Louisville's benighted police chief, Robert Crump White, has struck out for the third time. He previously applied for police chief jobs in Dallas and Chicago, with no success. And today, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced his appointment of George Turner to fill the vacant position of police chief. Previously, Reed had appointed Turner to be interim chief of the APD, and at a press conference this morning he praised Col. Turner for improving the performance and morale of Atlanta's police department during his interim leadership.
Turner, an Atlanta native, is a 29-year veteran of that city's police department, and served as a deputy chief under former chief Richard Pennington, who departed when former Mayor Shirley Franklin left office. He told Atlanta's FOX-5 that his goal is to keep improving the department, making it a model for the country. "We've had tremendous success thus far. We have done a tremendous job over the past six months," Turner said. "Our goal and mission is to reduce crime and improve the quality of life. This is my hometown and I will work diligently to drive our APD to be the best police department it could be."
Mayor Reed told the Agusta Chronicle that White told him he would need at least three months before presenting an action plan. The mayor said that, while he did not find that unreasonable, "…in my administration, there is an urgency to turning the tide of violence in the city. We don't have time to wait. We just don't have time for any good candidate to learn this city."
In what some might see as "sour grapes," Chief White told WAVE-3's Janelle MacDonald that he really never "actively" sought either the police chief position in Atlanta or the one he was up for in Dallas. Both opportunities "came to him," White said, and he pursued them because his boss, Mayor Jerry Abramson, is not seeking re-election.
In an interview with WHAS11's Rachel Platt, Chief White said if he didn't get the job in Atlanta he would refrain from seeking other opportunities until the November elections. "The night of primaries I decided not to pursue other opportunities and wait until the general elections are over," White said. White also said he has spoken with both mayoral candidates about staying on as LMPD chief. He said Greg Fischer (D) does want him to stay on as chief, but he and Hal Heiner (R) did not talk about his future as police chief.
Just a little note on inside-baseball here. We keep track of the addresses of the page-views we get here at the Louisville City Hall Examiner, and have noted a marked increase in our Atlanta readership when we posted articles such as "Will Atlanta hire Louisville's police chief Robert White?", "Atlanta, take Louisville's Police Chief. Please.," and "Is Louisville's police chief Robert White really that stupid?" We even saw a number of frequent visits from computer IP addresses registered to Atlanta's City Hall.
Now, we're not suggesting that our meager efforts at bringing the incompetence of our beloved LMPD Chief to light had anything to do with him not getting the Atlanta job-we're sure Mayor Reed based his decision solely upon the candidates' interviews and résumés-but we are comforted by the image of Chief White fanning the plate while we were yelling "batter, batter, batter!" from the cheap seats.
What's that you say? Even Babe Ruth struck out more than 1,000 times in his career? Sure he did; but not consecutively. Bob White has never had a home run, and ain't had a hit in years. Atlanta's loss is Louisville's loss, too.