Atlanta Progressive News

(APN) ATLANTA — After a federal judge signed off on the settlement between 28 Plaintiffs and the City of Atlanta in the Eagle raid case, details emerged of significant policy and practice changes for the Atlanta Police Department.

Mayor Kasim Reed also issued an apology.

Councilman Michael Julian Bond (Post 1-at-large) told Atlanta Progressive News that he would push for the Public Safety/Legal Administration Committee this Tuesday to approve his resolution, which he introduced in January 2010, to apologize for the raid.

Bond said the apology would not be redundant because his resolution would be an apology coming from the Council.

Meanwhile, Chris Lopez, a former Eagle bartender who was excluded from the lawsuit–having been told it was because he was one of the eight Eagle staff members arrested during the raid [the charges were later dropped]–is awaiting a response from the City of Atlanta regarding his claim filed with the City last week. 

One Atlanta attorney previously featured in APN coverage contacted the news agency after the last article concerning Lopez’s claim was published, wanting to offer Lopez with legal assistance.

The policy and practice changes were agreed to in a resolution approved by the Council, although the public was not allowed to know what they were until after the settlement was approved.

However, the PS/LA Cmte will still need to enact legislation to address specific sections of the Atlanta city code, Bond told APN.  In reality, the Council’s already promised to do it, but this will allow for some after-the-fact public comment.

Specific legislation includes:

“The City of Atlanta agrees permanently to revoke or amend all Atlanta Police Department SOPs, Command Memoranda, and any other policies, including but not limited to SOP.3020 § 4.3.1(2) (regarding warrantless searches), SOP.3030 (regarding arrests), and SOP.3065 (regarding investigatory detentions and frisks without reasonable articulable suspicion), which contain provisions that are inconsistent with the following constitutional requirements.”

The changes required, according to the settlement agreement, include:

“The Atlanta Police Department shall investigate and finally adjudicate all citizen complaints of police misconduct of any kind within 180 days of the complaint.”

“The Atlanta Police Department shall conduct and conclude, within 180 days of this agreement, a thorough and meaningful investigation into the individual conduct of each officer involved in the planning, execution, and aftermath of the ‘Eagle Raid’ and any proceeding arising therefrom with regard to each of the following Work Rules in effect on the date of the conduct under investigation.”

“Police officers may not lawfully detain any individual without reasonable articulable suspicion, particularized to the person being detained (i.e., a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person”) that the individual is involved in specific and identifiable criminal activity;

“Police officers may not lawfully take or demand identification, or require an individual to identify himself, without reasonable suspicion, based on objective criteria, that the individual is engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct;

“Police officers may not lawfully frisk an individual for weapons without a reasonable belief, directed at the particular person to be frisked, that the person is both armed and presently dangerous;

“The City of Atlanta shall require all Atlanta police officers who are in uniform, other than a rain slicker or traffic direction vest, to wear a conspicuously visible nametag, and to require any Atlanta police officer who is in uniform or has displayed a badge or other indicia of police authority (such as a police vest, etc.), to identifY himself by name and badge number upon request at some point before the end of an encounter with a civilian;

“The City of Atlanta shall prohibit Atlanta police officers from interfering in any way with a citizen’s right to make video, audio, or photographic recordings of police activity, as long as such recording does not physically interfere with the performance of an officer’s duty.”

Incidentally, APD did interfere with APN’s ability to take photographs.  As officers were coming out of the bar, one APD officer did shine a flashlight directly into the camara to prevent the pictures from working. 

APN did take some photographs that night, mostly of parked police cars and police officers leaving.  One police officer said, “Come on, don’t do that.”  “Freedom of the press,” this reported had replied.

As for the monetary payment, co-owner Richard Ramey told the Georgia Voice magazine that even though Grossman had said his work was pro bono that the judge used their discretion to award attorney’s fees anyway.  Four different firms worked on the case for the Plaintiffs.

Ramey told Georgia Voice that the bar would be receiving under 100,000 dollars for one year of lost revenues.  Rawhide leather, a store located at the Eagle, was also a Plaintiff and is likely to receive lost revenue compensation.

(END / 2010)