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**U.S. Department of Justice**        Office of Community Oriented Policing Services            145 N Street, N.E.       Washington, DC 20530      www.cops.usdoj.gov×         Menu         - Home
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**Law Enforcement Spotlight:            Conyers, Georgia**
 April 2019 | Volume 12 | Issue 3

Conyers, Georgia, sits in Rockdale  County 23 miles east of Atlanta. The Conyers Police Department received $440,000 from the COPS Hiring Program (CHP) in 2017, which enabled the  department to on-board four new officers. In the CHP application, applicants  are asked to identify particular issues within community policing that hiring additional  officers could solve. Conyers chose school-based policing as an area of  concern.

On May 20, 1999, Heritage High School suffered a mass  shooting when Anthony Solomon, a sophomore, opened fire with a .22-caliber  rifle.1 It was the last day of school. Solomon  wounded six classmates and appeared to begin to attempt suicide, but he was  disarmed by Assistant Principle Cecil Brinkley.2 Other students identified a recent break-up as the potential impetus for the  rampage.3 Such incidents are common precursors to acts of mass violence: A 2017 study by the National Police  Foundation demonstrated that 94 percent of perpetrators of completed  attacks had “experienced or witnessed some kind of life-changing events.”4 Solomon was originally sentenced to 40 years in prison, but following several  commutations he was released on July 26, 2016, having served 17 years.

Prior to receiving the CHP funding, Conyers had only one school  resource officer (SRO) at Rockdale County High School (RCHS)—as well as one at  each of the other two high schools in the district—and the department pointed  out that one officer was insufficient to address rising levels of drug activity  and gang involvement at the school. After the department received the CHP funding,  SRO Troy Quick was joined by SRO Charlene Smith. In addition to formal duties  as an SRO, Quick is well known for supporting sports activities on campus. The  school told the COPS Office monitoring team that “it is almost as common to see  him out of uniform as in his uniform.” SRO Smith is involved in RCHS’s RARE  Pearls mentoring program for high school girls. Both officers are credited with  helping reduce overall assaults by 40 percent and thefts by 70 percent from 2016  to 2017.5 The school also reported that having both a male and a female officer  critically expands the resource pool for students looking for aid.

“The old adage that two are better than one rings true,”  the school reported, and it certainly seems to hold true in Conyers.

Sarah Estill        COPS  Office

**For more information**:A  Comparison of Averted and Completed School AttacksBeyond the  Badge: Profile of a School Resource OfficerUsing  School COP: A Guide for School Administrators and Safety Personnel

References:1 “6 Injured in Georgia High School Shooting,”  CNN.com, last modified May 20, 1999, http://www.cnn.com/US/9905/20/conyers.school.shooting.02/index.html.2 “6  Injured” (see note 2).3 John Cloud, “Just a Routine School Shooting,” CNN,  last modified May 24, 1999, http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/05/24/school.shooting.html.4 Peter Langman and Frank Straub, *A Comparison of Averted and Completed School Attacks  from the Police Foundation Averted School Violence Database* (Washington,  DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2019), 13, /ric/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-W0870.5*Conyers  Police Department*, Successful Practices and Strategies 5, no. 2  (Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2018), https://cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/CPOS/ss/Vol5No2Conyers.pdf

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