ATL Standard

The suburb of Buckhead has filed 'divorce papers' to part from Atlanta as crime continues to rise in the affluent neighborhood. 

Bill White, the CEO of the Buckhead City Committee is leading the push for wealthy Buckhead suburb to form its own city apart from the City of Atlanta, the Daily Mail reported. 

"I have a dozen concerns about the neighborhood of Buckhead seceding from Atlanta, and one of ones at the top is….where the heck will our kids go to school?" state Rep. Betsy Holland (D-Atlanta) said in a Tweet. 

Rep. Betsy Holland | Georgia House of Represntatives

Under the Georgia Constitution, the creation of a new city school system is prohibited anywhere in the state. This means that if Buckhead does separate from the City of Atlanta, it would not be able to create its own school system, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said. White told the AJC that Buckhead would work to keep students in the Atlanta Public System. 

White said Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and other city leaders ignore the increasing crime in Buckhead. Police officers feel demoralized, underpaid and underrecognized, the Daily Mail reported.

"We love the Atlanta police department but we'll form Buckhead City with its own police department, with significantly greater presence on the streets," he said, the newspaper reported.

The Buckhead City Committee's latest action came after the June 5 shooting of Andrew Worrell, father of three, as he was jogging around 8:35 a.m., the Daily Mail said. Worrell survived and continues to recover.

Police data showed aggravated assaults were up 52% in Buckhead as compared to 26% citywide, WXIA-TV said.

Bottoms ordered a new anti-violence advisory panel to review how the city approaches crime last month, She said in December she was unsure of how to stop the wave of crime, the Daily Mail reported.