Ready.
Good afternoon Deputy Chief Timothy Peake,
Atlanta Police Department,
Field Operations division.
Reason we're here today as we for
number one wanted to really and
truly thank the Community for
all the work that you work with.
Do with us as well as a really and truly
sharing some of the great successes
that our law enforcement partners
are constantly working together to
do with the Fulton County Sheriff
Department being represented here,
as well as the our city of South.
Fulton collectively working together
to deal with the issues that we're
having surrounding the auto thefts,
as well as the larceny from autos
that we're dealing with.
Ultimately, the vehicle break ends.
Our plea is for you to join us within
a hard push for community policing,
and I say that by being good stewards
and policing yourselves to stop
leaving keys inside of our vehicles.
Unfortunately, when you leave those keys.
Vehicles,
what happens is that cars taken and
it's utilized for other crimes,
which makes it hard.
And it says it's a drain on our
resources earlier in the year we
started out there were about 70%
of vehicles that were left with
the keys in the ignition or the
vehicle was just left running as
we enter until this fall season,
we have done a great job
reducing that number,
but now we're at 61% which is far too many.
What does that percent look like?
Will use a rough number of approximately
2500 vehicles that have been stolen
in the city of Atlanta this year.
Unfortunately,
more than 1500 of those vehicles
more than 1500 out of 2500,
the keys were either left in the
vehicle or the vehicle was left
running and we have to change that.
We have to do better because what
happens when we do that again that
tells the criminal that element is
out there that this is a good place.
To come and do their shopping and
we don't want the city of Atlanta.
We do not want the metro Atlanta area
known to be a good place for shopping.
As far as all of theft and
larceny from autos.
So we're asking the community
please to do a better job.
Stop and take that key out that ignition.
Turn that vehicle off and lock it.
Do not leave it running for your door
dash and all of your delivery companies.
We need you to turn those
vehicles off and secure them.
We cannot continue to utilize it.
Resources that we've done.
And while we have proactive policing
and everybody is stepping up,
these are resources that could really
and truly be used for other crimes
that we're having to face and not
have to utilize them so much for
just this one instant things that we
could actually make decisions on and
stop ourselves without the level of
police intervention that we're using.
So that's our appeal at this
particular point in time and what
I want to do is call up Lieutenant
Sokolowski so that he could share.
Some of the great work that we've been
doing with our law enforcement agencies,
but again, I will appeal this for it
not to just be a law enforcement plan,
but let it be a collective
plan for the city of Atlanta.
I should say that not only.
Do we end up driving up crime
in other categories by leaving
those keys in the vehicle?
We also if you look at it actually
end up even driving our insurance
rates up based upon the number of
claims that are being made within
our city of Atlanta footprints.
So not only do we have the crime issue,
but then it becomes a monetary issue
for our insurance and I believe that
we can do better if we really and
truly partner and put our minds to it.
So thank you very much and I'll turn
it over to Lieutenant Sokolowski.
Good afternoon everybody.
I'm Lieutenant sokolowski.
I'm in charge of the Atlanta Police
Auto Crime Enforcement division.
Last week we did a detail with Fulton
County Sheriff's South Fulton and we
went after the people that we know had
outstanding warrants and were wanted
for larceny from autos or auto theft.
Last week when we completed this detail,
what we did was we.
We locked up five people.
We had a total.
Five arrests, warrant arrests for outs.
They were outstanding for a large
thing from auto or theft from vehicle.
On top of that we also had
was six proactive arrests.
While we had units out there in
Markten undercover capacity,
we saw other crimes that are being
committed and our officers were
able to swoop in and arrest them.
That being said, we recovered 5 handguns.
During those arrests,
we recovered almost 400 grams of marijuana.
14 grams of cocaine and $404,228.
We also, during the detail,
recovered four stolen automobiles.
We had two impounds vehicles
that were abandoned on the side
of the road and we had one.
We were able to take out one
theft by receiving warrant,
which was an individual that
fled from us while we were doing
the detail in a stolen car,
we were able to capture him and
place the appropriate charges on him.
Some of the cases that we had,
one was from 40 forty 204 Boulder Park
Road that was 126 grams of marijuana,
$648 in currency.
We recovered 2 handguns and Mr Polk
was arrested. In this case Mr.
Polk had two previous arrest cycles.
Another one was 1999 Campbellton Road
officers in an undercover capacity
were sitting there watching the
area because it's known for auto
larceny and auto theft hotspot they.
They saw suspicious activity when they
engaged the people that were in the vehicles.
There were two vehicles that that were there.
They recovered a Glock 23 handgun,
a Taurus handgun.
Uh, another semi automatic pistol
242 grams of suspected cocaine five.
I'm sorry if marijuana 5 grams of cocaine.
$3058 a pocket scale which is
used to measure out the drugs.
They arrested Mr Hughley who
had three arrest cycles. And Mr.
Thomas, who had 30 arrest cycles.
And a Miss Harris.
She was arrested for obstruction.
Had no previous convictions or rest cycles.
But it was because of the the
work that Fulton County Sheriff,
South Fulton,
our investigators with our gang unit,
auto theft and auto larcenies were
able to accomplish this detail with
the tremendous results that we had.
So as you have heard the statistics.
What we want to again drive home is we can
make a change at what's happening here.
Please don't make your neighborhood
be the best place to shop.
We're entering again into the fall season.
We have a robust fall crime plan of action
where we're out and we're utilizing the
resources to target these specific areas.
Alongside that, we're also rolling
out an additional larceny from
auto detail to where we will.
Put more resources in place to
deal with this problem, but.
If we could make better decisions
again with not leaving the keys in
the vehicle so that the vehicles
could be used for other crimes,
you could help us tremendously by
keeping your neighborhood off the
map for being the best place to shop
for stolen auto or car break ends.
We constantly say this over and over
and over again. The Clean car campaign.
And yes, we're tired of saying it,
but unfortunately we see the need to say it,
and once we see where they.
Activity stops,
then we can move on to something different,
but the number of crimes that
are being committed,
we have to make sure that we are
taking the keys out of the ignition.
Make sure that we're turning the
vehicles off that have push start.
We have to also make sure that we are
clearing weapons and electronics and other
important things out of our vehicles.
We must do this and there are some
we're not trying to take weapons
out of any legal persons hand,
but when you leave them in the car unsecured,
they get into the hands.
Of our youth, they get in the hands of gangs.
They get in the hands of other felons,
which then take those same weapons
and go out and commit other
crimes against our citizens.
And we just want to get
away from that footprint.
So please take your items
out of your vehicle.
Secure your weapon if you're
going to drive your car,
it's fine to have your weapon.
You're in there with it,
but if you get out of your vehicle,
take the weapon out.
But if you can't take it out,
then secure it with a lock.
Box or another device that's
made specifically for keeping
that weapon in that vehicle,
but we can no longer leave
him in the glove box.
We can no longer leave him in the console.
We can no longer leave them under the seat.
No, not even in the trunk.
They must be secure so that they
will not end up in the hands of
someone else who's going to use
it as an offensive tool towards
our great citizens of Atlanta
and the metro area as well.
So that's how we plead to you and that's it.
Any questions?
Lieutenant noted. Then a lot of
these people, if you brought in, had
multiple arrests. One of them had 30.
Does it frustrate you guys to?
Take him in charge of lock him up and
then have to go do the whole thing
all over again. Well, absolutely,
absolutely. It's frustrating
when we enter into the place with
the repeat offenders where we
constantly having to arrest the
same people for those offenses.
And for that we are working closely
with our with the other parts
of the criminal justice system,
district Attorneys office,
the courts we're going to do everything
with our repeat of tracking Fender
repeat tracking offender unit we want to.
Ensure that we do all that we can
to for those people who need to be
in jail for committing the heinous
crimes that we have to deal with.
And if you're a repeat offender,
we want you to stay.
We recognize that there are some
services that could be offered for others,
but the city of Atlanta Police
Department and our partners we're
going to work hard to put the people
in jail that need to be in jail.