District Attorney Fani Willis and several of her top prosecutors provided insight on the state of crime in Fulton County and their approach to being more proactive. During the third annual Full Force Fulton Summit, Willis and her team provided updates on crimes stats, issues with youth gangs, domestic violence, and cyber crimes.
Willis spoke with Atlanta Daily World and gave her thoughts on the summit and overall approach to keeping Fulton County safe.
“There is no apologizing for putting the bad guys in jail,” Willis told ADW. “None of this apologizing for doing what’s right and holding people to a standard. And so I think today is one about transparency, letting people know that these are problems we have and we’re not gonna pretend like they don’t exist. That we’re here to deal with them and deal with those who want to do harm to our community. Each year we’re looking to get a little better, so that our community gets a little safer.”
Born in Inglewood, California in 1971 and raised in Washington, D.C., Willis is the daughter of former Black Panther and lawyer John Clifford Floyd III. She was inspired to practice law by her father and she graduated from Howard University in 1993 before obtaining a law degree at Emory University in 1996.
Following graduation from law school, Willis joined the Fulton County District Attorney Office and remained there until 2018. After several years as a private defense attorney, Willis decided to run for Fulton County District Attorney and defeated her former boss Paul Howard in 2020. The task of taking over during the pandemic was daunting due to backlogs on cases and rescheduling of trials, but Willis put in work from day one.
Thus far, Willis has over 3,000 indictments in 2023. She is also leading several high-profile cases including the Young Thug/YSL RICO case and she could also indict former President Donald Trump for election tampering in the 2020 election.
The Trump RICO case centers around the 2020 election probe when the former president asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during a phone call to help him secure over 11,000 votes, the amount in which he trailed Joe Biden in Georgia.
During a recorded call that took place on Jan. 2, 2021, Trump told Raffensperger, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
When asked about the national implications of both cases, Willis revealed that she will prosecute any person, regardless of status, if they commit crimes in Fulton County, Georgia.
“It’s going to be a historic year,” Willis declared. “It’s certainly we have more history to come. We’re gonna continue to do great things because I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, no one is above the law. And so we are making sure through our efforts that we are making sure that our community has its dignity, but we also want to prosecute those that choose to come to this county and commit crimes.”
Willis is also seeking to be proactive with the Reach initiative that started in 2022-23. The anti-crime program caters to students in the Fulton County schools.
“The overall goal is collaboration,” Willis said. “Nobody can do this alone. We can’t do it alone just for the D.A.’s office. The police can’t do it alone. The pastors can’t do it alone. The elected officials can’t do it. But together, maybe I’m naive, but I truly believe if we all come together and we really focus on our children, that we can really change the way things look.”