In the wake of the 10 days of social justice protests, the Atlanta Police Foundation is stepping up its efforts to ensure that the Atlanta Police Department reinforces its already significant progress toward 21^st Century Policing.

With one exception, which Mayor Bottoms and Chief Shields quickly addressed, APD’s performance was consistently professional, showing restraint, tolerance and understanding of the justifiable concerns of the protesters.

While most protesters were peaceful, even polite, for parts of several days, officers were repeatedly assaulted with bricks, rocks, bottles, and knives, as well as verbally accosted with profanities. The entire force was deployed in 12-hour shifts for more than a week in situations fraught with emotional stress and the possibility of harm.

That, however, is the job for which APD officers signed up. APD’s successful performance last week stems from its commitment to 21^St Century Policing and our Vision Safe Atlanta pillars, each of which is embedded into the foundational officer training and education: social justice training, representation, connecting with youth, and enabling officers to live among the people they serve.

We urge you to share the following messages with your networks:

• Our long-term strategy to ensure that Atlanta is the safest large city in the nation is an ongoing transformation of APD culture to one of inclusiveness, community, and empathy – the very traits that APD exhibited in the last week’s emergency.  

• For five years, APF has worked with the City and APD to embed 21^st century policing initiatives into APD training, education, and daily operations.

• APD is one of 15 law enforcement agencies (out of 18,000 in the US) recognized for implementing 21st century policing methods and obtained a model city designation.

• By state regulations every police officer is required to attend 408 hours of training before being certified as a police officer. City of Atlanta officers are required more than 1040 hours.

•  Per the 21st century policing guidelines, APD has an extensive excessive use of force policy and trains all officers in de-escalation tactics. Officers also train on “shoot/don’t shoot” policies through the Fire Arms Training Simulator. 

• APD officers undergo extensive social justice training, including challenges of implicit bias, and building generational trust. This includes spending one day each year in programming at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. 

• The Atlanta Police Leadership Institute (APLI) trains every APD officer from recruits through Command Staff to create cultural understanding of our highly diverse population. 

• 61% percent of APD officers are people of color, and APD has one of the highest percentages of female officers among major city police forces.

• Since 2018, APF’s At-Promise Youth Center has served more than 1,500 youth who have received more than 11,700 hours of mentoring by APD officers. Youth recidivism among enrollees is 4%, more than 16 times less than the national average. APF will open two new At-Promise Centers over the next 10 months. 

• Secure Neighborhoods, APF’s affordable housing initiative, enables APD officers to live among the people and neighborhoods they protect, thereby building community trust.