Georgia
GSU plans weekend crackdown to prevent further violence near campus
GSU Police stepping up their presence this weekend after shootings and drag races
Because the weekend approaches officers with Georgia State College are taking steps to verify the violent drag racing and shootings that occurred close to campus don’t occur once more.
ATLANTA – Georgia State College is taking motion following a chaotic weekend close to campus with shootings and drag racing.
GSU Police Chief Anthony Coleman says they’re planning to step up their presence within the residential space within the upcoming weekend, the place the majority of the exercise occurred.
As massive crowds gathered close to campus on April 1, issues rapidly turned violent with a number of folks leaping on high of a automotive, after which pictures fired. Police arrested seven folks.
“In my 31 years, there’s by no means been a weekend like this,” Chief Coleman mentioned.
Chief Coleman says they’ll companion with a number of companies together with the Atlanta Police Division, Georgia State Patrol, Fulton County Sheriff’s Workplace, and Georgia Tech Police Division to focus on potential offenders over the weekend.
“I need our college students which can be residing on campus to only notice that should you convey an out of doors affect into Georgia State College, that does not have any kind of historical past with Georgia State College, they don’t care about Georgia State College. So, I need our college students to care about Georgia State College and take into consideration the skin influences that they are permitting to come back onto the campus,” he defined.
He mentioned step one was strengthening communication with non-university owned housing and neighboring areas.
“There have been some issues that occurred this previous weekend the place we felt like perhaps, if we communicated, we may have stopped some issues from occurring. We may have shut some events down earlier than they bought began,” Chief Coleman mentioned.
“One of many largest issues a few of these promoters have been doing was saying, ‘OK, let’s meet at this parking zone right here.’ So, we have reached out to a few of these parking tons, and so they have been like, ‘No, you could have full authority on this parking zone to close it down,’” he added.
APD can even add extra license plate readers within the space and set up metal plates at intersections. The division can even work with the Atlanta Metropolis Council to make the housing space a no cruise zone.
In a letter posted on the varsity’s web site, President Brian Blake mentioned partially:
Though we share our streets with non-GSU property homeowners and companies, our college management finds this conduct unacceptable and we are going to do all in our energy to stem this exercise. The security of our college students is our high precedence.”
“We will get out this weekend and simply make it uncomfortable for folks to hang around and trigger havoc round Georgia State College,” Chief Coleman mentioned.
The additional patrol already began on Thursday with ten further officers within the housing space to verify college students are secure.