Decatur Police Have Increased Patrols on Square Over the Past Year
Decatur Metro | April 17, 2011Early on Friday, MrFixIt wrote this comment in FFAF…
I very much appreciate our Decatur police. However, for the next few months, I’d like to see them spending more time on the square dealing with the criminals who are selling drugs to our high school and middle school kids and less time handing out traffic tickets. Also, isn’t the square within 1000 feet of a school?
I followed up with Decatur’s Deputy Police Chief Keith Lee, who responded…
We have recently expanded our downtown business district patrol from 1 officer to 3. The officers work overlapping schedules to allow us to cover the area throughout the day and evening. We have made several arrests for violations of drug laws in the area over the past year. It is standard operating procedure to charge anyone who is arrested within 1000 feet of a school for drug violations with the additional charge.
Crimereports.com shows three drug-related arrests around Decatur Square since last October.
Thanks! I’m feeling better about the risk to our middle and high schoolers!
Wouldn’t undercover officers looking to buy drugs make more sense
I was thinking that just a constant police presence on the Square would make drug dealers uncomfortable enough to move to another MARTA stop. Actually, I was going to suggest Serial Mom/Dad citizen patrols, if the problem continued. I can’t imagine alert, determined, fierce CSD parents, with or without strollers, with or without Twitter access, tolerating drug dealers interfering with our safe routes, walk and roll, farm to school, lifestyle!
Karass you are a JOY!! I was born in Decatur, left in 1965 when I graduated from Decatur High, returned 42 years later. What a change. But you capture the sprit of the old Decatur. Thank you for loving my hometown. There were no drug dealers on the square, which you could drive “AROUND”, when I was in high school. Decatur was a great place to grow up in as it is for your children. Let’s make it continue to be the best!! I love all the young families with all the children. All you “new folks” thank you for choosing Decatur as the location to raise your family.
Now is it a bike ride, a walk, or a beer?
I love Decatur!
Rick
Undercover officers in Decatur would have to come from other jurisdictions, since, with relatively few officers, Decatur undercover officers wouldn’t be undercover very long before they were recognized.
Good Point!
I don’t know, Rob, but I’m inclined to think that a uniformed and highly visible police presence might provide the more effective deterrent. They’d interact with the citizenry and the neighborhood merchants and help to create an atmosphere that doesn’t feel hospitable to those with bad intentions, or even to the merely curious. (Part of me is thinking of Don Knotts saying “Nip it! Nip it in the bud!” Funny connotation now.)
Don’t forget that we have a school for refugee girls over at Decatur Pres. There’s probably a lot of Decatur Square that it within 1000 feet of the church.
Thanks very much Decatur Police.. it is still an ongoing problem though from what kids say – someone must be slipping through the cracks somehow.
sounds to me like someone doesn’t like getting tickets. personally, i’d like to see the police out in force slowing traffic down. especially on clairemont and college ave.
Really? I find this a bit difficult to understand. Drug dealers not only bring drugs, but attract people who are occasionally willing to do absolutely anything to buy drugs, and I would assume that they carry weapons along with their drugs, all in stones throw from hoards of children. This is all in the walking distance of a public library, several schools for itty bitty children, and big ones too.
What should be the priority? Spending newly available resources eliminating this dangerous situation for children and others alike on the square, or handing out speeding tickets?
I suppose it has to do with what drugs are being sold. If it’s weed and your goal is “keeping kids safe”, I’d lean towards Tom in terms of prioritization because the odds of a child being killed by a speeding car are far greater than the odds of them dying from weed.
If it’s meth or some equally dangerous and addictive drugs (with perhaps the carrying of concealed weapons), the dealing would be the clear, short-term priority.
Obviously, not having to choose between the two would be the best but, in a world of limited resources and competing priorities, we don’t always have that luxury.
I have to be honest that I really don’t know what kind of drugs they were, maybe pot. Any neighborhood stoners out there reading this blog, who can confirm or deny this? Chime in, we want to know! Pot doesn’t seem like neighborhood threat #1 so I just assumed it was something worse. I’m honestly shocked that anyone would be brave/stupid enough to deal drugs with so much law enforcement in the immediate vicinity.
If the choice had to be either/or between enforcement of hard drugs or speeding, drugs any day easily. But really, people shouldn’t feel comfortable dealing pot on the square either. I’m not anti-pot by any means, but it shouldn’t be easily accessible to teenagers. They have plenty of time to smoke up when they go off to college anyhow.
This would be a great time to remind everyone that America is one of the world’s top IMPORTERS of hemp products. If farmers everywhere could grow it here, it could create tons of jobs for farmers and others, but we can’t because everyone is terrified of the scary evil weed connection (2 different growing processes)
Tom, I doubt anyone “likes getting traffic tickets.” …If we are going to go that route, how about this… “Sounds like someone doesn’t like getting” arrested for drug distribution.
That’s not the point. The point was to draw attention to a very real, and in my mind, more dangerous problem that we have in downtown Decatur right now, a problem that is common knowledge to a large number of Renfroe and DHS kids. Once that’s under control, by all means return to traffic violations.
I’m not a hysterical parent and have seen my share of recreational drug use “back in the day.” Given that, I consider marijuana dealing to be just as dangerous as dealing meth, cocaine, LSD etc. Where do you think most meth addicts and coke dealers get their start with drugs?
I definitely don’t want my kids hit by a speeding car on their way to the Square. I also don’t want them, their friends or their classmates buying drugs once they get there safely. I think both problems can be easily handled by our very effective Decatur PD.
If you check DeKalb County OJS, you will see that there have been busts on the square for more than just marijuana.
I just wanted to get it out there b/c I’m tired of hearing about it and want it stopped. As far as I’m concerned, mission accomplished (hopefully).
There are lots of obvious reasons for urging the police to crack down on drug selling on our Square. But please do not equate the growing/manufacturing, distributing, selling, or use of marijuana with that of methamphetamine. They are very, very different drugs, and violations of the law should reflect those differences. I also don’t buy into the “gateway” argument. What percentage of people who ever smoked marijuana end up being meth addicts? Is it probable that most meth addicts started with cigarettes or alcohol?
You are right. I didn’t mean to do that. They are very different, but I’d rather limit access to all of it (cigarettes and alcohol too!) as far as my kids are concerned.
I just got a little carried away b/c someone thought I was just ticked off about a speeding ticket. I’m not. I just would just rather see more cops on the Square for a little while, and they have to come from somewhere.
I think marijuana should be legal and available for purchase by any adult. But people who stand on a street corner and sell an illegal substance (weed, meth, heroin, moonshine, beer stolen from the back of a truck . . .) to school children are not nice people, and we don’t need them around here. I’d put this higher on the DPD’s priority list than writing speeding tickets.
Just got home from a the square: no tell-tale wafting to report.
Asked one offspring about students getting drugs on the Square and got blank then intrigued look. Sometimes there’s a fine line between open dialogue with your children and revealing more than they need to know!
Being totally naive and out of it when it comes to this topic: Is there anyone who can explain to me the real scoop on the Square? Is it common knowledge that students have easy access to buying drugs on the Square? What do school counselors and the police say? Do other parents consider the Square a source of corruption? Do they allow their kids to hang out there in the evening? After school? Is crossing it as a shortcut ok? I know that the biggest source of alcohol for teen binge drinking is the homes of friends whose parents are not home. Not so sure about illicit drugs…
Well, I guess between patrolling for drug dealers (important, I agree) and speeding vehicles (also important, I agree), I’ll just have to be patient about my wish for an all-out jihad on jaywalkers.
Those jaywalkers need to be careful so they don’t get hit by the bicyclists who believe stop signs and red lights are only for cars.
Ditto for folks who think crosswalks only apply to daytime. Had wonderful evening tonight, sans enfants, walking around to, from, and around downtown Decatur. But twice I encountered long lines of cars racing through downtown Decatur after dark, completely oblivious to the crosswalks, never mind me standing in them. Made me think that maybe drugs on the Square are not the highest priority….
Visited Pita Pit for the first time and got a half-salad, half-babaganoush pita to-go and it was totally delicious. Perfect place when you want something tasty to go and need a break from Chick Fil A and McDonalds.
Karass, traffic was bizarre last night, particularly on the west side near the post office. Last minute tax filers, presumably. Lots of crazy U-turns, cars backed up both ways on Ponce. Had to take the long way home to avoid it.
Duh. That explains it.
I guess since skateboarding on the Square was outlawed the kids have to find something to do …..
Skateboarding is the gateway crime to speeding on Clairemont and College Ave.
Standby. I’ll talk to some students tomorrow and get the scoop!
That has bad idea written all over it.
“Hey kids. Anyone know where to score some weed or meth?”
Tomorrow’s headline:
TEACHER SUSPENDED FOR ASKING KIDS WHERE TO BUY DRUGS! STORY AT 11!
There’s always the citizen approach, if you’re on the square and see some nefarious drug dealing happening, do you
a) call DPD
b) call DPD, then video said actions with phone
c) ask said person to leave the square, and if they trip, and you trip as well and don’t let them up until DPD arrives
d) baton to the back of the legs, hogtie said dealer and wait for DPD
I’m NOT advising any solutions other than calling DPD,
just wondering what the mass populace would do
It’s 4/20 and I would like to volunteer to be an undercover drug buyer. I understand it is an unpaid position. Not a problem.