Macon-Bibb collaborating with GBI to take out middle Georgia gangs
MACON, Ga. (WGXA) -- The Georgia Bureau of Investigation will have a new hub in Macon as part of a collaboration to curb street gangs and other illegal activity in the area. Local, state, and federal governments will share modern technological recourses to track criminals and crime.
The former Macon-Bibb Regional Transportation Management Center, located on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in downtown Macon, will be the bureau's new hub for their Middle Georgia Gang Task Force.
"We're going to have our gang task force working out of this building for the Middle Georgia area," explained Michael Register, Director of the GBI.
Macon-Bibb Sheriff David Davis said the building was the monitoring center for traffic on state highways and local roads. Now, it will be the monitoring center for the traffic of criminals.
"Anywhere there is the ability to make money, criminal street gangs are going to have a hand in it," said GBI Special Agent Ken Howard. "You're going to see... once we get our feet wet, a direct impact on violent crime, other crimes, property crimes, things of that nature."
He said the hub will give the bureau a larger presence in what is already a highly gang-prevalent area, allowing the GBI to address criminal activity more directly.
A representative in the mayor's office said after learning the GBI wanted to expand, and was in need of a building to post up shop, Mayor Lester Miller told them Macon had the perfect location. The representative said that aside from the cost of a few repairs to the building, the collaboration won't cost the city much of anything, though it could mean everything when it comes to crime here; coming in, and going out.
"With all of the latest modern technology, where all law enforcement can get together and collaborate, we're to not just go out and attack the problems in downtown Macon, but where they radiate outside of those borders, as well as they come back inside those borders."
The GBI director said by cementing this partnership allows everyone involved to better eliminate crime.
