Coming Home
Six months ago, I paused The Atlanta Objective to help try to save democracy. But Georgia, still in peaceful dreams, I see the road leads back to you.
Before I discuss why this woman who lives in South DeKalb is showing me the bullet she dug out of her refrigerator a few months ago, a word about this newsletter and where I’ve been.
Last year, I signed a 365-day contract to cover issues of democracy in the American South and the presidential election for The Guardian. Some of that work has kept me close to home watching the Fulton County elections board, or election denialism on the Fulton County commission or asking Trump voters why they leave rallies early.
But as often as not, I’ve been chasing stories across the south, from problems with policing in Jackson, Mississippi to immigration politics in North Charleston, to the human trainwreck of Mark Robinson in North Carolina. I have about 175 bylines for The Guardian over this period.
About halfway in, it became very obvious to me that I couldn’t keep that pace up and serve this newsletter in an election year with democracy on the line. So I stopped billing for the Atlanta Objective sometime around early July.
Well, my contract is up on January 22. The Guardian and its union (of which I am a member) is in a state of negotiating hell because of the sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media, which I am told is making it difficult to sign new contracts. The democracy team at the Guardian has been broken up and is being reassigned, with some staffers moving back to freelance status. I honestly wasn’t sure what the future held for me as a reporter midyear. And I still don’t. And that’s OK.
While my editor says she’s going to have work for me, I am suddenly - and blessedly - independent again. I’m back. I’ll be posting updates to this newsletter regularly again, and will resume billing in February. Anyone who wants out, ask. But I’ll do my best to keep you interested.
So let’s talk about bullets.
Last night, the DeKalb County Police Department held the first of four town hall meetings to discuss the year in review for public safety. Chief Mirtha Ramos and her command staff tried to strike a positive note, claiming a 14-percent reduction in violent crime.
This is true only if you count a brawl and a murder as equally important.
Since Ramos took over the DeKalb Police in 2019, the county’s homicide rate has been problematic. It set records in 2019 (125 murders), 2020 (128 murders), 2021 (144 murders) and 2022 (152 murders). Ramos said last night that the county police investigated 125 homicides in 2023 and 127 in 2024. The DeKalb medical examiner’s 2023 annual report says that office recorded 154 homicides in DeKalb in 2023 and 155 in 2022. The discrepancy in homicides comes from murders recorded in municipalities with their own police department: East Atlanta’s Zone 6 recorded 10 homicides in 2023, for example.
The reduction in violent crime of 14 percent Ramos cited includes far more common crimes like aggravated assault, armed robberies and rapes. A reduction in armed robberies - which have fallen off dramatically everywhere because who carries cash any more? - offsets small changes in the homicide rate.
Nonetheless, DeKalb County police say they have two more murders on their books this year than last. It’s a small change, and alone would not be alarming, except that it goes against the broader trend.
Basically, during the pandemic almost everyone’s homicide figures spiked. Atlanta’s rate shot up 60 percent year over year, one of the largest increases among major American cities … and the reason this newsletter exists. But since then, homicide rates have been falling dramatically almost everywhere, the fastest decreases ever recorded.
Atlanta’s homicide count fell about 6 percent in 2024, to 127 from 135. This is after a 21 percent drop in 2023, from 171 murders investigated in 2022, its modern record. The Cobb County coroner’s office said they had 34 homicide cases in 2024, 40 homicide cases in 2023 and 41 homicide cases in 2022. Gwinnett Police say their homicide count fell 20 percent, to 32 cases from 40 in 2023.
Nationally, homicide numbers appear to be down about 16 percent year over year in 2024, which follows a 13 percent drop in 2023 and 6 percent in 2022 according to numbers reported to the FBI. The spike is over.
Cobb and Gwinnett have fallen back to their pre-pandemic baseline. Atlanta’s murder rate remains above its pre-pandemic low. So is DeKalb’s. But Atlanta’s rates are falling in line with both regional and national trends. DeKalb’s murder rate is not.
That bears examination.
I focus on homicide figures because they’re the least likely to be fake. There’s little ambiguity about a body with bullets in it in a drawer in a morgue. Armed robberies and aggravated assaults are more subject to reporting biases. Increases or decreases in rates may have more to do with how often people report the crimes than the incidence of the crimes themselves. Rape statistics are especially vulnerable to this problem. A good police department may inadvertently hurt their figures by increasing outreach to rape victims, encouraging them to report crimes.
We over-rely on anecdotes - like a woman at a meeting wondering why the cops haven’t bothered to collect the bullet from her house for investigation - over statistics because we believe the statistics are unreliable. And they are if you’re looking for an exact number. But they’re a better indication of trends and comparisons than whatever you’re reading on Nextdoor … which came up more than once at the meeting at the library in Stonecrest last night.
Screw Nextdoor. Seriously. Make actual friends.
I’m going to drill down into these numbers and how DeKalb County’s police operate over the next few weeks.
The county is (finally) becoming compliant with the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) database, which allows for ballistics matching … and will make collecting that bullet worthwhile. DeKalb County has a new ordinance that requires gas stations to have surveillance systems in place. The police department is also working on installing additional 100 cameras in high crime areas.
Police discussed a novel kind of car crime that’s no longer theoretical: RF cloning devices have been used, apparently, to steal high-end cars out of people’s driveways. Electronic keys hanging on a hook next to the front door are close enough to be read by a cloning device from outside. A thief can then start the car up and drive away.
But the most salient issue - the one that impacts the county’s homicide rates - is staffing. DeKalb Police had about 600 officers on staff at the end of 2023. Right now, according to Ramos, it’s 531. For comparison, Atlanta - which polices about as many people as DeKalb PD - has more than 1500 officers. Even measured by the national police recruiting crisis, DeKalb’s staffing is a catastrophe. It is a live experiment in what a defunded police department looks like without the concomitant increase in social services and community support to replace the losses.
Three additional town halls have been scheduled:
South: January 15, 2025, 6-8 p.m., Wesley Chapel Library
Tucker: January 22 6-8 p.m., Tucker Reid-Cofer Library
North-Central: January 29, 6-8 p.m., Tobie Grant Recreation Center