Augusta Judicial Circuit Court Chief Judge J. Carlisle Overstreet, who shot and killed a burglar in his home Friday morning, has shown a strong interest in deterring crime with Neighborhood Watch programs since the 1980s.
Running for Augusta City Council in 1980, Overstreet stressed the importance of a program for Augusta, similar to the one he's now a member of in Summerville.
"I spent a week going door to door," he told The Augusta Chronicle during his campaign. "The overriding concern of people is that their home will be broken into."
His ideas on crime later led to his being elected president of the then-new Forest Hills Association, where he again promoted a Neighborhood Watch program.
Overstreet is currently a member of the Summerville Neighborhood Association, which has developed a notification system and neighborhood watch to deter crime in the neighborhood's 2,400 homes.
Overstreet, 65, was appointed to the bench Nov. 1, 1991. He previously served as a Municipal Court judge for Augusta.
He graduated from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University and became the chief judge after William M. Fleming Jr. retired in 2006.
As a Superior Court judge, Overstreet presides over criminal felony cases and civil lawsuits.
He has experienced health problems since being hit by an Atlanta city bus while crossing a street in May 1989. Witnesses said he was knocked under the bus and dragged before tumbling under the rear wheels. He was in intensive care and underwent several surgeries on his legs.
The best crime prevention was administered by Overstreet last night, will save the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and will prevent this non positive contributing member of society from burglarizing or harming others. Arm yourself, protect your home and yourself and help to end crime in Augusta and reduce the criminal population.
(Overstreet has been active in deterring break-ins): Very Active!!!
I am very regretful that Overstreet has experienced what he has gone through the last few days, can't imagine. I keep going back to his past injury about his injury in Atlanta in 1989. "Being hit by an Atlanta bus while crossing the street", what happened? Who was at fault Overstreet or Marta, buses are HUGE. For some reason this has concerned me since reading it.
Oh gee, why not surprized here? What, this is the 4th article about this dude? Enough already, surely there is more news than a person shooting an intruder.
Please don't get all the murder messages started again in this chilly city! Was it just the Summerville area outreach or did it reach the Hill area also! Doesn't seem like it!
YES Asitisnaug, arm yourself right, don't participate in any prevention programs to help the YOUTH in this city, black or white. Just continue to be an insensitive, faithless and selfish citizen.
laprince, That is an insensitive, judgmental, and self-serving comment about Asitisnaug. Unless you've been victimized repeatedly by crime, you're not in a position to understand what it can do to people. You are also assuming he has done nothing to help people in this city black and/or white. You don't know that because you don't know him.
LaPrince wrote:
Please don't get all the murder messages started again in this chilly city! Was it just the Summerville area or did it reach the Hill area also? Doesn't seem like it!
Summerville is a sub-section of “the Hill area.”
And Augusta has never been chilly in August!
Well, maybe it was chilly back before man-made global warming started.
FallingLeaves, I don't think it's insensitive to comment on a blood thirsty lynch mob. You all have no mercy. Not a drop. These boys have a mother and family and I'm sure their hearts are hurting as well. I hope and pray none of you have school age children that may grow up and turn to crime and this happens to them. You don't know what I've been through so you just made a judgment of me. I didn't say the judge hasn't done nothing for black or white but I specifically ask about the HILL area that is next door to Summerville because I never heard of this until now and it said Summerville residents, not hill residents.
When I used the word "chilly", I meant extremely cold-hearted!
This was the comment: Overstreet is currently a member of the Summerville Neighborhood Association, which has developed a notification system and neighborhood watch to deter crime in the neighborhood's 2,400 homes. It seems to me like they were protecting themselves from the Hill not helping the Hill. The only other Hill was mentioned was Forest Hills so who helped the HILL.
laprince - it is a neighborhood watch program, they look out after each other as neighbors.
My son was on of the first responders when the first young man was shot. He said that Judge Overstreet was extremely upset over having shot the boy. However, I think the judge was correct in protecting himself, it was dark, there were TWO intruders in the house with bandanas over their faces and we've had a rash of armed home invasions reported in Augusta so he had every reason to believe them to be armed. My heart and prayers go out to both the family of the young man killed and to Judge Overstreet.
There is nothing to stop the Hill from organizing the same way, laprince. Or is it just that you want someone else to do it for you?
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