I received a report from a reader that a Facebook friend had reported that a body was found in Mason Mill Park, north of Decatur, this afternoon.  This report in the AJC confirms it, though doesn’t provide much detail.

The eyewitness report noted that “DeKalb police are everywhere” in the afternoon.  She goes on to note that “all was fine” at 11am when she went to drop off books at the library “kids playing, etc”.  But when she returned with a book accidentally left in her car around 2p, she was “greeted by CSI units, DeKalb police and a funeral home van.”

The AJC report quotes DeKalb Police saying there was “no apparent cause of death”.

The AJC reported just moments ago (the immediacy of the internet is so dramatic isn’t it?) that the DeKalb County Commission has voted to use $36 million in Federal Stimulus bonds (with subsidized interest), instead of pass them up, as was originally reported a couple weeks back.

According to an earlier AJC article the cash breakdown will be…

• $29.5 million for water and sewer upgrades (A drop in the water-system bucket for sure.  You’ll still see a huge hike in your water rates in the coming years.)
• $4 million to renovate the Recorders Court
• $1.5 million for a new building to relocate the DeKalb Police Department from Dunwoody to “the Druid Hills area”.
• $1 million to build a family protection center

The money suddenly became open to new possibilities when the GM plant redevelopment deal fell through.

UPDATE: An eyewitness recalls what they saw in a comment…

It was indeed a pedestrian accident, a horrific hit and run. I saw the whole thing from the #6 Marta bus.

Right around 8:30, a woman started briskly crossing North Decatur from Everybody’s Pizza side. Our bus in the right lane probably blocked her view, and the view of the silver Jeep speeding up to run the yellow light. They collided and her legs were mangled. The car continued on while tons of bystanders and bus riders were able to help the woman who was conscious. It happened so fast, so don’t quote me on any of these facts, but that’s how I remember it.

I never want to see anything like that again.

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It looks like we’ll have to go back to the old method of crowd-sourcing info on this one, since I don’t have an easy contact at DeKalb PD.  Can anyone add to Kathy’s report of the accident in Emory Village this morning?

Big scene in Emory Village this morning, around 8:45–I wondered if you knew what was up, because I think you know everything that happens in the area. Multiple police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance that pulled out around the time I arrived, and traffic backed up all the way down North Decatur to Haygood and Briarcliff. There was one car parked in front of what I persist in calling Jagger’s, facing the wrong way. Honestly, my fear was that this was a pedestrian- or bicyclist-related accident, since there was only one car at the scene.

h/t: @DaveKell

A probe into why DeKalb Police let County Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton leave the scene of an accident after it was discovered she had four outstanding warrants, determined yesterday that three county police officers didn’t follow departmental policy.

“The policy is they should have contacted Gwinnett,” said Shelia Edwards, a spokeswoman for the county CEO. “Essentially they should have not let her go. They should have called to Gwinnett to verify the warrant is valid.”

Under department policy, Assistant Chief F. J. Kliesrath, Capt. T. S. Dedrick and Lt. C. T. Whittington received written counseling for violating department policy, since it was their first offense, Edwards said.

As for what compelled the officers to commit this offense…

Whittington decided not to notify Gwinnett and told the patrol officer to release the commissioner. His decision was based on the facts that the warrants were old, for a nonviolent offense, Sutton was not a flight risk and she “is an elected official in DeKalb County and Lt. Whittington did not want to bring any embarrassment or discredit to her,” according to Miller.

Well, at least there’s some honesty in that statement.  More than I can say for the commissioner.

UPDATE: Now the report has been pulled off the DeKalb Officers blog…so I’m guessing something’s amiss.  Also, as it was pointed out to me in an email this morning, Freedom Parkway and Memorial Drive do not intersect.  Apparently I was blinded to this fact, by all the other conflicting data in this report.

I’m going to pull the post and leave this explanation for the time being.  If I receive more info I’ll let you know.

If you read the AJC or watch local news on your tele, you’ve probably seen the crapload of recent articles about DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis taking telecommuting DeKalb Police Chief Terrell Bolton to task.

After days of diabetes, forced leave and closed door meetings that confused the AJC to the point that they began writing articles with strange titles – like “Crucial meeting for DeKalb CEO, top cop coming to head?” (can a meeting really “come to a head’?  Don’t tensions “come to a head”, which RESULT in something like a crucial meeting?  I digress…) – this morning its reported that while Bolton is on “temporary” leave, he’s been replaced by Maj. William O’Brien.

The DeKalb Officers blog, which was created in opposition of Bolton’s appointment by fmr. supreme leader Vernon Jones, loves the choice of O’Brien, a 24-year veteran of the dept.

For all of us who have been unnerved by the recent increase of crime in Oakhurst and surrounding areas, any news that gives hope of a revived, happier and better functioning DeKalb Police Dept is good news.