Stand by your man?

"You'll have bad times

And he'll have good times

Doing things that you don't understand"

– Tammy Wynette

Mayor Shirley Franklin last week did two consecutive days of backing and bolstering her man, police Chief Richard Pennington. But unlike Tammy Wynette's 1968 hit, Franklin's song wasn't an ode to loyalty. Rather, it was a sadly futile attempt to shore up her own crumbling credibility.

Franklin expressed consternation at her man being under fire – from citizens, the media, City Council members and, most damning, from legions of hard-working, underpaid Atlanta police officers who contend they are crudely mismanaged.

And then the mayor took forceful action this week as the ka-booming implosion at the police department's executive offices continued:

She went on a junket to Canada.

That followed another decisive move by the mayor that coincided with federal revelations last month about police corruption:

Franklin went on a schmoozing trip to Asia.

Meanwhile, other than some platitudes emanating from Pennington, he's mum. Correction. He did proclaim that if it weren't for quotas – oops, I meant, "performance standards" in Penningtonspeak – "cops would come in every day with nothing on their sheets." That sure as hell boosted morale among, as the chief clearly views them, those lazy, lay-about ne'er-do-wells at the cop shop. Way to go, chief, for pointing out that dedication and loyalty have nothing to do with cops collaring crooks.

There seems to be a pattern. When bad news about the police department slams into Atlanta, don't look for leadership from Franklin or Pennington. That needs to stop. Now. Or else the mayor can kiss her legacy and reputation a big sloppy goodbye.

Following the Nov. 21 slaying of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, Atlanta has witnessed the unfolding of a major crisis, not that the mayor seems to have much noticed. Johnston's death doesn't appear to be an isolated tragedy – plea agreements with two officers involved in the killing point to a rash of routinely fabricated "evidence" to get warrants.

The pivot point in all of this is the allegation that Pennington has imposed a rule of quotas. No, Franklin says, my man hasn't imposed quotas. The mayor is either grossly misinformed by her man or is complicit in his game. I've seen the e-mails from boss cops demanding their subordinates meet quotas, or else the officers will be punitively assigned to "foot beat until further notice." I've heard a small army of police officers vividly describe the chief's abhorrent numbers game – including the warrants and arrests quotas that pressured narcotics officers into manufacturing evidence.

When the mayor denies quotas exist, she may be standing by her man, but she's also dissing the ranks of police officers by calling them liars. Of course, those cops don't expect much from the mayor – not after she broke her promise three years ago to boost their pay by 40 percent. The mayor's man, on the other hand, has the fourth-largest chief's salary in the nation: $190,000 plus a package of perks. And he has received more than $32,000 a year in raises since he landed in Atlanta five years ago – almost as much as a starting cop makes.

The standing-by-her-man mayor also vigorously proclaimed that Pennington is responsible for lower crime rates. Well, no. According to officers, the most compelling factor in any Atlanta crime decrease is the closing of housing projects – dispatching crime along with impoverished residents to DeKalb, Henry and other suburban counties. On top of that, the Atlanta Police Department's own website shows crime stats heading up.

Besides that, many of Pennington's arrest statistics are bogus. As CL's Alyssa Abkowitz reported recently, the largest category of arrests in Atlanta – 22 a day – is for a disorderly conduct law that has since been repealed. Police union president Sgt. Scott Kreher told City Council the law "is being abused in order to satisfy arrest numbers."

The awful corruption that led to bad cops killing Johnston is a symptom of widespread rot throughout parts of the APD, especially management. It's the rot of favoritism and cronyism.

Maybe the officers who killed the elderly woman were bad cops from the get-go, but probably not. Those police officers warped, bent and broke trying to meet the quotas established by the mayor's man, say scores of officers I've interviewed.

The cops weren't typical of rank-and-file Atlanta police officers. But they had been lying and cheating for a long time. U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said last month his office is probing "just how wide the culture of misconduct extends."

Put another way, one would have to be totally credulous to conclude the police brass didn't know or suspect the score. Either the chief and his sycophantic inner circle knew of the "culture" and should be severely disciplined for tolerating corruption, or they didn't know and should be just as severely disciplined for incompetence.

Meanwhile, the globe-trotting Franklin either doesn't have a clue or is blowing smoke. It's a sad and startling stance from a mayor whose legacy as the city's savior seemed all but cemented just two years ago. Now she could be dragged down with Pennington's sinking ship.

It's been two months since City Council passed a resolution opposed by the mayor – but that she nonetheless signed – establishing a police review board with teeth. Yet the mayor, council and most of the other groups that will name people to the board have yet to announce their picks. As Councilman H. Lamar Willis notes with a sigh, "We haven't gone anywhere. The review board has yet to be populated. The people want action, but they're not getting it."

No "population" on the panel, no scrutiny of the mayor's man. That is not acceptable. The mayor must ignite an aggressive investigation by the review board into Pennington's regime, and she must state her priority: her city or her man.