Saturday, April 13, 2024–7:21 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
An increased public safety presence in Downtown Rome, specifically on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, is making a difference and more measures are being looked at.
According to Rome Downtown Development Authority Director Aundi Lesley, there have been challenges with vagrancy, large groups of juveniles, and loud trucks. Assistant Rome Police Chief Rodney Bailey told the DDA board on Thursday that there are still issues with groups of unsupervised juveniles, but when things get out of hand, the officers are on top of it. Some businesses are also invoking a curfew for unsupervised teens. There is also a city criminal trespass ordinance.
“If a business owner has a repeat offender, or someone who is continually causing a problem, you can fill a form out and we will put it in our records management system,” Bailey said. “When the officers are responding, they can see if there is a trespass form attached to that location, they can then act on that. If the person has been warned, officers can then begin charging whoever is violating that trespass order.”
Bailey also told the DDA that although the City of Rome curfew is 10 p.m., the state curfew is midnight, meaning you cannot go to juvenile court unless it’s a state violation.
“We are working through some options with that, to see if we want to see if we want to revisit the ordinance or if we want to continue to focus on parents,” he said. “We can bring parents to municipal court. We just can’t bring juveniles to municipal court, if that makes sense.”
Bailey also mentioned that the city has been awarded a Safe Communities grant.
“That money should be available in the next couple of months,” he said. “That is going to allow us to put two officers on the road, paid for with grant money. Those two officers will focus on high-crime areas. We consider downtown a hotspot area, as we call it. So, they are going to be able to do some policing on that, and that should go throughout the summer.”
Bailey stressed the importance of business owners and those who frequent downtown to call or text 911 if they see something suspicious or out of the ordinary.
“Our response times are still way below two minutes, so we will get somebody there,” he said. “It’s just a matter of getting the public conditioned to call us. Some people feel like if it’s not an emergency, they don’t want to call. However, it’s definitely the only way to get a dispatch call for service.”
Bailey said when the police department is once again fully staffed; he would like to see the return of bicycle officers downtown.
