Judge orders owner of problem apartment complex to pay for officers

EAST POINT, Ga. — A judge ordered the owner of an East Point apartment complex to pay for officers' time after police said they're answering too many calls on the property.

The complex owner told Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes that city officials and police just aren't doing their jobs.

The Brookfield apartment complex on Washington Road has turned into a haven for crime over the last few years.

“It is one of the worst apartment complexes in the city of East Point,” prosecutor Antavius Weems told Fernandes.

City officials deemed the property a nuisance six months ago. They say police answer about 25 crime calls per month at the complex.

“That includes homicides, that includes burglaries, that includes car break-ins, that includes shots fired,” Weems said.

TRENDING STORIES:

• Tropical Storm Watch issued for parts of north Georgia
• Parents say video shows student give Nazi salute to Trump flag in class
• Surveillance video shows store clerk fight with knife-wielding robber

A few months ago, a judge ordered the apartment complex owner to pay off-duty East Point police officers about $50 per hour for several hours a day.

“They required us to hire four off-duty East Point police officers for up to 16 hours a day, I believe at a cost to my client of over $150,000 a month,” said Bryan Busch, attorney for the property owner.

In a court hearing Friday, the property owner said that’s too much money and at the end of the hearing, Fernandes watched as the property manager yelled and pointed her finger in a code enforcement officer's face.

“Our concern was the city of East Point was basically shifting the burden of policing onto a private citizen as opposed to taking that upon themselves,” Busch told Fernandes.

On Friday, a judge cut the court order in half.

Now, the owner has to pay two off-duty, POST-certified police officers from any police jurisdiction to be on the property for eight hours a day.

“Hopefully the city made a big step with respect to cleaning up the crime, the criminal element in the

Brookfield apartments, so that the residents there can live peacefully,” Weems told Fernandes.

Cox Media Group