Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said her department “could have done better” in addressing a recent string of robberies over the past several weeks at Georgia Tech.
“Quite frankly, it should’ve never have reached this point,” said Shields on Thursday afternoon. “We will reign this in; we are going to make arrests; and we are going to change the narrative in this area.”
For the fourth time in three weeks, a Tech student was robbed at gunpoint early Thursday morning. A male student told police he was walking home on 15th Street when a man pulled a gun and stole his wallet and book bag, which contained textbooks, a laptop and his cell phone.
Shields said beginning Thursday night, Atlanta police will be taking several proactive steps to address the crime, including partnering with Georgia Tech and the Georgia State Patrol, using mobile cameras and performing lighting assessments.
“Starting Thursday night, the department will have the Georgia Tech issue in its radar and you will see a variety of initiatives implemented to offset what’s occurring there,” Shields said. “Robberies in the Tech area are cyclical; we go through this every three or four years and the department failed to respond quickly and severely enough when we had our first couple in that area.
“We could’ve done better.”
But Shields also said the judicial system needs to perform better in terms of prosecution.
“The courts simply have to start accepting responsibility for this pattern of providing bond adjudicating cases and glossing over criminal histories with the speed that they do,” she said. “I’ve made it clear to my command staff that I expect the department to step up its game, but there has to be somewhere between compassion and throw away the key.”
Shields said the department is committed to make Tech safe again, and that ”things like this shouldn’t be happening at 6:30 and 7:30 at night. I would encourage students to go about their lives and be aware of their surroundings, but I wouldn’t recommend anybody walking around at 3 in the morning.”
