers to patrol streets while they're off-duty.
But not every area wants or needs those private patrols, said Carolyn Benton of No City Brookhaven.
"I don't feel we are unsafe or unprotected by our police as is," she said. "And it's a lot to ask the rest of the 49,000 people in this area to pay for a level of service that a few people want."
Though north-central DeKalb is not considered a high-crime area, the question of how many officers are on the street in the proposed city has emerged as a key point of debate.
Cityhood proponents point to watch sheets, basically shift time cards, from two days last fall to say that DeKalb had at most five officers patrolling the area at any time. About 83 of the county's 970 sworn officers are assigned to the north precinct, which includes Brookhaven.
The proposal for a city police force calls for 53 officers, as many as nine on the job per shift. Many would probably come from the DeKalb department so that the city officers would have experience in the area and in policing, Davis said.
But county officials said a closer look at the watch sheets shows that between one and four officers were assigned to the area on special duty for those days. Those officers, assigned to traffic enforcement or investigations, supplement the officers patrolling in their cars.
"If this city forms, OK, you have seven officers on the street," said DeKalb Public Safety Director William I. Miller. "But if something catastrophic happens, you still have seven officers on the street. If it's DeKalb Police, you have dozens shooting to the area."
The special-duty officers can also work quickly to solve crimes, as they did last year in the Drew Valley area that is proposed to be part of a city of Brookhaven.
Police had a vague description of an SUV spotted near a rash of home break-ins, where the burglars took everything from electronics to guns. They sent an officer in an unmarked car out looking for the suspect vehicle.
Within three hours, the undercover officer spotted it and called for backup. Jodi Cobb, a resident of the area who is treasurer of No City Brookhaven, drove by as seven patrol cars arrested suspects with a car full of stolen loot.
"I rolled down my window and was yelling, 'You guys are the best,' " Cobb said. "They are here when we need them."
But police protection is about more than a fast response, according to one of the victims of a recent violent crime spree in the area.
Elena Benn, a Georgia State University student who lived outside the proposed city borders in unincorporated DeKalb, was robbed at gunpoint in front of a friend's Brookhaven house last month. Her attackers tried to shoot at her but their gun didn't go off, according to a police report. They fled with her purse, in her Jeep.
An officer responded within two minutes, and two more quickly showed up with a police dog, Benn said. But she said they focused on the wrong area, even after she told them the direction the gunmen had taken.
DeKalb Police arrested three of the four suspects after a carjacking the next day, but Benn's car has yet to be recovered.
"In my case, I was very lucky they responded so quickly," she said, "but I felt like they were asking too many questions and not doing enough chasing."
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