◆ SpookStack

- [1 W. R. Gilbert to Mr. Monroe Memorandum Re: ATKID The Atlanta Police Department APD! is a 1,400 man force and the Task Force presently has approximately 70 to 75 officers assigned to it; The majority are from the APD but there are also representatives from DeKalb, Fulton, Rockdale, Douglas, and Cobb Counties as well as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The Agents stated that local politics has a major bearing on most decisions involving the Task Force. The APDs commitment to the Task Force is less than 100 percent. Examples given were that many of the investigators assigned to the Task Force are from the nonhomicide divisions of the police department and the most qualified investigators have not been assigned to the Task Force. They also indicate that the police department continues to make arrests in areas of moral offenses requiring large numbers of personnel which seems to contradict the expressions of support made by high-level officials of the police department, re their massive commitment to the solution of this case. Comments of the Agents involved and the media indicate that very little information is transmitted from the Task Force to the "street" officers who should be acting as the eyes and ears of the Task Force. The Task Force has finally reorganized along Major Case lines assigning investi- gative and administrative coordinators to the investigation. They are utilizing decoys in that three small black police officers are roaming the shopping centers with five backup officers for each decoy. Interestingly, they have utilized black female officers dressed as boys to get the youthful look necessary. This is a long shot but worth pursuing. y The FBI designed a form early in the investigation entitled "ATKID Observations Log." These forms were to be utilized by Agents and police officers during the course of their daily investigations to record all of the sightings of a black male child between the ages of 10 and l5 when he was in a vehicle operated by an adult not in the company of other children. The FBI wanted to limit these observations to black adult males and then have all of the positive sightings with appropriate descriptive information entered into a computer. The Task Force and the APD, however, refuse to narrow the scope to exclude white males and black females, and the utilization of the form was, therefore, less than effective. The Task Force and the FBI were coordinating surveillances at 15 shopping centers using these forms, but the program was, subsequently abandoned as the APD refused to narrow reports to the profile of a black male as provided by the FBI. The reports were, therefore, so all encompassing that the results were meaningless. -2- CONTINUED  OVER