Sunday, November 08, 2009, 8:35 PM
News, Opinion, Politics
By Stephanie Ramage

SAVE OUR COPS

Is this the same officer who wanted to hit the mayor in the head with a baseball bat? If so, why is he still a sergeant? Leadership demands that the higher up you go... the higher the standards should be (unfortunately politicians not withstanding). APD is in the 70s when it comes to policing... hmmm the same time frame Maynard was elected. Clean house... including this batter!

Joseph
Monday, November 09, 2009 at 5:10 AM

I think Sarge here needs to come to grips with reality. The reality being that the police should be working for the citizens, not the government. Therein lies the fundamental problem, he police have become a tool of plunder for government and now, quite frankly I am more afraid of the police than iIam your average criminal, and that is sad. You average mugger may take 20 or a hundred bucks from me, your average policeman, working on behalf of the government will take hundreds. I could almost respect them more if they put the money in their own pockets.

We need to take petty laws off the books and we need to rid our goverment of useless bureaucrats.

Sarge if you would like to bring the police back to respectability (as opposed to fear) I suggest you spend more time protecting the citizens and less time protecting your masters in government

Mike
Monday, November 09, 2009 at 3:22 PM

First of all, a sgt. is pretty far down the ladder, Joseph. A sergeant is not "brass."
Second, the union--of which Sgt. Kreher is president--is not part of the APD, it's an outside organization that acts as a counterweight to management. (I can't believe I have to explain this--are people really so ignorant that they don't understand what a union is?)

And Mike, if you have a specific concern about police officers in your area, you should report that to the APD's Office of Professional Standards. Bad cops aren't good for anybody. But be specific. If you're one of these people who just doesn't like cops, then that is your problem, that's not anything that anyone can help you with.

We have far too few officers to do the kind of neighborhood policing we really need them to do. If you feel that you are not getting enough personal attention from them, then you need to lobby for more cops. -- Stephanie Ramage

Stephanie
Monday, November 09, 2009 at 3:51 PM

Miss Stephanie,

It is obvious that you have embraced the April Oliver School of "Journalism." I made no comment regarding "brass"... you assumed. All I am pointing out ("just sayin") is that I thought police officers are held to higher standards... a Sgt. who is in a supervisory position, is held at a higher standard than an officer... a president of a union as well. Your "having to explain things" to me is comical at best. I have read your articles with great interest. Please don't turn into a cop-beat reporting groupie.

Joseph
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 5:44 AM

1. Are you saying Kreher has embraced the April Oliver school of journalism? Because this is his column, not mine. Also, maybe you don't actually know anything about April Oliver and what happened at CNN, bc she and her producer reported fictional accounts handed to them by sources without doing homework to see if they were true. How does this relate to Kreher's column? Everything in it is backed up by research and has been reported by several sources other than the SP.
Or were you just desperately trying to come up with some name in bad standing in journalism without doing your homework?

2. Clearly you still do not understand rank or the role of the union.

Your sexist remark regarding becoming a "groupie" tells me everything I need to know. Obviously, you have not read my reporting on the APD and Atlanta's crime.

Stephanie
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 8:22 AM

Stephanie,

congratulations, you are clueless.

It must be serene to be so blissfully ignorant.

Mike
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 12:00 PM

Sgt. Kreher's emotions may have gotten the better of him with the 'baseball bat' incident, but it's only a testament to his devotion to the officers of the APD, and he is one of the ONLY people who actually gives a shit.

A huge part of the problem is a lack of public support, b/c of some misguided notion that we "are supposed to work for you." Negative. We work for society as a whole. No arrest is petty when it involves one person infringing upon the rest of the city's right NOT to have to deal with speeding/public intox/etc. If you are dumb enough to risk getting run over to cross the street in the middle of a busy street, it is totally appropriate to arrest you for jaywalking. We will also protect you from yourself, because quite honestly, the vast majority of citizens are not capable of behaving responsibly.

However, I know this is a waste of time, because the attitude displayed above is representative of a total lack of respect this city has for the police, and that is why no one wants to work here.

Sincerely,
another well-educated, hard-working APD officer who will leave in the next couple years

Jay
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 9:41 AM

Joseph -

The APD is back in the 70's as far as staffing and salary go but Kreher has only been on the force since 1991. His comments came out of frustration for the abuse that the 'government' was inflicting on disabled veteran officers shot in the line of duty. A fact that wasn't forgotten when considering is suspension and later re-in-statement at his current position.

Another fact that probably didn't go overlooked when cooler heads prevailed was the fact that Atlanta is running low on Veteran officers. You might want to just thank him for giving a shit about the problem enough to try and offer a solution. Yours didn't seem real practical or thought out what so ever.

Which brings me to Mike -

If you want to change the laws that is the prerogative of the Legislative body, not the Police. We even have a Citizens Review Board if you feel that things aren't being run properly. Either way if you want to make a change you are going to have to participate in that change. In order to do that you are going to have to actually identify a course of action that can be followed or initiated.

You are one of many, many, lazy citizens who don't speak or participate in their government and wonder why it has zero direction. You seem to think you are removed from the dis-function when in fact you are the cause of it.

Why would any cop give a shit about somebody like you when you pay them like shit and tell them to go screw themselves if, god forbid, they are injured trying to protect you.

You get what you pay for and what you give.

Turner

Turner
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 6:14 PM

I'm truly sorry that the cops morale and pay is so low. Their misery still is not excuse for behavior and performance. If they are so miserable- QUIT! I do know that the pay scale is out for everyone to read and that it is horrible. Do you homework before you join. Either you are part of the solution or part of the problem.

Joseph
Friday, November 13, 2009 at 6:19 PM

Joseph,

People like you are the problem.

In a city with too few cops, you are encouraging cops to quit because 1) Their pay is miserable and 2) You think they're part of a problem system.

According to your logic, all of the following should quit their jobs:

Teachers
Nurses
public defenders
Sanitation workers
journalists
lab researchers
farmers
soldiers
construction workers
environmental protection agency inspectors
activists--in nearly any area of interest
midwives
county health department inspectors
department of child protective services agents

And the list goes on and on, because unbeknownst to you, Joseph, a lot of people do their jobs because they love them and they are good at what they do and if those people didn't suffer through the bad pay and the crappy hours and the ridiculous pressure to perform and the overwhelming public scrutiny, this country would come to a screeching halt, and so would most of the world.

That is a fact. All of those professions I listed are percieved as being part of problem systems, yet there are self-sacrificing stalwarts in every one of them who are determined to carry out their duties with integrity.

There is no way, based on your comments, that you could possibly understand that the police force is made up overwhelmingly of those stalwarts.

You are stuck in some weird wild-west fantasy about gunslinging police officers when the reality is that most of their time is spent in dealing first hand with the social problems that people like you only pretend to care about.

For every bad apple cop you can name, I can find a hundred who take the homeless to the shelters on cold nights, who track down errant kids who've decided to try to cross eight lanes of traffic because mom is at work and dad hasn't been seen in months. It's the cops who talk the mentally ill guy down from the bridge over I-20. It's the cops who call the parents of the runaway and implore them not to be angry. I've read reports submitted in Atlanta that show a cop went to an elementary school to make sure a kid made it to school okay because her parent was too harried to remember whether the kid was even home when she woke up that morning. It's the cops who check on the elderly whose children haven't bothered to come see them in years--the cops who make those "welfare" calls and find elderly people who have been dead for several days because no one else bothered to check on them.

The death and destruction they see is very seldom wrought by their own hands, instead we, the citizens, do it to ourselves and each other and we leave it to the cops to clean up the mess--without so much as thinking about how underpaid and understaffed they are.

Get your head out of your Manifesto and take a big, cold dose of reality. When you do, you will want to thank every cop you see.

Thank god there are not many fools like you in Atlanta. -- Stephanie Ramage

Stephanie
Friday, November 13, 2009 at 10:03 PM

Mike and Joseph,
I hope you both go back and read your quotes and realize how your comments only further drive a wedge into this equation. How about a real solution to it then? Oh wait you don't have one! You only want to throw around your idiotic talk. One of you, don't know or care which, said one thing though. You are part of the solution or part of the problem. Obviously you are both part of the problem so please just shut up until you figure this out.

rob
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 6:35 PM