Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) this week proposed spending $3 million in additional state law enforcement resources to fight Atlanta’s worsening crime problem.
This, according to an emailed press release.
Ralston announced this as he spoke to the State House Committee on Public Safety & Security via Zoom from Savannah where he is attending the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police Conference. Ralston said amended Fiscal Year 2022 and Fiscal Year 2023 state budgets will contain proposals to fight crime in Atlanta.
“Working with the House Appropriations Committee and Georgia Department of Public Safety, Speaker Ralston has proposed adding funding for 20 additional state trooper positions. At an annual cost of approximately $2 million, these positions would be devoted to the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s] GBI’s SWAT and Nighthawks DUI task forces which concentrate their work in and around the City of Atlanta,” the press release said.
“Speaker Ralston also proposed doubling the size of the Gang Task Force at the GBI and the Human Trafficking Task Force at the Georgia Department of Law. Combined, these expansions devote an additional $1 million in specialized state law enforcement personnel.”
Ralston said in the press release that state legislators will consider his proposals during the 2022 legislative sessions appropriations process.
Atlanta made national headlines this year after FOX News host Tucker Carlson described, in sometimes graphic terms, how crime rates in Buckhead — a residential district of Atlanta — have soared. Carlson also said certain of Atlanta’s politicians incited that violence.
Buckhead residents have organized and wish to secede from Atlanta.
Carlson said Atlanta leaders have made too many inflammatory remarks about Buckhead, which is wealthy. He said district residents have endured that abuse in silence. Buckhead residents account for a fifth of Atlanta’s entire budget, he said. Carlson said Buckhead residents shouldn’t have to “send huge sums of money to a city that hates them.” He blamed Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for motivating hundreds of Atlanta Police Department officers to exit the force. Atlanta’s crime rate, Carlson went on to say, swelled.
“They [Buckhead residents] have been attacked by reckless politicians ginning up hatred against Buckhead for political reasons,” Carlson said.
“Why wouldn’t shootings and stabbings be the end result?
Buckhead City Committee CEO Bill White told Carlson he and his neighbors “are living in a war zone.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “David Ralston” by the David Ralston Campaign.
