UPDATE: I tried to get info from the police (and it IS Public Record) and they would tell me nothing. However, a reporter did email me with the police report. Apparently this kid on the motorbike was carrying a small passenger, a young child and he ran the red light and both of them ended up in the hospital, with severe head and body injuries. This kid refused to sign anything in the presence of his mother. Thinning the herd is a harsh term, but perhaps it’s just damn appropriate when these kids are allowed by their stupid parents motorbikes, no helmets and no effort to any intelligent thinking. Social Darwinism at work. That’s what we’re left with here in Atlanta.
Thinning the herd. And should we care?
Sounds awful, especially when applied to children, but this is an attitude I can’t call by any other name.
SW Atlanta is plagued by 4 wheelers and motorbikes. The police don’t give chase because as they say: “If they wreck, it’s on us.” Well, they don’t take this behavior seriously, either.
(And, according to the officer I talked to, they also realize that many of these ‘kids’ are drug dealers. But they don’t chase. And the drug dealers know this, and so do all of my neighbors.)
Thursday, Friday and Saturday a motorbike ran up and down our street, into the Metropolitan Parkway and around the side streets. The driver looked to be about twelve, with no helmet and there were little kids, also without helmets on the back of his small motorbike. Some of them were barefoot but none of them had helmets.
I called 911 Thursday, expecting an officer at least to investigate the situation, but according to the report (today, Sunday) when I made inquiries, ‘officer did not find either kid or bike.” So he left for another call.
Talking to other neighbors, they said “good that you called”, but what about them? They are so damn passive until something strikes them. Then they are hollering for the police.
This morning my upset neighbor called me. Last night this same kid on the motorbike ran a red light and was hit by a speeding car. It took a while for the car to stop and the bike was just in pieces. Ambulance, fire trucks, police but nothing reported in the news this morning. We still don’t know if this kid is alive or dead. But looking at the bike, it is hard to believe that anyone could have survived this accident.
I was going up my street today and another kid, this one older, was revving up. I pulled into a driveway to turn around and see where he was going, and he almost hit me coming across a speed bump. I got the standard glare. I went another way around, not to chase him, but to see where he was going. He picked up a kid that looked like he was five years old, barefoot, and of course, no helmets on either of them. They raced down this long street with other kids playing with a basketball. Dangerous activity at any time of the day.
I came home and called 911. Told them I wanted to talk to the responding officer. No show.
(three hours later, still no-show. Ho-hum)
UPDATE: officer did show up after 2-3 hours, but there was nothing she could do. The policy of the Atlanta Police Department (according to this officer) is to not chase these kids on 4 wheelers, etc…even though they already know that they are either drug dealers, or have warrents out on them. They flip the police the bird and take off. So….the much ballyhooed fight against drugs in Atlanta on the southside is at a standstill. The drug trade knows that these boys can’t be chased so they use them as the mules (carriers) for the distribution. Or so the APD says. According to this officer, SW Atlanta has a huge issue with these 4wheelers. The young boys on the motorbikes are scouts or soon to be involved in bigger ways with the drug trade. This probably is part of the direct fallout of the Atlanta Cheating Scandal, where teachers and principals were changing grades to push these kids forward (for years) and they certainly weren’t prepared for anything except dropping out and the drug trade.
Interestingly, I was told by the officer at the Zone 3 precinct that “I should continue to call 911 every time this happens”. However, they don’t respond apparently to this ‘kind of call.’
Obviously a waste of my time. But for some reason, I do care. I am a mother.
I was told today that after June 1st, there will be legislation to license, register and tag each motorcycle, motorbike, scooter. THEN maybe the Atlanta Police Department will do something about this menace to children, but I don’t believe it. And I didn’t get this information from the APD. They don’t seem to know their ass from their hand. I got it from another close neighborhood.
Where in Hell are the parents? Where in Hell are the Preachers, Ministers, so-called community leaders? Twitting their thumbs waiting for someone else to address these issues? And nobody does, and these ‘children’ become the newest group of criminals who plague our communities. The court system is overloaded and is a revolving door here in Atlanta. Some of these ‘youth’ have 15 to 20 arrests and that’s before they hit 20 years old.
We are told the police can do nothing and this behavior is historic with the APD. Depending on the officer, the procedures change and so do the laws. Worse trained bunch of cops I have ever seen. There has been a helmet law in this state since 1969. I checked. This is probably the best law around concerning motorcycles, but apparently the APD doesn’t find this even worth following.
So, we will be continuing to watch the “thinning of the herd”. Ignorance and arrogance abounding in SW Atlanta. And I highly doubt this behavior would be tolerated in other more ‘toney’ parts of Atlanta. The only thing I could think of was to throw this situation to a reporter I know, and see if she can make anything of it. Other than that, I am left scratching my head.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2014
Tags: 911 emergency number, absentee parents, Atlanta, Atlanta Cheating Scandal with the Atlanta Schools, Atlanta Police Department, black population of expendable children, children in SW Atlanta, helmet laws, lies and more lies, minister, motorbikes, motorcycles, non invovlement of the majority of residents in these issues., passivity amongst the residents, police no-show, preachers, the churches around here are impotent, Thinning the herd, throw it to the media., who cares about this crap?
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
April 14, 2014 at 10:40 am
Hi LN,
Much of these crimes, if handled earlier, can help prevent other serious crimes. Small infringements, even like not wearing a helmet, are indicators of reckless behaviour. Not that everyone doing this will commit a more serious crime. However, smaller infringements could eventually lead to bigger ones.
It is shocking to hear that even as young as five are getting involved. That takes courage to call the police when you see what happens. I can understand how you must feel when the response from the police is lacking a sense of urgency to help stop these type of crimes especially when they could help prevent bigger more serious crimes down the road.
Hugs, TR
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April 14, 2014 at 1:25 pm
Hi TR!~
Yes, exactly, if handled earler, but the impulse to do so seems to be lacking. Someone said to me, a resident who has been here all her 67 years of life, that these kids don’t have parents: they had sperm donors and womb renters for parents. The level of violence of these ‘kids’ starts early: with animal abuse and killing (we don’t use the local park because of what we have found upon walks there) then the issue of breaking into homes (and doing this not in other neighborhoods but their immediate neighbors) to full blown drug trade and violence. I have watched two generations of black kids go up and do this pattern. The older kids prey on the younger ones: the younger ones are the ‘lookouts’ for the teens who are doing the drug transactions. What happens? With a police force and a court system that have given up, there is just chaos in our society. I’ve known police who refuse to do anything because they know that the judges just give them token sentences, and the judges do because the jails are overcrowded and so they stay for a week or so, and then are back on the streets, doing the same things. Whole families are either involved in these criminal activities or they protect family members who are. Even our former Mayor protected her family members when she damn well knew (money laundering) what they were doing. So many of my black neighbors are angry that these young thugs are given such license by the police and their own society: they are impacted as hard as the rest of us, in fact, probably more. Ministers in black churches, when the do try to talk about this stuff, are told by members that ‘they don’t want to hear these social issues: they have come to church to hear Gospel preached”. So, even that outlet is blocked.
So, what can you do? I have tried for years to find a solution here, but you are blocked everyway you turn: the Black community doesn’t want these things talked about openly because they have failed themselves to do something about their own criminal element, and the whites just move away to the suburbs because they are tired of this behavior where they lived. Nobody deals with the issues because they are so intertwined with class and race…so things just don’t remain the same, they get worse. And it’s not racism that these kids are violent thugs. It’s opportunism on their part. But people will jump to make excuses for this behavior without holding these young thugs accountable. And that is one reason that the divide between races grows.
Thank you, TR, for reading this and your comment. The 4wheelers and the motorbikes are just part of the problem, a noisy and dangerous part. The real issues I don’t think will ever be faced.
Hugs, LN
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July 26, 2016 at 1:54 pm
Dear Jane,
I realize this post is very old, but this behavior hasn’t stopped. I live across the street from people I suspect are dealing drugs (when I first moved here I did several searches and nothing came up, but once I moved here, one of them popped up as being on parole for cocaine trafficking, so it’s not entirely in my head). There is one particular woman who rides atv’s/four wheelers in the street and into her driveway. Two young boys ride a motorbike (sometimes a four wheeler) up and down the street on the sidewalk and around the corner. I think they’ve gotten hip to the helmet law because the kid is always has one on. I have told the police it is right in front of their house. I tell them that she drives in the street and parked RIGHT there. They will not even come out.
Now these neighbors are waging a war of terror against me. Somehow they figured out that I was the one calling, and after I was threatened, an officer showed up and when I pointed them out (the atv was not parked there at the time), the officer said, “The pople who ride the four wheelers?” They know who they are.
They just don’t care or there is something else going on. They have been much quieter this summer (the atv riders, not my neighbors), but murders are up in the city. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the school system is a wreck, many have graduated from high school and/or dropped out and now see robbing and drug dealing as full time occupations, not to mention those who have nothing to do in the summer. New tricks, same game.
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July 26, 2016 at 10:41 pm
Hi D! Well, this sounds exactly like my neighborhood. It spreads or actually never abates. The police? Some are fat, slow and swimming in the wrong direction. LOL! Others are plain corrupt. Our Southside neighborhood always was on the bottom of the list. But….I am at a loss what to do. I think if you are being threatened….demand an interview with someone in the city government (good luck on that…) and also in the zone (police) zone you are in. Happened to me years ago, but it quieted down. I made complaints about the woman cop, who was threatening and racist. (Some blacks don’t think they can be racist. Hah.)
I know that these things just grate on our nerves. I fought this shit for 30 years here and have only seen minor changes. The new Library on Metropolitan is beautiful but has the same issue that the old library had.
Gentrification I have come to support. It’s not always just whites, but I have noticed middle class blacks move in and in a couple of years, move out. There are some beautiful communities around Atlanta that attract good people.
As for your own personal security, I would start a paper trail. I know people who have been run out of this state by drug dealers…all the way to Maine. I think things have changed….the neighborhoods are getting better, but it’s a hard go. I haven’t an answer as to why the APD ignores citizens on the drug concerns. Perhaps it’s just a matter of property values become higher and the people who cause the problems can’t afford to leave here anymore. Clayton country is nice.
And yes, less ATVs this summer! Yay!
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