Newspaper Page Text
LOCAL
THE CHAMPION, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17-23, 2019 • Page 6
PROTEST
Continued From Page 1
LARY
Continued From Page 1
of violation of oath of office.
Olsen was indicted by a grand
jury in 2016 for shooting and
killing veteran Hill in March of
2015. Hill was unarmed at the
time and family members said
he was suffering from a mental
health episode.
In the four years leading up
to trial, social justice groups held
protests, a DeKalb judge recused
himself from the case without
offering explanation and Olsen’s
attorney Don Samuels called the
grand jury trial a media “circus.”
Olsen will be sentenced
on Nov. 1. He could face up to
35 years in prison if DeKalb
County Superior Court Judge
Latisha Dear Jackson decides
to sentence Olsen consecutively.
Jackson set bond for Olsen at
$80,000, ordered him to wear an
ankle monitor and imposed a 7
p.m. curfew until sentencing.
Hill’s mother, Caroline
Guimmo, wiped away tears as
jurors read the verdict. Olsen’s
Olsen
wife was escorted from the
courtroom, crying loudly as she
left.
“It’s been four years that
we’ve been waiting for this. My
son is no longer here,” Guimmo
said.
Olsen’s defense team argued
that Olsen was in fear for his life
when Hill refused to listen to
commands for him to stop and
put his hands up.
During the trial, witnesses
stated Hill did raise his hands
and slowed to a walk when
approaching Olsen just moments
before being shot.
Samuels said Olsen was an
excellent police officer with no
history of excessive force.
“After seven years on the
police force, no citizen ever
complained about [Robert]
Olsen,” Samuels said. “What
this case comes down to is, was
Chip Olsen reasonable in fear on
March 15 that afternoon? Was it
reasonable for him to be fearful
of imminent violence?”
Prosecutor Buffy Thomas
said Olsen could have used other
means of subduing Hill.
“He immediately reached
for his firearm. The only lethal
weapon on his belt,” Thomas
said. “He yelled stop twice and
then he shoots him.”
ETHICS
Continued From Page 1
the board’s current members were
appointed unconstitutionally.
Some of the amendments would
require county employees to file
complaints with human resource
departments before filing with
the ethics board, allow the county
CEO to have a representative on
the ethics committee and change
the ethics officer position to an
ethics administrator.
Paul Root Wolpe, director
of the Center for Ethics at Emory
University, said the proposed
changes weaken the structure of
DeKalb’s ethics board.
“My initial thoughts were that
this is an attempt by the DeKalb
administration to take back
control of an ethics committee,”
Wolpe said. “Some amendments
are appropriate, but a lot, in fact,
are problematic.”
Wolpe said one problematic
change is requiring county
employees to file a complaint
with human resources
departments.
“That breaks the confidence
and trust of employees and deters
people from bringing forth ethics
complaints. That’s a breach of
ethics and there’s no reasonable
justification for it,” Wolpe said.
Wolpe said he also takes
issue with the change in roles of
an ethics officer. Traditionally,
an ethics officer is someone
with an expertise in ethics,
such as a lawyer, Wolpe said.
The amendments changed the
minimum requirements from
someone with a doctorate degree
in ethics to a bachelor's degress.
“They turned an expert
position into a clerical position.
This person will have less
authority and won’t be able to
train county employees in ethics,”
Wolpe said.
Former board of ethics
member Patricia Killingworth,
a retired attorney, said she’s
frustrated with the proposed
changes. Killingworth, who
worked for DeKalb’s board of
ethics for a decade, said DeKalb
residents made it clear how the
ethics board should be run.
In 2015, DeKalb residents
voted to overhaul the former
ethics board system. One of the
major changes includes ethics
board members being appointed
by independent groups rather
than being appointed by DeKalb’s
CEO and commissioners.
The changes were proposed
by the DeKalb Government
Operations Task Force, a group
of community leaders and
government officials appointed
by then Interim DeKalb CEO Lee
May, and Blueprint DeKalb—a
group of DeKalb residents
focused on ethics changes in the
county.
“The changes were researched
for two years. It was an extensive
process and one of the key points
that came out of that was the clear
preference for appointments to
be made by independent groups,”
Killingworth said.
Killingworth said DeKalb
voters need to educate themselves
on the details of the bill.
“If this amendment passes
and goes forward, it will cost
the county a lot more time and
money. The ethics board will be
back in the hands of the CEO,”
Killingworth said.
Killingworth said before
changes were made to the ethics
board in 2015, the board had
issues performing basic duties.
“It was frustrating,”
Killingworth said. “I think board
members were trying to do a
good job but we didn’t have
money or any funding. We didn’t
have an investigator or any
backup to pursue claims. I know
it was frustrating for people filing
the complaints.
“I don’t think we were taken
seriously by elected officials.
That’s what it felt like. There
were a lot of letters sent to board
of commissioners asking for
support.”
Mall of Stonecrest corridor and $200
million in the city’s industrial parks.
“That’s where the real jobs and
money are coming from because
distribution and light manufacturing
are coming back on shore and it’s not
being pushed out to China and these
other places like it used to be,” he said.
“So, we’ve done an excellent job of
marketing our two industrial parks—
Panola Industrial Park and Stonecrest
Industrial Park [formerly Lithonia
Industrial Park], People are building and
constructing and contracting over there.
“We’re exploding in residential
construction,” Lary continued. “We have
more construction going on than any city
in DeKalb County. Everyone wants to
come to Stonecrest.”
He added that he is “flat out more
than confident” that the city will create
several thousand jobs and add more than
a billion dollars in infrastructure over the
next two to five years.
“And that’s what we’ve been waiting
for,” Lary said.
Lary is being challenged by former
city councilwoman Diane Adoma and
Charles Hill, who ran against Lary
in the 2017 mayoral race, in the Nov.
5 election. Both opponents have been
critical of Lary’s leadership and point
out that the city has lost businesses,
specifically big-chain businesses such
as Sam’s. Lary said he believes he has
been a good leader and that he can’t help
that national businesses are going out of
business.
“What people don’t understand is
that every time one of these big boxes
goes out of business, there’s two more
distribution companies looking to move
in there,” he said. “We have the [former]
Sam’s building under contract and it’s
going to be a good central mechanism of
the downtown that we’re building for the
center of Stonecrest.”
Lary also mentioned the city’s recent
purchase of the former Sears building
at The Mall at Stonecrest, which will be
Stonecrest’s new public safety building.
The city plans to share the public safety
building with DeKalb County Police
Department.
“I’ve done all of this with a zero
tax, zero millage rate,” he said. “So, the
people that are saying that I haven’t done
a good job, or talk about my leadership,
how can that possibly be when I had all
of this created without a tax?”
Lary said he hopes voters put him
back in office so that he can continue
to fulfill the promises that he made to
residents.
“Give me a chance to finish the
work I started,” he said. “Two years is
not enough to achieve the goals that the
people want in southeast DeKalb. At
least give me another term to do what I
said I was going to do because I’ve kept
my word on everything.”
