Tucker: Violent crime skyrockets in Atlanta suburb
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host examines increase in Atlanta crime and why Buckhead neighborhood wants to leave
Ever been to Buckhead in Atlanta? It’s a beautiful residential and commercial neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city. It’s not a huge place. Fewer than 80,000 people live there, but it’s fair to say that, without Buckhead, Atlanta, at least as it’s currently run, could not exist. Taxes from Buckhead residents account for fully a fifth of Atlanta’s entire city budget. You’d think the people who run the city would be very polite to Buckhead. They certainly should be. But the opposite is true. For decades, various mayors of Atlanta have attacked Buckhead, as if there’s something offensive or immoral about maintaining a clean and orderly neighborhood. For the most part, the residents of Buckhead have taken this abuse in silence. Complaining seemed impolite. So they’ve continued to send huge amounts of money to a city government that hates them. For politicians in Atlanta, it’s been a very good deal—attack Buckhead and take the dough. But that deal could soon be ending.
The reason for that is the current mayor, a spectacular mediocrity with unusually high self-esteem called Keisha Lance Bottoms. Like so many big city mayors, Bottoms is an incompetent demagogue. She has no idea what she’s doing, and she’s willing to say anything. For while, that was tolerable to the people of Buckhead. Like most people who live in cities, they know the drill. They’re used to it. Then, last summer, things changed.
A man called Rayshard Brooks was shot to death in a Wendy’s parking lot by an Atlanta police officer. Brooks, who was apparently drunk, had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-through lane. When cops tried to arrest him, Brooks went berserk. We showed you the video at the time—it’s painful to watch. When Brooks stole a cop’s taser and pointed it at him that’s when an officer called Garrett Wolfe shot him. It was a sad story, but understandable once you watched the tape thought about it carefully. Keisha Lance Bottoms didn’t wait to think at all. Without pausing for an investigation, she immediately fired Office Wolfe and then issued a predictably self-righteous press release about it.
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An independent board later found what Bottoms did was illegal, but by then it was too late. Hundreds of Atlanta police officers had left the force. Those who stayed understood very well there was no point in making arrests. Who would want to be Officer Wolfe? Nobody. Response times plummeted. You called the police, they didn’t come. Crime soared. Criminals found that even when they were arrested for violent crimes, they were back on the street within days. Can you guess what happened next? Here’s what happened next.
Atlanta news report: Perpetrator: You want me to break your f***ing window?! REPORTER: Eliana Kovitch and her boyfriend were shocked to learn the man seen in this video who is accused of attacking them was out on bond // The couple was outside of the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Buckhead last June When they say a man started to threaten them. VICTIM: He took out his knife and he said he had a gun. He kept telling us he was going to kill us REPORTER: Kovitch says the violent words soon turned physical VICTIM: He came around to the other side of the car and punched my boyfriend in the left temple and then he punched me and punched me again. I fell to the ground and blacked out REPORTER: The suspect, Fakhraddivin Moore, was arrested and charged with seven felonies for the attack. However, he was released on bond five months later. As Kovitch and her boyfriend did some digging, they learned Moore had been arrested just days before in Clayton County VICTIM: It was for misdemeanor battery charges and then he was released and while he was out on bail from Clayton County, that’s when he attacked us.
It’s pretty remarkable. He threatened to kill them, punched a woman in the face, what did they do wrong exactly? Nothing. Just on the street in Buckhead.
In Buckhead, murders year-to-date are up almost 50 percent—that’s a lot of new dead people. Robberies and aggravated assaults are up by nearly 40 percent. Car thefts are up 65 percent. Lenox Square mall in Buckhead, one of the first indoor shopping malls in the United States, is now too dangerous to visit. Beginning last year, someone was getting shot at the mall virtually every month. In December of 2019, a Macy's employee was shot during a robbery. The following January, a man trying to defend himself from an armed robber was inadvertently shot by a cop. In February, a drug deal led to a gun battle outside of Bloomingdales. In March, a dispute over a parking space outside the Cheesecake Factory led to more gunfire and killed someone. And so on. People in Buckhead stopped going to the mall.
Ultimately, authorities decided they needed security metal detectors. They put police dogs throughout the mall. They set up a network of security cameras with software to detect firearms. It seemed like it would work but it didn’t, there was just too much violence. This past April, a gunman beat a 60-year-old woman next to her car in the mall's parking lot and stole her purse. Atlanta police said somehow none of their cameras caught the crime. A witness called James Glass, says he never saw any police officers or security during the assault, even though the attacker took his time beating the woman because he was enjoying it so much.
According to Glass, quote, "It seemed like he was celebrating what he had done. He started to rejoice and started shouting… Just like he was happy for what he had done to this lady."
That’s disgusting. It’s still going on. On Monday, two 15-year-olds shot and nearly killed a security guard at the Apple store at Lenox Square Mall.
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If criminals can terrorize the mall in Buckhead -- now one of the most surveilled places in Atlanta –what can they do with the neighborhood? Well, they can terrorize it. And they are. They're attacking people on residential streets. Here's a quick report from Fox 5 in Atlanta:
REPORTER: Neighbors say they’re shocked after two crimes rocked their Buckhead neighborhood. Atlanta police say on Saturday they found a man with a gunshot wound on West Wesley Road. Investigators say the man and two others were shot at while jogging. // Hours later on Saturday, Atlanta police responded to the Collier Ridge apartment complex. // Police say they found a man who was severely injured on scene COP: He did in fact strike an individual who was taking out the trash REPORTER: Atlanta police say they arrested the suspect shortly after that crime. Now investigators are working to find a possible motive.
The man who was shot jogging on Saturday is called Andrew Worrell. You should know there’s no backstory here. He didn’t know the guy who shot him. He wasn’t doing anything, he was jogging on the weekend like a good citizen and a guy pulled up and opened fire. Why? His 9-1-1 call is hard to listen to, but you should listen anyway, just so you can understand exactly what Keisha Bottoms has done to Buckhead. Here it is:
Andrew Worrell’s 911 call June 5th ANDREW WORRELL: Help! Help! DISPATCHER: Hello caller? ANDREW WORRELL: 1211 West Wesley DISPATCHER: Is this a house, apartment or place of business? ANDREW WORRELL: I’m on the street. 1211 West Wesley. I got shot.// DISPATCHER: Is the assailant still nearby? ANDREW WORRELL: No, he drove away. DISPATCHER: Okay. And is there any serious bleeding? ANDREW WORRELL: Yes, I’m bleeding. I’ve been shot.
Something similar happened to a woman called Valerie Kasper on a trail in Brookhaven, near Buckhead. She was stabbed in the back four times by a stranger in broad daylight while she was walking on a trail. Kasper was pregnant with her second child at the time. Her injuries forced doctors to deliver her baby more than 3 months early because she was stabbed by a stranger. What were these attacks about? They weren’t robberies. The only point was physical injury-it was terror, it was brutality. The victims appear to have been chosen purely for how they look. But don’t call these hate crimes. That’s not allowed. You can’t say that.
Privately, many people in Buckhead suspect that’s exactly what’s going on. They’ve been attacked by reckless politicians for years. Politicians have ginned up hatred of Buckhead for political reasons. Why wouldn’t others take them seriously? Why wouldn’t shootings and stabbings be the end result? Some people have had enough of this, they don’t think it’s going to get better. Two bills currently in the Georgia state legislature would allow Buckhead to leave the city of Atlanta, run its own competent police department and resume being a safe, nice place.
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CNN, for one, hates this idea. CNN has its headquarters in Atlanta and has had so for forty years, it knows exactly what’s going on in the city. They don’t care. You don’t like getting shot while jogging? Then you’re a racist:
CNN coverage of Buckhead story June 7: BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The mostly white neighborhood of Buckhead is pushing to separate from the rest of the city. CNN’s Ryan Young has more from Atlanta // RYAN YOUNG, CNN REPORTER: The Buckhead exploratory committee reports they've raised over a half a million dollars and is now pushing state lawmakers to push through a bill that would allow their cityhood petition to be voted on in the next election. The predominantly white neighborhood's movement is gaining traction with Republican lawmakers.
Oh, are you getting the dog whistles? "Mostly white." "Predominately white." Got it? If you’re opposed to getting murdered outside Cheesecake Factory, you’re a white supremacist. They always say that. Here’s the funny thing, they don’t mean it. How do we know they don’t mean it? Look at how they live.
How many CNN anchors have weekend homes anywhere near Section 8 housing? Let’s see: Right around zero. Not one. Instead, they run to Martha’s Vineyard or charter helicopters to fly to the Hamptons on Friday afternoons. In their spare time, they get as far from diversity as they possibly can. Not just some of them. All of them, every one of them. That’s the truest generalization ever made.
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A recent piece in the New York Post describes how many rich liberals from New York have flooded into the poor, unsuspecting state of Montana.
Bill Gates has been camping out in Big Sky recently. A lot of them have. Why? It’s not the fly fishing. Bill Gates couldn’t cast a fly rod if his fortune depended on it. No, it’s not that. The appeal is the monochromatic neighbors. Outside of the Indian reservations, Montana has the demographics of 1956 America. Everyone looks the same. It’s not a melting pot. So, no, rich liberals don’t actually believe that diversity is our strength. They hate it so much that at the first sign of spray paint, they run for the whitest hills they can find. Then they lecture you some more about how you’re the racist because you don’t like getting shot outside of Cheesecake Factory. That’s how it works.
This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the June 14, 2021, edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."