ATLANTA (AP) - Atlanta needs to provide a way for the public to submit recordings of police use of force for investigations of those incidents, under an executive order signed by the mayor.
The directive came in one of three executive orders that Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed shortly after receiving recommendations from a use of force advisory council, according to a news release Thursday. The council was created on June 4 followed about a week of sometimes turbulent protests in the city sparked by George Floyd’s death under a police officer’s knee in Minneapolis.
Another executive order calls for the police chief to identify policies and procedural changes to improve officer body worn camera compliance from the current 94% and to improve transparency and responsiveness to public requests for the footage, the release says.
And a third executive order calls for measures to strengthen the Atlanta Citizen Review Board, including providing it with resources to begin a proactive review of deadly use of force cases and raising its profile in the community, the release says.
The advisory council first met June 10 and provided the mayor with 10 early action recommendations this week. She acted on three of those recommendations by signing the executive orders.
“In just 14 days, the Use of Force Advisory Council has developed meaningful recommendations to begin the process of revising Atlanta’s Use of Force polices to rebuild trust in our communities,” Bottoms said in the news release. “Together, we will harness this moment in history to reimagine our use of force policies and elevate the Atlanta Police Department as a national model for modern policing.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.