NEWTON COUNTY — Cameras in public parks was a main discussion topic for the Newton County Board of Commissioners at their April 15 meeting.
With Sheriff Ezell Brown leading the conversation, the board agreed that steps to put camera systems into the county’s parks should be taken.
However, as the agenda item was only for discussion, no formal vote was appropriate and there were not any definitive plans determined.
“We know that it’s a problem, and we know that our youth, as well as the youth from the other counties, we know that they’re finding parks to congregate,” Brown said. “That’s what happened out at Denny Dobbs just here recently, and I feel certain that if cameras was placed at Denny Dobbs Park…it would have prevented a lot of the chasing down inaccurate information.”
On Wednesday, March 19, 18-year-old Justin Etienne was shot and killed in Denny Dobbs Park during a “Senior Skip Day” where numerous high schools had congregated. Etienne, a high school senior, was a bystander when gunfire broke out. Two other high schoolers – 16-year-old Jarvis Hinton Jr. of Covington and 17-year-old Tashshawn Lyons from Conyers – face charges for Etienne’s murder.
The Newton County Sheriff’s Office reportedly had to sift through conflicting statements from witnesses before they were able to track the accused shooters and arrest them. Hinton Jr. was arrested on March 21, while Lyons was not arrested until March 24.
The Districts 1 and 2 commissioners, Stan Edwards and Demond Mason, respectively, supported the sheriff, saying that if the county wanted to have the parks, then they needed to be committed to keeping them safe as well.
“We’ve ponied up for the parks, so now we’re going to have to pony up for the rest of it too,” Edwards said.
Both Edwards and Mason referenced the sheriff speaking before the county years prior, saying that Brown previously mentioned that the parks would require additional means of protection down the line.
“I know a couple years ago we did have this conversation that we were basically in need of these, and I fully support making sure that we find a way to incorporate and implement these cameras throughout our major parks as quickly as we possibly can,” Mason said. “I know this isn’t the complete solution, but it would definitely help.”
Brown appealed to the board during Tuesday’s meeting to convince the commissioners to eventually fund this project, saying that the sheriff’s office has exhausted other means.
“When you look at funding, we took the initiative some time ago and we have exhausted all of our grant fundings, those fundings that we could put in place ourselves, we have exhausted all of that by putting cameras in other places,” Brown said.
Brown did say that they have at least one power company willing to provide assistance and expects that more will come aboard in the future.
“I realize that there are grants out there, but all of you know how grants are,” Brown said. “You can put in for it today, you may wait six months from now, and you may receive the grant, and you may not get the grant.
“What I see – the problem I see, we are turning the curve, we’re around the corner. And I don’t believe that we can wait until this corner connects. I think we need to go ahead and move forward now on finding funding so that we can put [cameras] in these parks.”
Though there was not a vote on the item, none of the commissioners spoke in opposition to Brown’s plea. It was only requested that he later approach the board with specific funding numbers when it came time to make more cemented decisions.
“I think if we fail to move forward on such a project as this, I think we would be defeated our general purpose of making sure we keep our community safe,” Brown said.
