From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: Atlanta Crime Cover-Up Aided '96 Olympics Bid

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Atlanta Crime Cover-Up Aided '96 Olympics Bid

February 21, 2004

Man, this one smells bad. The City of Atlanta routinely fudged crime reports to help win its bid to host the 1996 Olympics, according to a city audit.

Police in this relentlessly self-promoting city of the New South routinely altered or suppressed thousands of crime reports in a concerted effort "to improve Atlanta's chances for selection," the audit said, citing interviews with several officers.
"Crime incidents were downgraded, underreported and discarded," the report said.

The practice of underreporting crime began during the site-selection process for the Olympics and continued until at least 2002, when Police Chief Richard Pennington and Mayor Shirley Franklin took office, the report said.

Police reports were deep-sixed or permanently misplaced, including at least 22,000 in 2002. An estimated 4,281 of those would have been violent offenses.

Even with years of underreporting, the city was ranked first or second in violent crimes for nine out of the last 10 years, according to FBI data. Atlanta has avoided the overt racial tensions of cities such as Los angeles and New York in recent decades. But officials say it's drugs that have been fueling violent street crime. Not exactly the picture of this progressive Southern city many folks had.