Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2003
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact:  http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Bill Montgomery

COP'S ARREST STUNS KIN, POLICE

Feds Claim Atlanta Officer Was A Kingpin In Drug Ring

A dozen years ago, when Police Chief Eldrin Bell approved the hiring of 
David Freeman as a rookie Atlanta officer, the chief rhetorically asked a 
police commander about the new recruit.

"Show me how a man can go from Perry Homes to be student government 
president at Georgia State University and not be eligible to be an 
officer," the chief said.

"The kid had proved to me that he had the aptitude and the drive for the 
job by rising from a housing project to graduate from college," Bell, who 
retired in 1994, recalled recently.

Bell and other Atlanta police officers and those who know Freeman now are 
scratching their heads over the turn of events that has rocked the life of 
the once acclaimed cop.

Freeman, a nine-year veteran of the force chosen zone Officer of the Year 
for his shift in 2002, is in jail, accused of being a leader of a violent 
narcotics gang that operated where he grew up in northwest Atlanta.

While Freeman was unavailable for comment, those who know him best --- 
members of his close-knit family --- are trying to sort through what has 
happened. When older brother Michael, a retired Army sergeant in Virginia, 
learned of the charges, he said, "It hurt me to the heart."

"That's not like my brother," Michael Freeman added. "They got the wrong 
guy. They really do."

Freeman, 38, was arrested Aug. 13 by agents of the federal Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives during a morning police roll 
call. A day earlier, a federal grand jury had added his name to a 
racketeering indictment. Freeman denies the racketeering charges.

Federal authorities say Freeman was a key figure in the Diablos drug gang 
for at least four years. The U.S. attorney's office contends the Diablos 
trafficked in cocaine and other drugs in northwest Atlanta, where Freeman 
grew up and later patrolled as a city cop.

According to federal prosecutors, Freeman encouraged, participated in or 
had knowledge of acts by the gang, including killings, kidnappings, 
beatings and intimidation of rival drug dealers and police informants.

Freeman has been suspended from duty without pay and is in federal custody 
at an undisclosed location after being denied bail. A U.S. marshal's 
spokesman declined to provide details of Freeman's whereabouts, citing 
security.

"If it is proven that he has done what they accuse him of, he has 
disappointed and fooled me," Bell said. "And he's fooled a lot of other 
people as well."

A Cop In The Making

An Atlanta native, David Alan Freeman grew up in Perry Homes, a public 
housing project of barracks-style brick apartments often beset by crime and 
random violence. The apartment complex was torn down two years ago.

"Everybody in Perry Homes called him 'Day Day.' Everybody everywhere called 
him 'Day Day,' said his mother, Juanita Freeman. She disputed claims by 
authorities that Freeman used the name as part of his alleged involvement 
in gang activities.

Freeman's niece, Debbie Carter, who is a year older than her uncle, recalls 
that she and Freeman's older brother began calling him "Day Day" when they 
were toddlers and couldn't pronounce David. "Somehow it came out 'Day Day.' 
We were all babies. . . . It's just a family nickname, not a gang or a 
street name," Carter said.

Freeman is the youngest of seven children --- six sons and a daughter --- 
of Elijah and Juanita Freeman. His father, a truck driver who moved 
furniture in the Atlanta area, died of cancer when the couple's youngest 
child was 10.

Freeman's mother worked 17 years as a day care worker, tending babies and 
toddlers. She said she made a point of being at home when her children got 
out of school.

"We always were home for dinner together growing up," Michael Freeman 
recalled. "My brother would never do anything that would get back to and 
hurt my mom. You can bank on that."

Kathy Cook has known Freeman since the eighth grade at Archer High School, 
where Freeman graduated with academic honors in 1983.

She recalled a teen athlete and bright student "who was pretty respectable, 
never got into trouble. His mother kept a nice home, and David was always 
clean and well-dressed."

Juanita Freeman said that while the family didn't have a lot of money, she 
never thought of them as poor. Freeman entered Georgia State University in 
1986 and majored in criminal justice. His mother and his niece said he 
wanted to become a lawyer.

"I remember asking him once about law school, and he said he didn't pass 
the law SAT," Carter said. "He may have been considering [law\] as a future 
possibility, but I know once he started on the police force, he liked the 
work so much he kept at it."

The GSU yearbook, The Rampway, noted that Freeman was a member of the 
Governor's Commission for State Drug Policy and the Atlanta Housing 
Authority board.

Freeman, then 24, was quoted in a 1989 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article 
about a Housing Authority youth leadership organization in which he served. 
He said African-Americans who were better off than he was would often asked 
him, "Why don't you act like you live in public housing? . . . They assume 
that you deal with drugs, that you're violent, that you drive a Cadillac 
and wear gold chains," he told a reporter.

Freeman was elected student government president his senior year --- 
becoming the second African-American student to hold the office since GSU 
was founded in 1913. He graduated in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in 
criminal justice.

He joined the Atlanta Police Department in 1991, starting as a license and 
permit clerk and later becoming a radio dispatcher. Around 1994, Freeman 
entered the department's police academy to train to become an officer.

"There was crime when we were growing up, and it's just gotten more intense 
and frequent over time," Michael Freeman said. "I think he wanted to do his 
part to help change that, and his way was to join the police force."

Freeman's first two years as a patrol officer were in Buckhead's Zone 2. He 
then was assigned to Zone 1 in northwest Atlanta, where he worked seven 
years until his arrest.

He patrolled neighborhoods around Bankhead Highway, as it is still commonly 
known although the name was changed to Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway almost 
five years ago.

Common sights in the area are burglar bars on businesses and signs in 
nightclubs that warn "positively no drugs or weapons allowed."

Praise And Criticism

Freeman's years as an officer generated both praise and criticism from 
superiors and the public.

"He's a hardworking, energetic officer, and month in and month out he 
always made a lot of arrests, misdemeanors and felonies --- robberies, auto 
theft, drugs, everything," Freeman's watch commander, Lt. Robert Sullivan, 
said in an interview.

"If a squad like robbery or homicide was looking for a suspect in Bankhead 
Court or Maynard Homes, for instance, Freeman knew the area and was 
invaluable in finding them," Sullivan said.

Two weeks before his indictment, Freeman was honored as 2002 Officer of the 
Year for his shift in Zone 1.

In 2001 he was awarded a meritorious service certificate for making 400 
traffic arrests, including 66 for speeding, and 110 felony arrests the 
previous year.

Sgt. Vernon Sands wrote to a superior in December 2000: "Officer Freeman 
has shown great love and dedication to the Zone and he has the [arrest] 
numbers to prove it. Most of his success comes from his familiarity with 
suspects and having grown up in this area."

But officials have also questioned the officer's actions.

Freeman's file includes a 1995 written reprimand issued after two 
Douglasville teenagers said the officer uttered an obscenity at them when 
they were robbed at gunpoint in an area on Simpson Road known for drug 
trafficking. He also was reprimanded for not filing a police report on the 
robbery.

The teens, 16 and 17 years old at the time, said they became lost while 
looking for a music club and stopped at an apartment complex to ask 
directions. They said they were held up and pistol-whipped by two men.

They said Freeman, whom they found at a nearby convenience store, dismissed 
their complaint and told them to "get your white [expletive] home."

According to the internal affairs report, Freeman denied insulting the pair 
and said he did not file a report because "I was already on a call, and . . 
. there were discrepancies in both complainants' stories."

During the 1997 Atlanta city elections, Freeman was accused of aggravated 
assault on City Councilman Jared Samples' campaign manager, Edward Traylor Jr.

Freeman, a close friend and Georgia State fraternity brother of Samples', 
was accused by Traylor of beating and pistol-whipping him during an 
argument at Samples' home over Traylor's work in the election. Freeman was 
campaign treasurer in Samples' failed re-election bid.

Freeman was cleared when a Fulton County grand jury declined to indict him 
on the assault charges.

According to the investigative file on the incident by the Atlanta police 
Office of Professional Standards, Freeman said that Traylor had pushed him, 
causing him to fall over a coffee table, and that he fought back only with 
his fists.

Probe Takes Two Years

Federal authorities, led by ATF, began investigating Freeman's alleged ties 
to the Diablos gang two years ago.

Authorities have refused to say what specifically prompted them to target 
Freeman, but they began the investigation following an investigation of 
crimes allegedly committed by the Diablos.

Freeman is named along with 15 others in the federal Racketeer Influenced 
and Corrupt Organization Act indictment, which alleges that he is among six 
men who made up the Diablos' leadership.

The 26-page federal indictment alleges that Freeman, based on his knowledge 
and actions as a police officer, alerted the Diablos to police 
investigations, search warrants and impending arrests; recommended that 
individuals he knew to be drug dealers be robbed of their narcotics by the 
Diablos, with the drugs being sold for profit; and supplied the gang with 
drugs he seized from dealers he had detained.

In a case three years ago, the indictment says, Freeman gave cocaine he had 
seized from a suspect to gang leader Billy Durante "Billy Diablo" Ladson, 26.

The indictment says Freeman urged Ladson to kill alleged informant Michael 
Goss for providing police with information about the beating, robbery and 
attempted murder of a rival drug dealer. Freeman allegedly showed Ladson a 
police report naming Goss as a witness, the indictment says.

Goss, 26, known as "Mike Mike," was killed by multiple gunshots as he drove 
along Ezra Church Drive the night of June 11, 2002. The indictment says 
Ladson ordered Goss' slaying.

Ladson also is in federal custody awaiting trial, charged in the same 
indictment as Freeman.

The Arrest Is Made

Freeman's defense lawyers counter that the Diablos are merely a rap music 
group and that Freeman occasionally worked off duty as a security guard at 
their performances.

"I know they did a performance at the Bounce on Bankhead Highway," said 
Freeman's attorney, Ricardo Mosby. "I don't know what else they were doing, 
but our contention is that Officer Freeman was not involved."

On the day of Freeman's arrest, he was led from morning roll call by 
federal officers, frisked, handcuffed, placed in a government car, and 
driven away in federal custody.

"I was shocked. I had a lot of faith in his work ability, and that's all I 
can talk about," said Maj. George Turner, the Zone 1 commander.

Police Chief Richard Pennington said after the arrest that he would not 
tolerate corruption. He declined to comment specifically about the Freeman 
case, but Pennington said officers who are convicted of crimes sometimes 
are "among the most aggressive and tenacious, the ones who make a lot of 
arrests."

Juanita Freeman learned of her son's arrest on the noon news the day of his 
arrest. Until then, she said, she had no idea anything was wrong. "I just 
kind of lost it for a while," she said somberly.

Last month, after hearing a defense attorney read from the lengthy 
indictment detailing specific charges against her son, Juanita Freeman 
asked herself, "What does David have to do with any of this?"

Later she told a reporter, "It was like they were talking about a different 
person."

Former Chief Bell said: "There've been a number of officers over the years, 
some of them highly qualified, that I ended up putting in jail. There are 
changes in individuals when they put on the shield; the power and authority 
that a person gets often changes one to being something other than who they 
were when they were employed.

"In David's case, perhaps the behavior he had to deal with on a daily basis 
may have rubbed off on him. But we don't know that."

Freeman's trial isn't expected until spring.

Juanita Freeman says she bears the ordeal with prayer.

"I think it will all turn out just great," she insisted. "I know he didn't 
do it. He's my son."
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