In November 2020, the City of Atlanta, through the Atlanta Committee for Progress, engaged the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and APD Urban Planning and Management (APD Urban) to conduct a comprehensive study of Atlanta Police Department (APD) policies and practices and develop a community engagement plan.  Since then, both PERF and APD Urban worked closely with experienced police leaders, community members, APD staff, and leading subject matter experts from across the country to conduct numerous town halls, focus groups, site visits, data analyses, and surveys.  The culmination of these efforts includes final reports with approximately 150 recommendations that provide APD with tools, resources, and knowledge to ensure policing practices and organizational philosophy align with modern policing and community safety standards and build community trust and transparency.  As a next step, the Mayor’s Office of Innovation and Performance is working with APD staff to build a public dashboard tracking progress on recommendation implementation, which will be released in the coming months.

See PERF’s final report here:

 PERF's final report

See APD Urban's final report here:

APD Urban report

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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms launched two initiatives per her Administrative Orders related to the Mayor’s Use of Force Advisory Council recommendations: a public use of force dashboard and a video evidence submittal portal.

The creation of the Use of Force Dashboard was a collaborative effort between the Mayor’s Office, Atlanta Police Department (APD), the Atlanta Citizen Review Board (ACRB) and Atlanta Information Management (AIM). The purpose of the Use of Force Dashboard is to improve transparency, increase trust between the public and APD and facilitate fact-based discussions around police performance in the city of Atlanta. This dashboard will be updated quarterly, with the next update expected in October 2021.

The Video Evidence Submittal Portal allows members of the public to submit video footage when filing a complaint with APD, including evidence of an alleged use of force incident. Complaints and associated footage may be submitted anonymously, if desired, and are submitted to APD’s Office of Professional Standards to go through their investigative process. Members of the public may also submit video footage to the ACRB through their online complaint form.

Both of these links are available in the Resources section, as well as each respective agency’s website. For a status update on all the Administrative Orders related to the Mayor’s Use of Force Advisory Council, visit the Path Forward section of this site.

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In May 2021, Mayor Bottoms convened the Anti-Violence Advisory Council tasked with recommending immediate and long-term recommendations to address violent crime within the city. The Advisory Council has delivered its recommendations, which can be viewed here.

The Advisory Council developed the recommendations by reviewing existing anti-violence efforts already underway by the Mayor’s Administration and the Atlanta Police Department (APD). The Council provided three overarching recommendations with a series of action items intended to complement or bolster the current crime reduction efforts.

The Anti-Violence Advisory Council recommendations include:

• Creation of a Mayor's Office of Violence Reduction
• Launching, continuing or expanding nine critical initiatives focused on locations and individuals most impacted by violence
• Investing $70 million to fund the nine critical initiatives

The Mayor’s Office of Violence Reduction would be a dedicated crime prevention office that leads, coordinates and supports the City’s initiatives.

The nine critical initiatives for violence reduction include: public awareness, community capacity and infrastructure building, expansion of programs focused on violence prevention, local security planning, focus on violent repeat offenders, increased enforcement of nuisance properties, hiring 250 additional officers in FY22, expanding the City’s Operation Shield camera network by 250 cameras this year and completing the One Atlanta: Light Up the Night program to install 10,000 new streetlights in high violence areas by December 2021.

The Council recommended dedicating $70 million to fund the nine initiatives—comprised of $50 million in public funding and $20 million from private and philanthropic funds.

The report also includes recommendations for long-term initiatives to continue crime prevention efforts.

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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued an Administrative Order directing the City’s Chief Operating Officer to convene an Anti-Violence Advisory Council comprised of community members and partners to review the existing actions and plans related to addressing violent crimes and report their immediate recommendations within 30-45 days. Long-term recommendations from this group will be reported within 90 days.

The Advisory Council members include:

Andrea Boone, Atlanta City Councilmember, District 10

Dorthey Hurst, Atlanta Citizen Review Board, representing NPUs M-R

Michael Langford, Regional Vice President, Atlanta Community Involvement Center, WestCare Foundation

JP Matzigkeit, Atlanta City Councilmember, District 8

Brenda Muhammad, Executive Director, Atlanta Victim Assistance, Inc.

Deborah Scott, CEO, Georgia Stand Up

Randall Slaughter, (Retired) Fire Chief, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department

Courtney Smith, President & LPC, Midtown Neighbors Association

Carol Tomé, CEO, UPS

George Turner, Atlanta Hawks, (Retired) Police Chief, Atlanta Police Department

Renata Turner, Presiding Judge, Fulton County Juvenile Court

Dave Wilkinson, President & CEO, Atlanta Police Foundation

Matthew Wesley Williams, President, The Interdenominational Theological Center

Sally Yates, Partner, King & Spalding Law Firm; Special Matters & Government Investigations

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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms released the One Atlanta: One APD Community Policing Roadmap—a cohesive community policing strategy that will help reform policing in our community and protect all Atlantans. The roadmap builds on the One Atlanta: One APD Immediate Action Plan to Address Violent Crime and contains specific actions the City of Atlanta has committed to taking to address police reform within the Atlanta Police Department (APD). The strategies outlined in this report focus on building trust between law enforcement and residents — working collaboratively to identify potential issues, solve existing problems and reduce social disorder in neighborhoods.

The One Atlanta: One APD Community Policing Roadmap categorizes actions into six focus areas: accountability, community engagement, partnerships, public safety, reform, and transparency. Some key upcoming actions outlined in this roadmap include:

• Building a new, state-of-the-art Public Safety Training Academy
• Expanding the Operation Shield camera network
• Expanding At-Promise Center programming through the opening of two new At-Promise Centers in Southeast and Southwest Atlanta
• Requiring ICAT training for APD officers, a training program developed by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) that provides first-responding police officers with the tools, skills and options they need to successfully and safely defuse potentially dangerous situations

This roadmap also includes actions the City has already undertaken that have helped bolster the relationship between residents and law enforcement and the impact of these actions to-date. Our Administration continues to build upon the work of the Mayor’s Use of Force Advisory Council, whose recommendations are reflected in various Administrative Orders outlined in this strategy.

In addition to the actions outlined in this roadmap, our Administration will continue its focus on public safety and crime reduction as mentioned in Mayor Bottoms’ 2021 State of the City Address, including a commitment to add 250 new APD officers on the streets within the next fiscal year (with 90 recruits currently in the training pipeline). Together with our partners and key stakeholders, including APD and the Atlanta Police Foundation, we will realize our Administration’s vision of creating One Atlanta, a city that is safe, resilient and equitable for all of its residents.

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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms released the One Atlanta: One APD Immediate Action Plan to address violent crime in the city. The Plan is part of a broader effort focused on bolstering support for the Atlanta Police Department and reforming policing in the city.

As laid out by Mayor Bottoms during recent press briefings, the City has developed a series of actions to address violent crime. The immediate actions to be implemented are as follows:

• Expand enforcement of nuisance properties
• Focus additional resources and increase targeted enforcement on gangs and gun violence
• Expand the Operation Shield camera network
• Support neighborhood safety planning
• Continue to focus on disrupting street racing and auto crimes
• Explore a new Public Safety Training Academy
• Improve APD recruiting and retention

On December 10, Mayor’s Office staff presented to City Council during a Public Safety Committee Work Session to provide a status update on the implementation of the Mayor’s Use of Force Advisory Council recommendations. The presentation provided an overview of the Advisory Council and their recommendations, the Administrative Orders Mayor Bottoms issued in response, and actions taken to date in the areas of:

• Reform
• Transparency
• Partnerships
• Accountability
• Community Engagement

Mayor’s Office staff also used this opportunity to introduce the police reform and community engagement consultants to Councilmembers, including Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)and Jesse Wiles, Principal of Urban Planning and Management.

The December Work Session was the second one that Mayor’s Office staff participated in to provide an update on the Use of Force Advisory Council’s recommendations. The first Public Safety Work Session on this topic was held on August 27, 2020 and a copy of that presentation can be found here.

Mayor Bottoms is pleased to announce that the City of Atlanta has engaged the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to provide a comprehensive set of recommendations concerning how policing should be handled in the city of Atlanta "from top to bottom."

PERF is one of the nation’s leading providers of management consulting services to police agencies, having conducted comprehensive studies in police departments of all sizes across the nation. PERF specializes in areas such as use of force, records and information processing, budgeting, communications, crime prevention, and management of criminal investigations.

PERF’s 18-month engagement will include:

• A thorough review of APD’s use of force and related policies
• A review of the training that APD officers receive, including recruit, field, and in-service training
• An assessment of how APD’s current practices measure up to evidence-based standards and best practices
• The creation of a “Kitchen Cabinet” to regularly advise the Interim Chief of Police throughout the engagement

The Mayor’s Administrative Order 2020-27 also recognized that community engagement is a vital component of policy review and reform.

As a result, Mayor Bottoms is pleased to announce that the City of Atlanta has engaged the services of an Atlanta-based organization – APD Urban Planning and Management, LLC (Urban Planning) – to oversee a city-wide community engagement effort integrated with PERF’s policy reform work.

The team at Urban Planning has over thirty years of national expertise on urban planning, equitable community development and affordability policies. They are guided by a strong commitment to public participation and maintaining transparent, capacity building relationships with community stakeholders throughout their work.

Urban Planning’s initial 6-month engagement will include:

• Developing a community-led engagement plan that respects the diverse community and individual needs across all of Atlanta as it pertains to community support and law enforcement
• Gathering data and input from APD, residents, business leaders, and stakeholders using various innovative and transparent tools and methods
• Facilitating community engagement processes that flexibly accommodate changing conditions due to COVID-19 realities

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The Use of Force Advisory Council provided 33 recommendations spanning five areas of focus on policing practices: Mission, Vision, Values; Standard Operating Procedures; Governance; Community Partnerships; and Reporting and Transparency. The Bottoms Administration received feedback on the Advisory Council’s recommendations from an internal APD working group comprised of professionals across various ranks and zones, and from more than 4,000 Atlantans.

Mayor Bottoms announced seven Administrative Orders (AO) that address 16 of the 33 recommendations outlined in the Advisory Council’s report, including:

• Developing a plan for officer training and non-retaliation language regarding an officer’s duty to intervene when seeing another officer using unreasonable force
• Increasing public transparency through the development of a dashboard that shows APD’s use of force trends
• Developing a plan to work with APD, City of Atlanta, alternative response organizations, and other key stakeholders to develop an alternative response continuum

Immediately upon receiving the Use of Force Advisory Council’s 14 day recommendations, Mayor Bottoms acted upon three of the 10 recommendations and asked for legal and operational review on the remaining seven. The recommendations that were immediately adopted and acted upon by the Administration are:

• Commit to improving officer compliance and public transparency of body worn camera footage
• Create a centralized repository for witness footage of use of force by officers
• Extend powers and improve community awareness of Atlanta Citizen Review Board (ACRB)

Mayor Bottoms issued two Administrative Orders related to transforming the City of Atlanta Police Department. The first order calls for the adoption of reforms regarding the Atlanta Police Department’s use of force policies. These immediate reforms include:

• Requiring officer intervention in unreasonable use of deadly force
• Providing restrictions on shooting at moving vehicles
• Applying de-escalation techniques and using only objectively reasonable force necessary
• Requiring reporting of all uses of deadly force by a police officer to the Citizens Review Board

The second order calls for a comprehensive review of how policing should be handled by the City of Atlanta.

Police nationwide have shot and killed nearly 1,000 people annually since 2015, including approximately 181 shootings in the state of Georgia since 2015. Nationwide, although half of the people shot and killed by police are white, black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate, accounting for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, while being killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans. There remains an urgent need to address issues of police violence, systemic racism, and the need for the transformation of our justice system.

Mayor Bottoms issued an Administrative Order to convene an Advisory Council comprised of community members and partners to examine the City’s use of force policies and procedures. The Advisory Council was charged with making recommendations for operational or legislative changes to the City’s existing use of force policies. Mayor Bottoms issued the Administrative Order following a virtual town hall hosted by former President Barack Obama and the My Brother’s Keeper Foundation which featured a discussion on nationwide police reform in the wake of several days of protest across the country.

Mayor Bottoms joined City officials, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and community partners to break ground on a new housing complex on North Avenue in West Atlanta. The complex is part of the Atlanta Police Foundation’s Secure Neighborhoods program designed to reduce crime, improve community policing and provide affordable housing to Atlanta police officers. Secure Neighborhoods offers sworn APD police officers affordable options and incentives to purchase a home that has been renovated or built from the ground up. This program is part of the Westside Security Plan Initiative and is currently focused in three target neighborhoods: English Avenue, Vine City and Pittsburgh.

In early 2018, the City of Atlanta conducted a comprehensive market assessment to form base pay recommendations for APD’s police ranks. Once published, Mayor Bottoms convened a series of priority meetings with APD, the Atlanta Police Foundation, City of Atlanta officials and stakeholders to craft a swift and equitable plan of action to address the compensation concerns.

The pay increase — 30 percent over the next three years — ensures that APD wages are competitive with other agencies in the region and in similarly sized urban centers nationwide. Additionally, this increase stabilizes Atlanta’s police force, enhances the retention of experienced officers, and strengthens recruitment efforts.

Outreach to the LGBTQ community is vital to the Atlanta Police Department (APD) because of the need for stronger understanding and trust with all the communities they serve.

In April 2018, APD launched its first-ever LGBTQ Citizens Police Academy, a specialized program facilitated by APD’s LGBTQ Liaison Unit officers. The program consisted of information on core Citizens Police Academy topics including homicide, human trafficking, use of force and more. All of the topics were accompanied by conversations on the challenges faced by the LGBTQ community and how to better partner with police.