Savannah mayor directs city manager, police chief to investigate officer crashes following WTOC Investigation
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Savannah’s city manager and police chief will investigate officer-involved crashes, following a WTOC Investigation.
WTOC Investigates has found Savannah Police Department officers get into crashes at over double the rate of Atlanta Police Department Officers.
Between January 2022 to April 2025, SPD was involved in 469 crashes. In that same time frame, Atlanta PD was in 680. Though Atlanta PD was in more crashes, the City of Atlanta has a much higher population than the City of Savannah. The data shows in that time frame, SPD got into 31.52 crashes per 100,000 residents, while APD got into 13.08.
That data is from GDOT, and while it doesn’t distinguish who was at fault in any given crash, SPD’s data shows in that same time frame, officers were in 385 preventable crashes.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said in a news conference on Tuesday morning it’s a statistic that needs to be addressed.
“I charged the City Manager and the Police Chief to deal with that. The numbers are what they are, and so we have to be able to address that. Every single time we’re involved in a crash, that’s a city asset being taken offline.”
Johnson added he wants to know who is at fault in those crashes.
We also found in our investigation the city has been on the hook for almost $4,000,000 dollars in payments to victims of crashes with SPD since the beginning of 2019.
“We may not be accepting culpability, but obviously it was to the point where our Attorney’s Office felt we needed to settle. Again, being a police officer is a very hard job, a very difficult job, a lot to manage,” Johnson added. “So, I’ll leave it to the City Manager and to the Police Chief, but you know, we want that down to zero.”
We previously presented our findings to Alderman Kurtis Purtee, who says he has been working with the Savannah Police Department to identify spaces that may be suitable for a larger driving course than the one that’s currently in use.
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