By Christian Boone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Interim Atlanta Police Chief George Turner told the AJC on Monday that the department's goal is for 100 new officers by year's end.

Turner said the city has budgeted an additional $16 million that will go toward hiring the new officers and retention, which he plans to address through reinstating "increments," or annual step-pay increases. The loss of those increments has been crippling for morale, Turner said.

The department will soon hire another 50 new officers through funds made available by the federal stimulus package. New mayor Kasim Reed has vowed to hire 750 new officers by the end of his first term.

In this morning's meeting with the AJC editorial board, Turner said he hoped to shed the interim tag.

"I would love to be the permanent chief," he said. Turner, who grew up in Atlanta, joined the department in 1981, steadily working his way up through the ranks.

So far, the interim chief, sworn in last Monday, has been anything but a caretaker. He's already has announced a major reorganization of the top brass, with 12 of 21 positions changing hands.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, said Turner is taking a bolder approach than most interim appointments.

"My hunch is that he wouldn't be making these changes unless he had some insight into what the mayor wants," Wexler said. "He's clearly a risk-taker, and that's frequently the kind of person who becomes chief."

Reed is conducting a nationwide search for a new chief but has indicated he'd prefer to promote from within.

"I am going to do everything I can to have a man or woman from the Atlanta Police Department, but we are going to have a national search," Reed said in a recent interview with the AJC. "Our police officers ought to be able to compete with the best and the brightest."

Turner addressed a number of other issues in Monday's meeting.

* The city's 911 Center: "I'm ecstatic about a report I just received today," said Turner, who previously oversaw the APD's support services division, which includes the 911 communications center.  "[Answering times] averaged less than 10 seconds all week long." Turner said a new director should be in place by the end of February. The search has been prolonged in order to find a director with experience supervising call centers as large as Atlanta's. Previous director Miles Butler was fired in August.

* Panhandling: "Aggressive panhandling is against the law. Being homeless is not," Turner said. He said police will target more persistent beggars, noting one panhandler was arrested 22 times in 18 months.

* Gangs: Today's gangs more closely resemble organized crime syndicates than the Bloods and Crips archetypes, which were more concerned with turf protection.   "Young people are coming together to violate the law," said Turner, who was in charge the APD's first gang unit in 1993. Twenty new officers have been added to the gang unit. "We're focused on where they're moving [merchandise] and how they're moving it," Turner said.