Pennington Defends Police Training
May 1, 2007
By Kevin Rowson

Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington held his second news conference in as many days Tuesday to defend the training of his officers following the guilty pleas by two narcotics detectives in the shooting death of an elderly woman.

"We don't train anyone to lie. We don't train anyone to go out and break the law," Pennington told reporters.

Pennington released training records of the three officers involved in the botched drug raid at the home of Kathryn Johnston, 92, last November. Johnston fired a shot at the officers as they broke down her door and they, in turn, fired 39 rounds at her with a fatal bullet striking her in the chest. Two of the three officers involved in the raid admitted in court last week to lying to get a no-knock warrant to search Johnston's home and to planting marijuana in her basement after she was shot to death.

The training records released by Pennington show that Officer Greg Junnier received 1,313 hours of training, Officer Jason Smith received 1,359 hours of training, and Officer Arthur Tesler received 1,500 hours of training since joining the Atlanta Police Department. The records were released in response to criticism by an attorney for Junnier who said his client lacked the proper training.

"These officers were trained and we're gonna continue to train. Now we're gonna add more narcotics training" for new officers in the unit, Pennington said. "We want to make sure that no one uses an excuse that they didn't get trained and that's why they went out and did what they did."

Pennington, who was joined by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin at Tuesday's news conference, also denied accusations that he set quotas for drug arrests. He said the only goal set for his commanders is to reduce crime by 5 percent. He said he is reviewing whether to make changes in the command of the narcotics unit in addition to numerous other changes in police policy since the raid.

Mayor Franklin said that she rejected suggestions by federal authorities not to make changes in the department while the investigation into the botched Neal Street drug raid was ongoing.

“It seems to me that we're under the obligation to make changes as soon as we became aware of the problems within the unit,� she said. "I did not believe that was the right course of action, that the right course of action was to take action as soon as we were alerted to a problem."

Those changes in the department policy include:

As for the training of the officers in the Neal Street raid, Franklin said, "Certainly, there was no suggestion that they should lie, that they should plant evidence or shoot anyone."

At their upcoming sentencing, Smith is expected to receive a 12-year prison sentence while Junnier is expected to receive a 10-year prison sentence. Tesler, who was indicted on the least serious charges, maintains his innocence and plans to fight the charges at trial.