The Dunwoody City Council approved nearly $1.3 million at its Feb. 26 meeting to hire three patrol officers and a sergeant as part of the creation of a crime response team, a new division within the department.
The funds will also be spent to hire a civilian to act as a fleet maintenance coordinator. Those duties were previously handled by a day shift lieutenant.
The team was previously called a street crimes team but was renamed to better clarify the mission of the team, Dunwoody Deputy Chief Mike Carlson said.
The unit will focus on clandestine transactions and larger drug organizations operating in the city.
At the Feb. 12 meeting, councilmen Joe Seconder and John Heneghan questioned the timing and the need for the unit, considering that the department still has six open positions in the patrol division and the recommendations of the recent BerryDunn study that listed the establishment of the unit as a medium priority.
Heneghan was not present at the Feb. 26 meeting, and Seconder was the lone dissenting vote against the request. Seconder had expressed concerns that the new positions, paid for by American Rescue Act Plan monies, were only funded through 2026.
“I will take the political hit here and ask to develop a long-term solution rather than a two-year fix,” Seconder said.
Dunwoody Police Chief Billy Grogan said the funding was essential in trying to handle a growing number of violent crimes in the city.
A memo to the council said that violent crimes in the city rose 14.9% from 2019 to 2020, 20.8% from 2020 to 2021, and 23.8% from 201 to 2022.
“We currently don’t have anyone assigned to these duties so (the team) will fill the gap,” Grogan said. “This is a good investment in the department.”
In other action, during public comment, the council heard from longtime critic Joe Hirsch, who has filed a lawsuit against the city regarding the release of text messages in connection with a complaint against a police officer in 2021.
Hirsch, who identifies himself in the 226-page lawsuit as a journalist on X (formerly Twitter), named three city employees in his Oct. 31 lawsuit: Dunwoody City Clerk Sharon Lowery, Clerk Eric Shealy, and Information Technology Department Head Ginger LePage.
The lawsuit alleges that the trio lied about and/or covered up information related to an open records request Hirsch made regarding an incident that occurred between a police officer and the manager of a Dunwoody tire store.
“How much money are you going to spend fighting my lawsuit about the text messages?” he said. “I’m guessing that you are on the hook for about $50,000.”
Hirsch said he plans on deposing Lowery, Shealy and LePage, and if answers are not supplied, he will move up the line to depose Grogan and other officials.
“The city is going to lose, because the facts are there,” he said. “But you are going to lose. It’s going to get very expensive, very interesting and very ugly.”