Buckhead residents are rightly outraged about the recent shootings in their neighborhood. Everybody has the right to be safe where they live. Here's our plan on how the Atlanta Police Department will respond.

A task force of uniformed personnel has been formed to saturate club locations around the city, particularly in Buckhead, and will issue citations for quality-of-life violations, conduct random inspections of club locations and discourage underage drinking.

Club owners should also accept some responsibility for the problems in the area, including upgrading security not only inside, but also immediately outside, particularly on high-volume nights.

But the problem of crime in Atlanta is much bigger than what is spilling over into Buckhead. Solving it will take greater action over a sustained period; more than a simple action plan for the clubs on and around Peachtree Road or changing bar hours throughout the city is needed.

Since coming here 16 months ago, I have been surprised by a number of things.

First, Atlanta has led the nation's 68 largest cities in violent crimes for four of the past five years. Our reported violent crime rate is more than double that of New Orleans, a city with similar land area and population.

Yet, a recent survey found that most city residents think traffic, not crime, is Atlanta's biggest problem.

Second, I have learned that the systems and practices of the Atlanta Police Department are essentially broken. Residents told us in focus groups, commissioned in September by the Atlanta Police Foundation, that they sometimes call 911 for crimes in progress and the police arrive late, if at all.

An audit I conducted with the assistance of the Police Foundation found that thousands of crime reports have likely been lost through poor record-keeping and out-of-date computer systems.

Third, long experience with high crime has caused residents of the city to have low expectations that these problems can or will be solved.

Eighty percent think we don't have enough police officers to do the job, and 72 percent believe that no matter how hard we try, the Atlanta Police Department will never solve its problems. Despite our limited numbers, we are moving forward to change this.

During my first year, I gave the command staff a chance to show what they could or could not do. With the help of national experts, I installed a crime-fighting accountability system in the department and started the work of retooling our crime strategies.

In early August 2003, dissatisfied with the response of existing personnel, I transferred, fired and/or demoted 53 ranking officers.

Since our reorganization:
 
* Homicides went from spiraling up 21 percent to falling 23 percent..
 
* Robberies went from a 3 percent decline to a 22 percent decline.
 
* Burglaries went from being flat to a downward trend of 8 percent.

And, last week, the command staff held a crime-fighter retreat to address auto-related crimes. We are now introducing new procedures to curb them.

Our success against crime is beginning to gain momentum, but that momentum is fragile. Other cities have proved that a properly resourced, effectively managed police department can cut violent crime in half in just a few years.

I have no doubt that we have the necessary ingredients to make Atlanta safe. We have a strong mayor determined to make Atlanta safe, even as she deals in many other areas with a legacy of failing infrastructure and broken governmental systems.

We have officers who want to do the job. Moreover, we have a business community now aligning its expertise and resources to see this through to success.

But now, more than ever, we need to stay the course. We need to use our very limited manpower to maximum effect.

We need to fix APD's massively malfunctioning systems and to build the size of the department to 2,000 officers, dedicated wholly to crime-fighting. This we intend to do as funds become available.

I offer one observation from my 35 years in law enforcement: No one is safe until everyone is safe.

-- Richard Pennington is Atlanta police chief.