On Monday, a video was released of the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood in Atlanta, where residents contribute fully one-fifth of the city’s budget, reportedly showing police not pursuing a drive-by shooter who terrorized residents by opening fire at them, sending them scattering with one getting hit by the gunfire.
The video shows a line of people on a sidewalk preparing to get into a dark van. A white colored car drives by and gun shots can be heard. At least one of the shots appears to hit a passerby, while people on the street scatter. Reflected on the windshield of the van are blue flashing lights, presumably from a police vehicle.
The Associated Press reported in January that after Atlanta saw “one of its most violent years in decades,” police have reinstated a policy allowing officers to chase suspects, but with certain restrictions. “The new protocols allow officers to pursue only specific suspects, those who have committed certain felonies ranging from murder to involuntary manslaughter and who present an imminent threat of death or serious injury,” AP notes. “A supervisor must approve a chase, and no more than three police cruisers can join.”
Two bills have been proposed in the Georgia State Legislature that would involve Buckhead seceding from the city, the Daily Mail notes. However, city officials have opposed the idea, “arguing it would siphon away much of the city’s tax base.”
Anne Worrell, whose husband was shot while jogging in Buckhead earlier this month, told Carlson, “Over the last 12 to 18 months it has just gotten worse and worse, and as you talk to other people that we know in the area, we just felt it creeping closer and closer into our neighborhood. So it has been felt by everybody here.”
“Adjusting for population, in Atlanta, you’re more likely to be a victim of murder, shootings, and aggravated assault than in Chicago,” 11 Alive reported.
Bill White, the CEO and chairman of the Buckhead City Committee, said on Tucker Carlson Tonight:
We are living in a war zone. That’s how we describe living in Buckhead, and what has happened in the last several years is that an incredibly dangerous spike in crime and a complete vacuum of leadership. The police in Atlanta are great police men and women, we love them. They just want to do their job, and they’re not being allowed to that.
So Buckhead and the beautiful families, a very diverse community, we, in fact, are the most diverse community in Atlanta, we have decided to file for divorce, and he divorce is final. And what we are saying to the city of Atlanta is we are going to form our own city. We have two bills in the state legislature; we have raised the requisite amount of money we need right now to move this forward; they’ll be a ballot initiative on the ballot next November, and we are going to take our city back for the great families of the city of Buckhead once and for all.
“Some of the people ask us what are we going to do differently? How is a Buckhead city police department going to do anything differently?” White continued.
White then mentioned the video, commenting, “This video is horrifying. It shows a white car driving past a Mercedes-Benz truck. They’re shooting out of the car at these helpless passers-by … One of the bullets comes right through the truck and hits one of the people walking, and you can see as the car drives by there’s two blue lights shimmering off of that reflection on the truck. You know what those are? Those are two Atlanta police officers in marked cars with their lights on.”
White concluded, “What’s going to stop the crime is the establishment of the Buckhead City Police Department. We plan on having 300 police officers for a prolonged period of time. ‘There are only 82 cops on the beat in Buckhead right now, the square footage of San Francisco that has 2,000 cops. … So one of the things we’re positive of is we’re going to put the smack down on crime once and for all, and we’re going to make Buckhead a great place to live again where you can go to the mall and not get shot taking a jog.”