Atlanta Police Interim Chief Darin Schierbaum and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced on Thursday that former City of Atlanta Chief Operating Officer Peter Aman would be the first-ever chief administrative officer (CAO) of the Atlanta Police Department (APD).
“I created the Chief Administrative Officer position to ensure that the personnel of the Atlanta Police Department have the best tools and support as they fight crime and serve our community,” Dickens said. “Peter Aman has a wealth of experience in enterprise transformation and operational experience through a career that has included time as COO for the City. He is a progressive leader with deep public safety experience who will help us ensure that APD is staffed, resourced and organized to meet our public safety goals.”
Aman is a resident of Buckhead and is known to be opposed to the Buckhead City movement.
“It would be an unmitigated disaster for the City of Atlanta to have its top line revenues cut,” Aman said on the possibility of Buckhead secession.
He said that if Buckhead secedes, Atlanta would have to cut city services while Buckhead residents would have to pay higher water fees.
Buckhead City Committee CEO Bill White told The Georgia Star News that the money could have been better spent in other ways.
“The last thing the Atlanta Police Department needs is [Peter Aman] who is highly political, ran for mayor and lost, [now] billed as someone who is going to somehow transform the APD,” White said. “The funds would be much better spent on giving our police families the proper raises or hiring more officers, which the mayor promised, versus giving himself and the City Council a disgraceful raise. Public safety, not politics, should be number one.”
The Buckhead City movement leader criticized Dickens.
“Appropriating funding for criminals to have free attorneys versus hiring more police, which was just passed by the tone-deaf mayor, the same day Atlanta was just rated in the top 10 American cities for its murder rate, was another horrible idea,” White said.
Atlanta Tea Party President Debbie Dooley told The Star News that she sees Aman’s appointment as evidence that city leaders are resolute in their opposition to Buckhead’s secession.
“The fact the Atlanta Police Department just hired an ardent opponent of the Buckhead Cityhood movement shows just how determined Atlanta leaders are to deny the citizens of Buckhead the right to choose cityhood,” Dooley said.
Amber Connor, security chair for the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods, described Aman to The Star News as an “integral part of Atlanta just based on his ties, the fact that he has run for mayor, who he’s friends with, who’s he’s comfortable with, and who likes him.”
Connor recalled Aman’s opposition to former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms’ campaign as an indication of their displeasure with former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
“We lost a significant amount of officers who transferred to other counties because [Reed] wouldn’t give them a raise,” Connor said.
Connor cited the fact that Atlanta-trained police officers can get higher salaries in other counties throughout the Peach State. Due to a series of complications related to pensions, local officers left the district for greener pastures, according to Connor.
“The pension got really screwed up and officers got screwed in the process. People assumed Mayor Reid did it on purpose. The Union did not agree to it, sued the city and lost. The Mayor pretended it was a benefit; well, of course it wasn’t and we ended up losing more officers,” Connor said. “Soon after we lost more officers, you had the issue of ‘we could recruit, but we couldn’t retain’ because they would get trained in Atlanta, which is one of the best police trainings that you can receive, and then they would move to Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, Gwinnett, [and] anywhere else that would pay better.”
Connor also criticized Bottoms.
“When Mayor Bottoms came into play she really tore up our local police by just not supporting them, by not giving them due process. it ended up being just irrevocably bad because we’re down anywhere between 800 to 1,000 officers,” she said.
Connor stated it is both her assessment and hope that Aman has been tasked with improving the pensions for Atlanta police officers.
“My take is that Peter is brought in to fix the pensions for the officers,” said Connor on Friday. “He’s familiar with the shenanigans of City Hall and how they kind of move money around, can never quite find enough money, but at the same time, tell people there is a surplus of money.”
In addition to Aman’s appointment, Dickens also announced on Thursday that APD Deputy Chief Carven Tyus had been promoted to interim assistant chief.
“These appointments will help us implement the mayor’s vision of a best-in-class department that will allow us to recruit, retain, and support the preeminent police force in the nation,” Schierbaum said on Thursday.
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Addison Basurto is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network. Follow Addy on Twitter and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Peter Aman” by Grant Champagne. CC BY-SA 4.0.
