InTucker Magazine

On the Beat with Lt. Berg -October 2021

Lt. J.W. Berg is Tucker’s liaison to the DeKalb County Police Department and can be contacted by email at jwberg@dekalbcountyga.gov or by phone at (678) 597-9040.

First, on behalf of the dedicated staff and the officers here at Tucker Precinct, I’d like to say “thank you” and “bon voyage” to Lt. Schoeppner. While he is leaving his position as our Tucker Liaison officer, his next voyage takes him to another important job as a supervisor in the DeKalb Police Major Felony Division. Lt. Schoeppner’s new duties will involve him responding to crime scenes around the County, including within the City of Tucker, ensuring our detectives thoroughly investigate these disturbing crimes. Hopefully, we will see Lt. “Shep” again in a more benign way, at one of Tucker’s restaurants or coffee shops enjoying a much deserved break.

Unfortunately, it appears that Lt. Schoeppner will not get much of a break, as this transition occurs during a time of increasing violence nationwide. As he discussed in his August 2021 InTucker article, many of these violent crimes, such as aggravated assaults, begin as domestic disputes, obviously involving parties that are known to each other. These domestic violence-related crimes are difficult to predict and, more importantly, tug at the heartstrings of any officer who has had a parent, sister, brother, etc. that have suffered from domestic abuse. Fortunately, our officers are highly trained and highly experienced at making the tough decisions needed to intervene in these sad situations.

More recently, it appears the stress and anger that often result in domestic violence inside our homes is increasingly spilling out onto the roadways and highways of our nation. According to an NBC News report earlier this year (07/08/21), law enforcement agencies nationwide are seeing an increase in what are grouped together as “road rage” incidents. In a recent WSB/95.5 article (09/02/21), it reported that death related to road rage incidents in the Metro Atlanta area has “spiked” in 2021. Indeed, so far this year our DeKalb County officers have responded to more than 80 road rage shootings.

While we can all speculate about the root causes of this trend in violence on our roadways – an increase in traffic with the lifting of COVID restrictions, more firearms being stored inside vehicles, etc. – I want to take the remaining time in this article to discuss what our Police Department is doing to respond to these violent incidents. More importantly, I also want to provide some ways in which you can more safely handle these incidents if they occur to you or someone in your family.

Earlier this year, when our crime analysts began to notice this road rage trend, our professional Command Staff formulated an operational plan. Beginning this past summer, a dedicated detail of officers from throughout the Department, including officers from Tucker Precinct, flooded the highways and roadways of our community. Since the start of this targeted detail, our officers have written over 1,600 citations and made nearly 20 felony and misdemeanor arrests, including two recent road rage arrests involving armed suspects (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 09/17/21).

In Georgia, we are fortunate to have a very good set of traffic laws to enforce, including the “move over” law (OCGA 40-6-16), the “super speeder” law (OCGA 40-6-189), the long awaited “hands-free” law (OCGA 40-6-241) and, most recently, an updated law that addresses the growing issue of highway “street racing” (40-6-390.1).

Hopefully, no citizens of Tucker have been stopped and ticketed during this “sweep” of our highways and roadways. After reading this article you should now be able to appreciate, or at least understand, the purpose of this increased enforcement. Of course, if you were recently caught speeding or holding your cell phone while driving, I hope you were cooperative with the officer, handing him or her your driver’s license and any other documents that were needed. Trust me, it is not fun for either party when a ticket has to be issued!

As far as what you can do to reduce your chances of being involved in a road rage incident, as Lt. Schoeppner mentioned in his August article, the word “patience” is now more important than ever. Given these road rage incidents seem to be getting more and more violent and often involve weapons, even if you are in the right, these situations can end up with someone hurt. Arriving to where you need to be safely is worth more than a few minutes of saved time or your life.

If you do find yourself being followed by someone with bad intentions, please drive to a well-lit public place. Inside the City of Tucker, for example, we are fortunate to have our own precinct (4451 Lawrenceville Hwy.) and also the headquarters of our Police Department (1960 West Exchange Pl., behind the LA Fitness). If you need to drive to either of these locations, be sure that you are calling 911 while en route so that we can have an officer respond to meet you as quickly as possible. Having a good description of the other vehicle and driver involved will help our officers and detectives locate the potential road rage suspect.

As I mentioned earlier, our DeKalb officers have been very busy patrolling our streets and highways during these urgent times. We want everyone, including ourselves, to get home safely.