Richard Pennington, Former Atlanta Police Chief, Dead At 70

ATLANTA, GA -- Richard Pennington, credited with transforming the police force in Atlanta and New Orleans, has died, Patch has learned. He was 70.

Pennington, widely known as a reformer, came to Atlanta in 2002 to serve under the administration of then-Mayor Shirley Franklin. His eight-year tenure was marked with grandiose announcements about the decrease in crime -- but the numbers backed it up.

Before Georgia, Pennington served as police superintendent in New Orleans. Joining the force there in 1994, Pennington was known as a no-nonsense disciplinarian who quickly made moves to restore pride in a department that had became synonymous with corruption and apathy.

Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, who appointed Pennington, told the Times-Picayune that he was "hands down, by far, without any comparison, the best police chief New Orleans has had."

Pennington, who was familiar with big-city crime as a deputy chief in Washington D.C., immediately implemented broad measures to stem corruption and weed out rogue officers. The New Orleans murder rate plummeted.

Former NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas, who worked under Pennington said that he was instrumental in making New Orleans a better place to live.
"He was a relentless crime fighter and advocate of Community Policing," Serpas told WDSU-TV. "Most importantly, he knew the value of building new generations of police leaders to advance policing. New Orleans is a better place because of his time here."

In Atlanta, when Pennington came aboard the city was the third-most violent city in the nation. When he left, it was 18th, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Franklin said that while she was mayor of Atlanta, Pennington was nothing short of a law enforcement pioneer.

“He led the APD to expand officer training, to gain national accreditation, to launch the Atlanta Police Foundation, to access the root causes of crime, to realign resources and the precincts, to build the state of the art Atlanta Police and Fire Department headquarters, to launch COBRA and to promote fair and just treatment of Atlanta's residents,” Franklin said, the newspaper reports. “Richard was a great leader among leaders in the fields of law enforcement and public administration. I am honored to have served as mayor with him as Police Chief.”

Pennington made few public appearances after suffering a stroke in 2010. Serpas told New Orleans media that his former boss had declined in health recently due to serious illness.

Image via Erik S. Lesser / Stringer / Getty News Images