MACON, Ga. — A violence-plagued apartment complex with 1,800 calls to the sheriff’s office since March 2020 will have new management after a judge signed off on a complaint filed by Macon-Bibb County, according to Macon-Bibb County.
The nuisance complaint filed in Bibb County Superior Court against the Green Meadows Townhomes accuses management of failing to curb rampant violence and accuses property staff of shaking down residents.
“Our community has said loud and clear that public safety is its top priority, and we have made it clear we will not tolerate businesses allowing criminal activity to occur,” Mayor Lester Miller said. “We must make sure we are addressing businesses that allow violent and drug-related activities to occur regularly.”
An analysis from the Bibb County Sheriff's Office cited in the complaint found that the townhomes have more crimes per capita than any other apartment complex in Bibb County. They call Green Meadows "statistically" the most dangerous apartment complex in the county.
The county’s complaint says 144 shootings took place at the townhomes at 3867 Log Cabin Drive with 580 rounds fired between March 2022 and June 2023.
They say patrols there have had to be stepped up at taxpayer expense, and Georgia Power terminated its contract to provide outdoor lighting due to “the threat of safety to its employees,” according to the county.
This meant that the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office could not install surveillance cameras to help deter crime at the townhomes because there was no power for the cameras to use, the county's press release said.
The county listed dozens of cases of deputies responding to various crimes at the apartment complex from burglaries to domestic disputes, to shootings, to murders. Back in December 2022, a 16-year-old was shot and killed at the apartment, according to previous 13WMAZ coverage.
But the complaint also detailed a March 12, 2022, shooting where deputies arrived at Green Meadows to find a 7-year-old “child in his mother’s arms, bleeding from the neck.”
The family was watching TV in the bedroom when gunfire erupted outside their apartment, the complaint said. The family would find the 7-year-old child “laying in his bed, bleeding from his wound.”
And, In the Bibb County Superior Court on Friday, Judge Bryant Culpepper appointed attorney Boniface Echols of Atlanta's Echols Firm as receiver of the Green Meadows Townhomes, essentially acting as court-ordered management.
“The defendants have caused, allowed, and failed to prevent or control the Green Meadows parking lot’s use as a market for the sale of illicit drugs, and the people, including known gang members, that they allow to congregate for that purpose [and] engage in other crimes with the Defendant’s knowledge and tolerance,” the complaint said.
The county accuses the management of the Green Meadows townhomes of failing to protect residents of the property. They also accused management of failing to enforce non-criminal lease violations or “systematically inspecting apartments for signs of illegal activity or lease violations.”
The county also made accusations against the security guards who work for the apartment complex.
The complaint calls the security team “a risk to residents and visitors” to the property. They accuse the security guards of shaking down residents in violation of the townhome’s curfew and demanding a $100 fine through cash or CashApp.
But if residents don’t pay up, the complaint said, security guards demanded sexual favors from the residents or threatened eviction. Most of the residents subjected to these shakedowns rely on government assistance, the complaint says.
The complaint also included an April 11, 2022, incident where Green Meadow security guards were allegedly fighting among themselves in the apartment complex’s parking lot, the complaint said. According to the complaint, it ended with one of the security guards being charged with disorderly conduct.
“With the amount of violent activity and the lack of action by Green Meadows to protect its residents, it has become a haven for criminals and a threat to the health and safety of all who enter the property,” Bibb-County said in a statement.
The county has this power to force out the management through a section of Georgia’s code that allows the government to seek court orders against “nuisances” to the community.
"Any nuisance which tends to the immediate annoyance of the public in general is manifestly injurious to the public health or safety, or tends greatly to corrupt the manners and morals of the public may be abated by the order of a judge of the superior court of the county in which venue is proper," Georgia’s Official Code of Georgia Annotated section 41-2-1 says.
13WMAZ will have an interview with Commissioner Al Tillman – who represents the area where Green Meadows is – and Mayor Miller tonight at 11 pm.