Atlanta-Area Police Theft Ring Recruited Officers by Promising to Rob Drug Dealers, Participant Says

LAW ENFORCEMENT June 1993

An Atlanta-area police gang that burglarized local business and killed a nightclub owner at his home during a robbery attempt recruited officers by telling them the victims would be drug dealers, a participant said (Eric Harrison, "Atlanta's Police 'Gang' Unravels With Nightclub Owner's Slaying," Los Angeles Times, 5/20/93, A5).

Investigators charged that a gang of five police officers broke into 18 businesses in Atlanta and Clayton County, Ga. in the last year, and killed 50-year-old nightclub owner Henry Lamar Jeffcoat during an attempted robbery. The gang consisted of two Riverdale SWAT team members, two Atlanta police officers, and a Fulton County sheriff's deputy. One of those charged, Mark McKenna, 27, of Riverdale, has cooperated with authorities in return for a promise that the District Attorney will not seek the death penalty or life without parole.