Afleveringen
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When Georgia state lawmakers debated a proposed law back in 2018 about granting cities the authority to install speed detection cameras in school zones, the billâs author pulled at his colleaguesâ heartstrings.
âWeâve had several deaths and major injuries in the state of Georgia already in these school zones,â said then-state Rep. Chad Nimmer, a Republican from Blackshear, during a state House public safety and homeland security committee hearing. âAnd if they think surveillance technology is the right way to protect their children and their memaws and peepaws and mommies and daddies and the cross-walk tenants safe, they can install this if they deem necessary.â
The committee chairman called it a âgood bill.â Lawmakers passed it with little discussion.
Nearly five years later, an Atlanta News First Investigation has uncovered the cameras have exploded in use, generating millions in revenue for cities across the state. In 2019, the Georgia Department of Transportation approved 39 camera permits. Last year, there were 290 approved permits.
Public records from 54 Georgia municipalities reveal the cameras have generated more than $112 million in revenue since 2019, an amount that has some lawmakers and city leaders questioning the real motivation of the cameras.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Paul Lowe was 93, but the husband and grandfather was still living independently and making plans for the future. He often left notes for his wife to read around the house.
âOne of the last notes I have [from him] is, âPutting this in writing, âDo not buy more ice cream,â said Betty Lowe. âBecause he knew, if I brought it home, he would eat it.â
Paul Lowe died in May at Piedmont Eastside Medical Center in Snellville, Georgia, while being treated for pneumonia. When he passed away, his family said the hospital initially told them he died from natural causes.
But a lawsuit filed in Cobb County on Monday claims the hospital fatally overdosed him with morphine, and then failed to save him, despite knowing about the mistake for hours.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/26/family-claims-georgia-hospital-euthanized-father-through-overdose/ -
He never pulled the trigger, but Christian Brown nearly went to prison after going somewhere he wasnât supposed to be with a gun in his hand.
It happened in December 2018 inside a strangerâs home near Palmetto, Georgia. Brown used the bottom of a handgun to hit the homeowner in the head and walked away with just over $100.
âEvery time I look back at that, Iâm like, that was not worth it at all,â Brown said. âI regret that, too. I regret everything that I did.â
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/04/15/inside-fulton-county-courtroom-giving-young-offenders-second-chance/ -
AT&Tâs recent disclosure about a security breach compromised more than 70 million current and former customers. That means online criminals may have access to your personal information on the dark web, which could give them access to your credit.
What does that mean? It means thereâs enough information available on the dark web for someone to open a credit card or take out a loan in your name. They run up the charges; your credit takes a hit; and then itâs up to you to prove you are a victim.
Identity theft isnât fun, and if you canât get it removed from your credit record, the debt will follow you for seven years. If the debt ends up in collections, it could prevent you from getting better rates or taking out a future loan.
Most people have heard about freezing their credit, but most donât realize how easy it is to do.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/04/03/lock-your-credit-doors-now-before-you-fall-victim-fraud/ -
According to state repair logs, of the 370 defective guardrails identified in a December 2023 GDOT report, more than a third of the repairs, or 33%, took longer than the required 21-day time frame.
Some of the repairs took more than 100 days.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/07/unguarded-gdots-failure-repair-road-safety-barriers-put-lives-risk/ -
A Georgia man detained more than a decade behind bars and never convicted of a crime is now home with his family.
Maurice Jimmersonâs pretrial detention is believed to be one of the longest such detentions in American history. His release comes nearly a year after an award-winning Atlanta News First investigation, The Sixth, uncovered him languishing in the Dougherty County, Georgia, jail without a court-appointed attorney or a scheduled court date.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/20/georgia-man-behind-bars-10-years-awaiting-trial-is-finally-free/ -
Roseanne and Richard King knew they were in a bad situation when a hospital doctor in Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic, told them theyâd be there for a very long time.
The two left their cruise ship on Thanksgiving Day after a shipâs doctor diagnosed Roseanne King with double pneumonia.
The hospital in which Roseanne King was admitted charged the couple $5,100 before she even stayed one night.
âAnd if I didnât give my card, we donât know what would have happened,â Richard King said.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/02/20/dominican-hospital-charges-atlanta-couple-7100-refuses-give-itemized-bill/
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Elfreda Parks said sheâs lost sleep over a mountain of private parking violations on her kitchen table. Each violation is $87, and she worries sheâll get more every time she goes to her mailbox.
The violations began arriving in September 2023. Parks said she first received a few violations, but it got much worse over the following months. She began receiving large envelopes filled with dozens of citations at a time.
âI donât need this extra stress,â she said. âIâve got my own stress.â
Parks has counted 292 citations totaling $25,404, but many violations were duplicates. According to Parking Revenue Recovery Services (PRRS) and the billing companyâs website, Parksâ grand total was $10,764 in fines.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/02/28/metro-atlanta-woman-mistakenly-receives-10500-parking-violations/
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Alexis Jonesâ water bill is astronomical, and she canât afford to pay it.
She rents the house she lives in with her sister and two kids, and theyâve been without water since DeKalb County shut it off in November for nonpayment.
Jones and her family didnât use the water; rather, it was a ghost leak in the front yard that wouldnât be fixed for nearly two and a half years.
DeKalb County records show water usage at 896,000 gallons over a one-month period. The leak was large enough to fill a swimming pool daily, but the county left the water on because it determined it was on private property.
The county held Jones responsible because her name was on the bill.
âIâm in panic mode,â Jones said. âFirst off, I donât have this money. Second, how did it get to this, because again, Iâm using my water as normal.â
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Atlanta News First Investigates reviewed reports for people taking Ozempic, Wegovy or compounded semaglutide. There were 262 self-reported cases mentioning suicide attempts, ideation, threats, behavior, treatment; or depression.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/11/fda-evaluating-miracle-weight-loss-drugs-like-ozempic-suicide-risk/ -
A metro Atlanta mother who was seemingly targeted in a drug case as part of an effort to be denied custody of her daughter has now been granted full temporary custody.
On Friday, a Spalding County Superior Court granted an emergency motion for full custody filed by Macy Jones, who was the target of an anonymous tip that led to the investigation. Judge Ben Coker granted Jones âsole custody on a temporary basisâ of Jonesâ and Tyler Andrewsâ now-four-year-old daughter.
Andrews will have âapproximately one hourâ of âsupervised visitationâ every other Sunday. Previously, the couple had joint legal custody.
Jones filed an emergency motion for full custody within hours after Atlanta News First Investigates told her about the case and sent her a copy of the internal investigation. Because itâs a public record, we offered to share the investigative file with both Jones and Andrews when separately asking them for interviews about its contents.
Andrews, as originally reported by Atlanta News First Investigates and Chief Investigative Reporter Brendan Keefe, gave an anonymous tip to Kris Voyles who was, at that time, commander of a Spalding County Sheriffâs Office Special Operations Unit.
Innocent mom wants to thank police who turned in their own commander
The sheriffâs internal investigation determined that Voyles assigned his drug agents to set up surveillance on Jonesâ griffin home to help his friend, Andrews, in a custody case.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/02/26/drug-unit-commander-fired-after-anonymous-tip-traced-father-targets-child/ -
Guardrails are intended to keep drivers safe in case of an accident and to prevent vehicles from oncoming traffic or hitting something. But when the barriers are damaged or defective, they canât protect drivers.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/07/unguarded-gdots-failure-repair-road-safety-barriers-put-lives-risk/ -
Although heâs retired, Robert Elder feels like heâs taken on a new job: fighting for his home in which heâs invested more than 50 years of equity.
In a lawsuit, Elder, 85, claims his southwest Atlanta home has been stolen from him by a stepson from his first marriage, Torrey Elder.
Last year a new deed was filed on Robert Elderâs house; not once but, according to records, three times. The first was filed in July; the second, in August and labelled âcorrective deed;â and a third in September.
All the deeds transferred Robert Elderâs home from his ownership to former stepson Torrey. However, none of the signatures match the way Robert signs his name, according to other official documents. Torrey claims his dad did transfer the home over to him. Adding, the 85-year-old is âlying.â
A series of Atlanta News First investigations have shown that under current Georgia law, no identification is required to file property paperwork in the clerkâs office. No one has to prove they own the property.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/04/85-year-olds-home-stolen-name-allegedly-forged-multiple-deeds/ -
A joint investigation by Atlanta News First and Grist uncovered dozens of people who worked at a metro Atlanta warehouse who claimed in a lawsuit their former employer exposed them to a cancer-causing toxin for years.
Many of the former workers now suffer from severe illness. At least four have died. The warehouse is located in Lithia Springs, Georgia. Itâs owned by the ConMed Corporation, which stores medical devices sterilized with ethylene oxide, a hazardous, colorless gas.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says prolonged exposure to the toxin causes cancer and tumors.
According to a Cobb County lawsuit, the process starts at a sterilization facility owned by Sterigenics located near Smyrna, Georgia. According to the companyâs website, it sterilized âmore than 300 million critical medical products and devicesâ with the gas at its facility since April 2020.
The sterilized products are then trucked 12 miles away to ConMedâs nearly 300,000-square-foot warehouse, a facility the size of five football fields.
While there, the remaining ethylene oxide seeps off the boxes of medical equipment that have been treated with the chemical, allegedly exposing workers.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/02/29/cancer-stricken-workers-claim-company-exposed-them-toxic-gas/ -
How could a safety requirement end up killing more children than it would save?
The answer to that question has allowed parents to carry babies and toddlers on their laps at 35,000 feet and more than 500 miles per hour for decades. There is also no airfare cost for a lap baby.
Since 1995, the Federal Aviation Administration has relied on multiple studies showing a safety-restraint requirement for children under two on commercial aircraft would lead to many more highway deaths if parents choose to drive instead of fly.
In the meantime, the FAA strongly recommends parents buy a ticket for their babies. âThe safest place for your child under the age of two on a U.S. airplane is in approved child restraint systemâŠnot in your lap,â it said.
Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/02/12/lap-babies-still-allowed-planes-after-door-plug-blowout/ - Laat meer zien