City doing assessment as public pools remain closed across Atlanta

ATLANTA — The city of Atlanta’s outdoor pools remain closed two days after a teenager was shot to death at a northwest Atlanta pool.

The city said it is conducting an operational assessment on all of its outdoor pools.

They aren’t saying much about how the assessment is being conducted but did point out that its splashpads and its indoor pools are still open.

One city council member confirmed to Channel 2′s Richard Elliot that the closure is because of the shooting at the Anderson pool.

Terra Sanborn said she told Elliot that her family went to the splashpad at DH Stanton Park come because their apartment complex pool is closed and so is every other outdoor public pool in the city of Atlanta.

“The kids wanted to have fun,” Sanborn said.

Ellen Higgins said she was hoping to take her kids to the pool at Grant Park since school starts back up next week.

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“Apparently, they just closed them yesterday, and I heard a couple of different reasons why, but it’s disappointing because we haven’t gone there yet this summer, and I was really excited about it, but such is life I guess,” Higgins said.

The city made the decision to close pools on Sunday, a day after someone shot and killed 17-year-old Jakari Dillard at northwest Atlanta’s Anderson pool.

While the city didn’t refer to the shooting in its announcement that it was conducting a comprehensive assessment of all its pools, Atlanta City Council member Matt Westmoreland thinks they need to make sure the pools are safe and the company managing them is properly staffed.

“The parks and rec department decided to take a moment to make sure that we’ve got all the security and staffing that we need in place to ensure that our pools can operate well for the rest of the summer,” Westmoreland said.

Even though Ceneida Brown is disappointed, she’s OK with closing the pools after the shooting death.

“It makes it understandable and actually kind of respectful. I think that it’s really responsible that they’re doing that instead of just pretending it didn’t happen,” Brown said.

The city did not say when it may reopen the outdoor pools.

Elliot did attempt to contact the company managing the city’s pools, but no one returned his phone calls Monday.

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