Morning, y’all! You know what I was trying to find in the office the other day? A dictionary. A good old, 50-pound hardback dictionary. Every newsroom has one lying around (it’s practically law), along with about a dozen AP Stylebooks dating back to approximately 1960.
Why did I need it? You see, someone spelled something wrong and insisted it was correct. That cannot stand. I know I could have just looked it up, but when you know you are correct, it makes it even better if you can hold the proof in your hands.
Anyway, let’s get to it.
THE DEKALB COUNTY POLICE SHUFFLE
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
DeKalb County police Chief Mirtha Ramos is stepping down from her post, she announced Thursday. Ramos was the county’s first female police chief when she came on in 2019.
Ramos didn’t give any details about why she’s stepping down, but her decision comes at a verrry interesting time for DeKalb County law enforcement.
Earlier this week, DeKalb County’s chief executive Lorraine Cochran-Johnson rolled out a big plan to increase recruiting and retention for law enforcement positions in 2025.
- $10.4 million: The value of the total plan
- 841: The number of sworn positions funded in the county
- 531: The number of those jobs that are actually filled
- $61,000: The new annual base salary the plan would offer a police recruit, up from $57,200. Officers with a college degree would receive about $64,000. Other benefits, like a housing allowance, could also be offered.
Here’s another bit of math: Cochran-Johnson said the money that would go toward her police recruitment plan would otherwise be spent on overtime for existing positions. She said the department spent more than $19 million on overtime costs in the fiscal year 2024 because of severe staffing shortages.
🔎 Read more details of the plan here.
Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the countywide spending plan Feb. 28.
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AN ALLEGED BAIT AND SWITCH
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
A trio of trained industrial engineers from Mexico claim they were lured to Georgia with the promise of qualified work, only to be given menial labor jobs at a building materials plant with lower pay than non-Mexican workers.
- The men accused LX Hausys America Inc., the operator of a plant in Calhoun, along with two Georgia staffing companies, of an “employment bait-and-switch scheme.”
- The accusations could run up against Georgia’s version of racketeering charges.
- In fact, a Georgia federal judge just ruled the RICO claim was strong enough for the case to move forward in court.
Unfortunately, this kind of abuse isn’t unusual, here or abroad. The AJC reported on a similar case in 2022, only to have other Mexican immigrants come forward with their own tales of deception.
ELDER CARE CONCERNS
Last November, 89-year-old Patricia Miele was found dead in a pond about half a mile from Greenwood Place, the senior care home in Marietta where she resided.
The death prompted an inspection by the Georgia Department of Community Health, and the recently released results mirror some larger concerns about the state of elder care facilities in Georgia.
Severe understaffing: An inspection found the facility didn’t have enough caregivers covering the residential floors on the night Miele went missing. No one had checked on her overnight, either. Understaffing is a severe issue facing elder care facilities across the state.
‼️ Have a loved one in elder care? You need to know: Assisted living facilities are supposed to have at least one caregiver on each floor during a shift.
Accountability issues: The DCH can fine elder care facilities for certain violations, like not having properly trained staff or not appropriately contacting authorities in an emergency. The AJC’s Allie Gross found fines and violations against Greenwood Place didn’t match the severity of the infractions, and it is still unclear how the DCH plans to hold the facility accountable.
‼️ You also need to know: State law says law enforcement must be called within 30 minutes of a resident discovered missing in an elder care home.
There’s an extremely unsettling background to this story: An AJC investigation from 2024 found dozens of people went missing from Georgia assisted living and personal care homes between January 2023 and July 2024. Even in cases where the residents died, the state did not always impose mandated fine amounts.
LATEST FROM LAKE OCONEE
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
The AJC’s Joe Kovac, Jr. spent time with some with volunteers on Lake Oconee who are helping in the search for missing track and field coach Gary Jones. The stories of these volunteers are a needed reminder that even during the uncertainty of a tragedy-turned-mystery, kindness is always working behind the scenes.
David Wallace, 77, says he regularly accompanied his father on drowning calls back in the day and helping search for Jones was a way to honor him while helping out.
“Usually, they don’t ask people to come out here and help find bodies anymore,” Wallace said. “And I said, ‘This is my opportunity to do something good for the community.’”
Navy veteran Jeffrey Bahls said it just made sense to step in.
“It’s the right thing. I live right around the corner. Why am I not out here helping?”
🔎 More details from the site of the search, and why some locals felt called to help.
LET’S PLAN YOUR WEEKEND
Credit: Photo courtesy of Jurassic Quest
Credit: Photo courtesy of Jurassic Quest
Hey, what are you up to this weekend? Wanna hang out? No, you don’t, I’m a bore. Try some of these things instead:
🦕 Life-size animatronic dinosaurs: I mean, do I need to say anything else? Jurassic Quest is invading Atlanta’s Cobb Galleria Centre from Friday to Sunday. It’s billed as the largest, most realistic traveling dinosaur exhibit in North America. Tickets start at $22.
⭐ Atlanta Black Expo: Get your Black history (and Black present) on at the Georgia World Congress Center with an event billed as Atlanta’s Largest Black Business Marketplace. Round out the day with exhibits, workshops, speakers, shopping, food tastings and more.
🧊 Special Olympics Polar Plunge: Support the athletes of Special Olympics Georgia and freeze all your bits off at the same time! It goes down Saturday at Cauble Park in Acworth. There are Polar Plunges around the country, and it’s always a blast. People wear costumes and everything.
A friend whose brother was a Special Olympics athlete always participates in the Virginia Beach one, and this year his family dressed up as passengers on the Titanic. Get on his level.
Here are 15 cool (and cold) things to do in the Atlanta area this weekend.
NEWS BITES
Cold weather advisory continues today in Georgia
Cold weather, for February? Groundbreaking.
Atlanta United’s season opener is this Saturday
If you hear a massive thousand-voiced roar, it’s just the Mercedes-Benz Stadium crowd giving everyone a warm welcome.
Braves spring training also starts Saturday
And it will be a plush green oasis for this baseball fan’s parched soul.
Former UGA QB Carson Beck reportedly has Lambo, Mercedes stolen in Miami
Hate it when that happens.
ON THIS DATE
Feb. 21, 1986
Credit: File photo
Credit: File photo
A federal judge allowed Milledgeville to keep the word “Christianity” in its city seal — as long as it wasn’t “displayed where it can be widely viewed by the public.” The thought process: The word was too small to read when embossed on things like stationery anyway.
A professor at Georgia College, his wife and two other plaintiffs had filed a lawsuit challenging the phrase on constitutional grounds. The city agreed to remove the word altogether in 1992.
ONE MORE THING
What this classical music lover is spinning for Black History Month: Sterling Elliott and the Elliott Family String Quartet
I caught young cellist Sterling Elliott with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra last night. It’s always fun to see how gifted musicians work with their instruments. Elliott has a mastery so deep it looks casual, and that’s on full display in this short, electric excerpt of him playing Mark Summers’ “Julio-O.” Elliott surprised the audience last night with an impromptu performance of the piece, which was a real treat. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone play a cello like he does.
Talent runs in the family, too. He, his mom and two siblings make up the Elliott Family String Quartet, and according to the ASO’s program notes, his mom basically picked the cello for him before he was even born. Sometimes moms can really call it, huh?
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at amatl@ajc.com. Until next time.
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