ATL Standard

Buckhead, one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Atlanta, wants to secede from it and become its own municipality because of crime.

The Buckhead City Committee is demanding emergency hearings as it tries to become a separate entity from the city of Atlanta, Fox News reported. 

"Given everything that's been going on here, it's getting worse and worse and worse," Bill White, the committee's CEO and chairman, told Fox News. 

He said that the number of murders are increasing and that leadership is not doing enough to make changes.

"We're demanding emergency hearings on our cityhood bills. I say we have three major issues and that's all we have … crime, crime and crime," White said, Fox News reported. 

The Buckhead efforts to "divorce" Atlanta came after a man was shot Saturday morning while walking in his neighborhood, Fox News said. 

"I think our referendum, which we expect to have on the ballot in 2022, were today, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 to 80 percent," Bill Hemmer, Buckhead City Committee CEO said on the support that's there to make Buckhead its own city, Fox News reported.  

Murders in Atlanta were up 60% in the city as of May 29, year-to-date, compared to 2020, as noted by FOX News in an analysis of  Atlanta Police data. 

In Buckhead, murders year-to-date this year were up 40%, which is a 133% increase from three murders in the same time period in 2019, Fox News reported.. 

Legislation filed this year by Sen. Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) and Rep. Todd Jones (R-Cumming) aimed to start the process of Buckhead separating from Atlanta, Reporter Newspapers said.