Piedmont Park in Atlanta, where a woman and her partner's dog were recently found dead. | Flickr/Garret Malter
Piedmont Park in Atlanta, where a woman and her partner's dog were recently found dead. | Flickr/Garret Malter
Atlanta citizens are calling for more security in parks after two recent murders, Fox 5 reported.
At Piedmont Park, Katie Janness, 40, was found dead July 28 along with her partner’s dog Bowie, the station reported.
Four days earlier, 17-year-old Jakari Dillard was shot at Anderson Park pool, Fox 5 said.
The city has more than 3,000 acres of parkland and 33 recreation centers, the station said. Citizens have been calling for more security even before the recent crimes, Fox 5 said.
“We are definitely going to need security,” Andrea Boone told Fox 5. “We have the Nature Girls, a senior citizen group that exercises and walks every morning. And they do not feel safe that cars have been broken into.”
Security guards work inside the recreation centers, not in the parking lots or parks.
Councilman Michael Bonds wants officers to patrol the parks full time. In May, Bond introduced a bill calling for officers to be committed full time to patrol the parks, Fox 5 reported.
A police commander agreed to survey hundreds of retired police officers to see if they would return for park duty, and at least 19 said they would, Fox 5 said.
Fox 5 said Bond understands that with more than 300 greenspaces in the city, it might not be realistic to provide the same level of security at every one. He requested an analysis of the parks with the highest crime and would station the retired officers there. The city would have to pay the retired officers to serve on the park force and provide cars and supervisors, Fox 5 said.
The city is also considering increasing the number of surveillance cameras in parks, especially the 200-acre Piedmont Park, which only has nine cameras. One camera wasn’t working the night Janness was killed, Fox 5 said.
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