Atlanta voter registration deadline fast approaching

It's hard to imagine that anyone managed to make it through the 2008 election without getting registered to vote, what with the dramatic rise in both registration and turnout. However, some people may have been stuck under a rock, and others may have moved and not had a chance to register at their new residence yet.

If you are a city of Atlanta resident and want to be able to vote in the incredibly important upcoming mayoral election to choose Shirley Franklin's replacement, you better make sure you are registered soon. October 5th is the deadline to register in time to be able to vote in the November 6th election. (And only those who registered in time will be eligible to vote in the even-more-important-and-inevitable runoff elections in December.) Creative Loafing has the details.

Why should you bother to vote in a municipal election for perhaps the first time in your life? Well, if you live within the Atlanta city limits then you almost certainly have been at minimum troubled by, if not directly touched by, the rash of high profile crimes in the city. You may have been bothered by the willful blindness exhibited by our current mayor and her police chief. You may be flabbergasted that in this day and age our once-progressive city is raiding gay bars to prevent the victimless crime of dancing in tighty whities. You may want to make sure that fiscal irresponsibility remains just a bad memory for our city rather than a hallmark. There are a host of good reasons to actually pay attention and vote in this election. So make sure you have the power to have a say, and get registered this week!

A Little Atlanta Inspiration

Very few things penetrate my hard little cynical heart these days, but when they do I feel the need to share. Reading the fascinating inside story of how community advocate Kyle Keyser decided to run for mayor and then managed to raise the $4500 filing fee in just under three days, I felt like the grinch who finally learned the meaning of Christmas.

I haven't been involved with Keyser's group ATAC for several months now, mainly because I began despairing that crime in Atlanta was a problem that the powers that be simply refused to really tackle head-on. I felt hopeless and decided there was no point in paying attention to those who had not yet lost hope. Keyser isn't going to win the mayor's race, but he will certainly keep the other candidates on their toes when it comes to the issues of rising crime in Atlanta and police incompetence. And in his continuing quest to achieve his ultimate objectives of a safer Atlanta with more accountable public officials and police force, that will be a tremendous achievement.

Ultimately it's a very inspiringly American story. An average guy who would never have seen himself doing something like this a year ago is now thrust into the spotlight of running for mayor. He calls up on his friends and neighbors to help him, and they come through. And then, once he cleared the first hurdle of qualifying, Keyser knew exactly where they should go for lunch afterwards.

My heart grew three sizes today.

Crime gets closer

Those of you who know me well (or who have been paying attention) know that I spend many a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon on the patio of Moe's and Joe's in Virginia-Highland. Like many of the regulars there I was quite rattled when a bartender at one of Moe's and Joe's sister bars, the Standard, was murdered during a robbery at gunpoint back in January. I detailed several instances of violent crime inching ever closer into the neighborhood I previously perceived as safe, and wondered what would happen next and if there was any way to combat the burgeoning violent crime wave hitting Atlanta.

Fast forward three months, and the murderers of John Henderson still have not been apprehended. This is a bet that I made with a friend hoping I would lose, hoping that Henderson's killers would be caught within the month because of the media attention and police focus on the case. Sadly, cynical old me was right.

In the meantime, Atlanta has continued to experience this violent crime wave without any real evidence of abatement. Saturday night, it penetrated the heart of my neighborhood. An employee of the Virginia-Highland Taco Mac was held up in the back of the bar after closing time, and was forced inside at gunpoint. A manager who had been helping to clean up out front saw the robbery in progress, got his gun from his car, and intervened. He fired several times at the robber, who appeared to be wounded but escaped. (While some of you may lament that the shots were not lethal, please consider that the manager is probably very relieved today that he does not have to live with the enormity of having killed someone.)

This Taco Mac is across the street from Moe's and Joe's. One of my friends works for the company, and this store is included in his territory. Friends who bartend at Moe's and Joe's have been beseiged by the press since the Saturday night shooting, and everyone is expressing the same somewhat scary reality: the only way for a bartender in Atlanta to protect his or herself late at night right now is to be armed. Where are the police to protect them? Furloughed, busy writing DUI tickets, or patroling the more dangerous parts of town because places like Virginia-Highland aren't supposed to see this sort of thing.

It's apparent that assumptions like that are now wrong, and clinging to them is futile. Everyone is scared and edgy, and the police continue to appear not to care. I continue to wonder what can be done? A rise in community outreach and protests has certainly raised awareness, but has it prevented crime? Has it caused the police to listen?

I'm scared and sad for my city, my neighborhood, and most of all for my friends. They will have to confront a fear of death every time they take out the trash behind their bar, walk to their car after closing the place down, or decide whether to bring their gun to work today. I want to protect them, but I don't know how.

Dine Out Wednesday to help catch John Henderson's killers

Local restaurants are donating 20% of their profits Wednesday, January 28th to the Crime Stoppers reward fund for information about the murderers of Standard bartender John Henderson. A lot of great local restaurants and bars are participating, so come have a meal and some brews and do your part! Here's the restaurants participating:

* 97 Estoria
* Agave
* The Albert
* Atkins Park
* Blind Willie’s
* Brake Pad
* The Cavern
* The Corner Tavern (all locations)
* Dakota Blue
* The Glenwood
* El Myr
* Flatiron
* Food 101
* Fontaine’s Oyster House
* Front Page News (Moreland Ave. location)
* Genki Noodles & Sushi
* Grant Central Pizza
* Highland Tap
* Holy Taco
* JavaVino
* JCT Kitchen
* Limerick Junction
* Little Azios- East Atlanta
* Mehan’s Public House
* Midway Pub
* Milltown Arms Tavern
* Moe’s & Joe’s*
* No Mas Cantina
* Octane Coffee
* The Pool Hall (Buckhead)
* Radial
* Ria’s Bluebird
* San Francisco Coffee
* Six Feet Under (both locations)
* Steamhouse Lounge
* Steinbeck’s
* The Standard
* U Joint
* Vickery’s Bar and Grill (Glenwood Park & Midtown)
* Vortex, Little Five Points
* West Egg
* Zaya Restaurant

Fifth Group Restaurants

* El Taco
* La Tavola

HomeGrown Restaurants

* Doc Chey’s Noodle House
* Osteria 832 Pasta & Pizza
* Stella Trattoria

U Restaurant Group

* Beleza
* Cuerno
* Fritti
* Sotto Sotto

Other participating businesses

* Jac (boutique)

*Where I'll be. If you come to Moe's & Joe's on Wednesday, you can even heckle Griftdrift running trivia AND help contribute to the fund!

Doing what we can

In response to the horrifying murder of bartender John Henderson this morning, people in Atlanta are mobilizing. It would be easy to be paralyzed and depressed in the face of such tragedy, but I am greatly appreciative that instead ordinary people are trying to find ways to draw attention, assist the grieving, and make the city take notice of the burgeoning problem.

The Grant Park Neighborhood Association has set up a Memorial Fund for Henderson's family.

There is also a vigil scheduled for tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. in front of the Standard to bring attention both to the tragic loss of John Henderson, and to bring attnetion to the lack of police presence in the area and request stepped up patrols. If you are interested in lending your voice and your presence, bring candles and show your support for this community that is hurt and scared right now like the rest of us can only imagine. Even though 7am is mighty early for me, I am going to try to make it down there.

The community's outrage and grief over this senseless killing and the rise in violent crime in Atlanta has spawned a group called Atlantans Together Against Crime & Cutbacks (ATACC). The group has just been created but will be ramping up both the website and the social activism in the weeks and months to come. Sign up on the email list to learn more.

As more rallies and outpourings of support come about, I will add them to this post.

What can be done?

Creative Loafing's Thomas Wheatley has an eerily appropriately timed piece today about how violent crime is becoming more brazen in the Atlanta intown neighborhoods previously thought to be "safer" than some of the tougher neighborhoods in the city. He speaks to a victim of a robbery at gunpoint who listened as his robbers discussed whether to shoot him. It is a chilling tale, and I hope it will serve as a wakeup call to many that violent crime is becoming a very serious threat to all of us here in the city.

I have been quietly worried for well over a year that violent crime was on the rise in the city of Atlanta. Each time I heard a story about a violent crime that happened near my house, or in a place that I have been to before, or in a way that makes me think "that could have been me," I shuddered and resolved to be a little safer and smarter.

But, I still walk alone at night through my neighborhood (Virginia-Highland), I still have walked alone in downtown Atlanta at night, and I still don't have my alarm system at home connected anymore. I drive to Grant Park and the Old Fourth Ward every once in awhile to play poker, and I walk to my car alone afterwards. I recognize that I have been lucky, even as a steady stream of violent crimes in places near my house or where I spend time have been occurring since 2007:

A man was shot and later died after leaving the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club in Little Five Points.

A man was shot and killed less than half a mile from my house, at the corner of Monroe Dr. and Amsterdam Ave., in summer of 2007.

Women were attacked and sexually assaulted in the parking lot of the Amsterdam Walk shopping and dining area last January.

Two lawyers were kidnapped outside an East Atlanta bar last summer and held for 13 hours.

Last month, armed robbers walked into a crowded Fellini's in Decatur and robbed the place at gunpoint.

Why do I say that Wheatley's piece is appropriately timed? Because last night armed robbers broke into the Standard, a bar on Memorial Drive near Grant Park. They shot employee John Henderson in the head and he later died. I probably don't know John Henderson, but I have spent some time at the Standard and have a lot of friends who know the people there very well. I know people who will be grieving for Henderson, and who will also be thinking today about how easily this could have happened to them. I have friends who are bartenders, who close bars late at night and could be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like I have friends who eat at Fellini's in Decatur, or walk to their cars in Grant Park, or walk from Euclid Ave. Yacht Club to apartments in Little Five.

We should all be scared by this trend, not just when it happens to someone we know but because it could happen to any of us.

What can be done? We have a city and county in budget freefall that's scaling back patrol hours for police. We have a police department and sherriff's department that have been marked primarily by ineptitude for years. We have an economic disaster that is causing more and more people to turn to crime to make ends meet. And we have criminals who are becoming more brazen because they know they can get away with it in this environment.

I'm scared and pissed off, and I don't know what to do. Is there any realistic solution that actually reduces violent crime? (Short of moving to a farmhouse in the country and buying 87 shotguns?)