‘Everything’s On The Table’ Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) On The Efforts Being Made To Combat The Surging Crime In Atlanta
Listen To The Full Interview Below:
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) joined Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson Show to talk about the surging crime plaguing metro Atlanta and what his administration is doing to stop the surge.
Governor Brian Kemp said,
“Well, listen, we are frustrated like the citizens are. I mean, I’ve literally been hearing about this every day for months, and it’s actually been going on for a very long time. You know, I ran on going after street gangs, having a gang task force in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. So I knew these gang issues, crime issues were an issue three years ago. The Atlanta papers made fun of me for that. And now they’re writing about violent crime in Atlanta every single day. But about three little about two and a half months ago, I became so frustrated and so many people here were frustrated that I asked the colonel for the Georgia state patrol to come up with a plan where we could go after street racers that were terrorizing the city. Large crowds, a lot of violent crime. And we’ve been doing that for two and a half, about two months now, really covert operations. We’ve had GBI involved in that, the Department of Natural Resources. So we have game wardens on four wheelers so we can chase people through parks and chase motorcycles. We’ve got helicopters up in the air and we have a lot of our folks on the ground. The Atlanta Police Department is partnering with us on that. But they’re having to ride in our vehicles because they have no chase policy. It’s hard to go after street racers when you can’t chase them.”
The Governor added,
“I mean, I made an announcement the other day that I’m willing to use, you know, millions of dollars out of the governor’s emergency fund to get more resources up here to try to help with the problem. But listen, Atlanta Police Department, they have more officers than the entire state patrol. We have to monitor the whole state and the roadways in the state. So we cannot be a city’s police department, but we’ve got to do something. We are putting a lot of effort into this. I will tell you that the Georgia General Assembly with Speaker Rollston. Their committee is meeting to see what other issues we could do, tweaks to the law and other things. We just passed a really strict street racing bill so we can impound vehicles, suspend driver’s licenses and have stiffer penalties to go after these folks. But I mean, everything’s on the table for us to continue to to push the needle.”