As the newly-elected VP of Community Relations for the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association, one of the principal functions I will serve is that of public safety liaison for the neighborhood. In ramping up to fulfill this duty when my term begins in January, I attended my first NPU-M public safety committee meeting last week (more info on NPUs can be obtained from the City of Atlanta website).

The meeting was a fairly small gathering of community representatives along with one officer from the Atlanta Police Department and one from the MARTA police. The representatives discussed initiatives to address localized matters of public safety and the police officers gave data on crime trends and recent arrests in the NPU. The APD - and particularly the outgoing chief - has caught a lot of heat for being too numbers-oriented but I personally appreciate it. Even if the numbers are flawed, if they are flawed in a consistent manner they have value. One of the more fascinating tidbits of data was that there had been 118 arrests for car break ins in the last month and, collectively, the perpetrators has been arrested a total of more than 2200 times. On the list were guys that had been arrested 60 to 70 times individually - it's like these guys are playing Grand theft Auto.

The most thought provoking item was the story of a busted fencing operation. If you've spent any time downtown you've probably been told to make sure all things are hidden from view in your car - you've perhaps even been told not to lock your car doors. This is because there is a lot of opportunistic crime in the area along the lines of car break-ins. The logic behind keeping your doors unlocked is that fixing your broken window will probably be much more of a hassle than replacing anything that gets stolen. That is, unless your gun is stolen: the officers reported an astounding 129 guns lifted from cars Downtown. We really appreciate that influx of crime-ready guns in our hood.

So once your gun, iPod, laptop, GPS or whatever is stolen, chances are the thief will immediately try to sell it. Since most reputable Pawn Shops won't buy hot merchandise, the enterprising thief that doesn't want to hawk goods on the street has to find a fence to help them offload the goods. As you might expect, you don't just waltz into these kind of spots and do business - they need to know who you are and that you're a proven member of the underground community before they will even look you in the eye. This posed a problem for the police who knew about the operation but had a hard time infiltrating it.

That all changed when a certain business owner was robbed and a homeless guy who apparently was on good terms with this proprietor happened to recognize the stolen goods at the fencing front. An ensuing sequence of events kicked off that allowed the cops to make their move and recover tens of thousands of dollars in stolen goods. In addition, the lack of a place to sell stolen goods has caused a dramatic drop-off of break-ins in the area. Perhaps this can also serve as a reminder to not treat the homeless like criminals or aliens.

I also attended a Five Points Task Force meeting where much of the same was discussed but there was one notable tidbit that I wasn't privy to before. The Atlanta Police Department has a group of officers called the H.O.P.E. team that is specifically trained to deal with matters concerning the homeless - particularly the mentally ill. I'm trying to get more information on them, from what I've come across so far they seem to act as a conduit between these ill people and the various homeless services in the city. Good stuff.