The Black Crime Buster

To many Atlantans it smacked of capricious cronyism when Maynard Jackson Jr., the city's black mayor, appointed A. Reginald Eaves as commissioner of public safety in 1974. A blunt-spoken black lawyer whose chief qualification for the job appeared to be his friendship with Jackson, a college classmate, Eaves seemed totally unqualified to command the city's 1,500-man police force, then struggling ineffectively against a crime surge that had made Atlanta one of the homicide capitals of the U.S. But today the top cop is being cheered more than he is being jeered--even by some of his harshest early critics. Says Hal Gulliver, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Constitution, which vehemently opposed his appointment: "Eaves must be doing something right."

Last year violent personal crimes in Atlanta dropped 9.9%. Murders decreased from 248 to 185, burglaries dropped from 16,802 to 14,501, and armed robberies fell from 4,357 to 3,887. Overall, reported crime increased by only 3% in Atlanta last year, compared with an estimated national average increase of 11%. One big reason: Reg Eaves and his tough approach to "black on black" crime.

In Atlanta, which is 60% black, crime had followed a grimly familiar pattern. Most violence occurred in largely black areas, where the city's largely white police force was least effective. Eaves, now 41, took on his $34,000-a-year job with a simple conviction: "Blacks suffer the most from crime, and if given a chance to relate to the police, they will help fight it."

No Excuse. Eaves launched his campaign with characteristic directness: he demoted more than 100 acting sergeants and other commanders and installed his own team, promoting more than 30 blacks. He also increased recruit training from six weeks to 19 weeks, and required all cops to take "crisis intervention" classes to learn how to deal with domestic squabbles. Most important, he began spreading what might be called Eaves' law through black high-crime areas: "No matter how poor you are, there is no excuse for knocking a lady in the head or stealing her purse."

In one violent South Side neighborhood, Eaves set up an integrated "crime control team" that made the cops on the beat responsible for following a case through, instead of turning it over to a detective. Local cops were thus forced to develop neighborhood contacts who could supply information needed to build a successful case. As a result, the police now regularly get useful tips, and the proportion of crimes solved has increased from 30% to 56%.

Eaves has pushed a number of new tactics, with the help of federal funds from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. A squad of cops disguised as tramps and winos was set up to lure muggers, and high-crime areas were assigned a special force of additional patrolmen. Says Eaves: "We're trying to become as unpredictable for the criminal as the criminal is to us."

His most conspicuous achievement has been to win the admiration of Atlanta blacks--sometimes with behavior that makes whites cringe. In one typical episode, notes TIME Correspondent Jack White, Eaves ordered an option-loaded car that cost more than the $3,900 the city usually allots for commissioners' automobiles, then airily dismissed the subsequent howls: "I'm giving too much time and effort to this city to try to prove that I'm the good nigger. If I can't ride in a little bit of comfort, to hell with it." Eaves eventually had to pay the difference between the cost of the car and the city allowance, but his chutzpah had the desired effect. Says Black Councilman James Bond: "In my district, Eaves is a hero."

Born in Jacksonville, Fla., Eaves had his share of youthful scrapes with cops. Says he: "I don't care how right I was, I couldn't get anywhere with the police." After school at predominantly black Morehouse College in Atlanta and a stint in the Army, Eaves got a law degree from the New England School of Law in Boston, where he drifted into city politics. When he returned to Atlanta to help Jackson become the city's first black mayor, Eaves recalls, cops were "the No. 1 issue. Everywhere we went, the first question people had was what are you going to do about the police." His reaction when Jackson asked him to become commissioner: "I didn't want the job because I knew the man who took it was going to catch hell."

Most recently, Eaves has been catching it from a predominately white police organization, which charges him with reverse discrimination, and from some city officials, who accuse him of building up a black clique within the department (still 70% white, despite stepped-up black recruitment). Eaves' answer is that he wants to be evaluated "only on my success in fighting crime." His own evaluation: "What we've learned in Atlanta is that a black chief can make a big difference in fighting crime. Other cities ought to try it."

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