APD Zone 2 Expansion Takes Place Tuesday Morning

The Atlanta Police Department's city beat realignment, which adds three beats to takes effect at 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Zone 2, which includes Buckhead, will take in two beats from the Morningside neighborhood and Cheshire Bridge Road corridor and form a Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza "super beat" for a total of 13 beats, an increase in territory from 36.1 to 39.5 square miles.

The expansion, delayed to ensure enough police academy graduates, will add 12 beats across the city, for a total of 78, according to a statement from the APD.

“Our ultimate goal is to ensure that the only difference our constituents notice is an improvement in service,” said Atlanta Police Chief George Turner in the announcement. “Some officers were stretched too thin, and we believe this redesign will provide relief to those officers. Meanwhile, the addition of new beats will assist greatly in ensuring adequate response to 911 calls.”

told NPU-A last week he has received 15 to 18 additional officers to handle the extra territory and has suffiicent resources. Browning has noted that Zone 2 previously included the Morningside and Cheshire Bridge beats.

"Some zones are taking on new territory, while others are shrinking areas they will have to cover," police spokesman Carlos Campos said in a statement. "The result is a redistributed workload that ensures officers across the six zones are able to respond to 911 calls, while also proactively working their beats to reduce crime. This beat redesign will ultimately make our 911 system even more efficient in reducing response time for Atlanta Police officers."

Police officers and 911 dispatchers "have been trained on the boundaries of the new beats to ensure a seamless transition," Campos said.

Campos said the city has added 477 new officers since Mayor Kasim Reed took office in January 2010. So far this year, the department has added 218 to the force.