ATLANTA — At Atlanta City Hall on Wednesday, they had quite the photo opp.
“Today we celebrate something extraordinary. Over the past several weeks Atlanta welcomed the world,” Mayor Andre Dickens told a crowd of a few hundred city employees.
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They celebrated the World Cup — with more than half-a-million spectators watching the matches in Atlanta Stadium, more than half-a-million attending the FIFA Fan Festivals in Centennial Olympic Park, and millions more traveling through the World’s Busiest Airport.
Officials say the city delivered.
Public safety was front and center, with 1,900 police officers working 12 hours shifts, providing what some visitors told us felt like cops on every corner— which they liked.
“We were going to protect the games. Still fight crime in all 244 neighborhoods that don’t have a stadium in them, keep the peace in the capitol city, and answer every 911 call that came our way,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said.
Police say the public helped too. Citizens reported most of the 340 packages left unattended in the downtown area, that the department made sure where not bombs. Police say people remember the bomb during the ’96 Olympic Games, and when they saw something during the World Cup, they said something.
Dickens says people felt good this summer. Even those who sometimes don’t.
“I believe if you are an Atlantan who sometimes rendezvous as a criminal, you still wanted us to do good! So you cut out the bad and said, ‘I want the city to do good.’ I don’t know. I didn’t survey our criminals. But I believe that everybody wanted Atlanta to do well,” the mayor said with a laugh.
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