ATLANTA — A Channel 2 Action News investigation uncovered eight Atlanta police recruits accused of everything from a shooting to smoking marijuana have been fired from the police academy in the past two years.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Nicole Carr got a tip about an Atlanta police recruit accused of shooting a man in Gwinnett County.
We filed an open records request with Atlanta police to find out how many recruits are leaving the academy. We checked with the state and found eight recruits were fired because they were accused of crimes or lying.
“Just all kinds of blue lights; we didn’t put up blue for Christmas, but we got blue,” said Steve Shulman, who saw the police response to a shooting on Superior Drive in Gwinnett County on Christmas Eve.
“I heard the shots. At first, I thought they were fireworks,” Shulman said.
“How many shots would you (say?)” Carr asked Shulman.
“Two, just two,” Shulman said.
According to a police report, James Ball shot the boyfriend of a woman he had been talking to on social media two times, once in the back and once in the arm.
The report states Ball told the 911 dispatcher he was an off-duty APD officer. But he wasn’t. Ball was a recruit going through the academy.
We knocked on the door of the house where Ball met the woman.
“I don’t want to talk about that. I’m not liking what I’m thinking,” said the woman who answered the door.
“The old saying, if there’s smoke there’s fire,” said Vince Champion, who is the southeast regional director of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.
Champion also spent eight years recruiting and training police officers.
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