Crime & Safety
Police Investigating Parking Meter Vandalism Case
An investigator has been assigned to the case.
The Atlanta Police Department is investigating the vandalism case that rendered nearly five dozen parking meters inoperable.
"An investigator has been assigned to assist Zone 6 with identifying the perpetrators," Sgt. Greg Lyon, an APD spokesman said.
An anonymous anarchist group said it tampered with 54 meters in the city, mainly in the Sweet Auburn District.
In an e-mail to East Atlanta Patch the group said it did so to protest the deaths of a man in Indiana and a North Carolina teenager. Neither case has an obvious Atlanta connection.The meters are managed by PARKatlanta, which is under contract to maintain them for the city.
Preventing such acts is difficult, Valerie Bell-Smith, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Department of Public Works, told Patch.
"There are no changes that can be made in an attempt to mitigate these types of issues as the meters are on the street and must remain accessible by the community," she said, adding vandalized meters are not unique to Atlanta.
Per the PARKatlanta contract, the company is allowed to charge the city up to $30,000 in annual fees for maintenance which includes vandalism.
But Bell-Smith noted the company has never charged a fee against that amount and will not do so in this case.
"This recent activity of vandalism appears to be isolated," she said. "We do encourage citizens to report suspicious behavior when they see it."
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