The Atlanta Police Department is required to make specific changes and conclude an investigation into the officers involved in last year’s botched Atlanta Eagle raid within 180 days as as ordered by Judge Timothy Batten in the settlement of the Atlanta Eagle lawsuit.

According to court documents: “The City of Atlanta agrees permanently to revoke or amend all Atlanta Police Department SOPs, Command Memoranda, and any other policies, including but not limited to SOP.3020 § 4.3.1(2) (regarding warrantless searches), SOP.3030 (regarding arrests), and SOP.3065 (regarding investigatory detentions and frisks without reasonable articulable suspicion), which contain provisions that are inconsistent with the following constitutional requirements.”

Details emerge in Atlanta Eagle lawsuit settlement

The changes required, according to the settlement agreement, include:

• “The Atlanta Police Department shall investigate and finally adjudicate all citizen complaints of police misconduct of any kind within 180 days of the complaint.”

• “The Atlanta Police Department shall conduct and conclude, within 180 days of this agreement, a thorough and meaningful investigation into the individual conduct of each officer involved in the planning, execution, and aftermath of the ‘Eagle Raid’ and any proceeding arising therefrom with regard to each of the following Work Rules in effect on the date of the conduct under investigation.”

• “Police officers may not lawfully detain any individual without reasonable articulable suspicion, particularized to the person being detained (i.e., a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person”) that the individual is involved in specific and identifiable criminal activity;

• “Police officers may not lawfully take or demand identification, or require an individual to identify himself, without reasonable suspicion, based on objective criteria, that the individual is engaged or had engaged in criminal conduct;

• “Police officers may not lawfully frisk an individual for weapons without a reasonable belief, directed at the particular person to be frisked, that the person is both armed and presently dangerous;

• “The City of Atlanta shall require all Atlanta police officers who are in uniform, other than a rain slicker or traffic direction vest, to wear a conspicuously visible nametag, and to require any Atlanta police officer who is in uniform or has displayed a badge or other indicia of police authority (such as a police vest, etc.), to identifY himself by name and badge number upon request at some point before the end of an encounter with a civilian;

• “The City of Atlanta shall prohibit Atlanta police officers from interfering in any way with a citizen’s right to make video, audio, or photographic recordings of police activity, as long as such recording does not physically interfere with the performance of an officer’s duty.”