(WSB Radio)   Atlanta Police are disbanding one of the department's most high-profile units.

"Red Dog as we currently know it today will no longer exist," announced Atlanta Police Chief George Turner on Monday.

The APD's Red Dog narcotics unit will be dissolved within 60 days, and will be re-formed with a focus on violent crime.  The officers will rank just below the SWAT unit.

"We're going to have an investigative component piece that will go in and deal with those lower level narcotics issues that are created in our city that do not elevate to the level of a narcotics investigation," says  Turner.

Turner insists however, that the revamping is not because of the unit's recent bad PR.

From the Neal Street shooting of an elderly woman during a bogus drug raid and its cover-up, to the storming of a gay bar, the Eagle, in midtown and the million-dollar lawsuit that followed, the Red Dog unit has been dogged by its image in the eyes of some as a rough-riding band of tough guys to whom the rules, seemingly, just don't apply.

"This not a result of any one incident," said Turner.  "An evolution has to take place."

Turner says members of the old Red Dog unit are welcome to apply for the new unit, but emphasized that their records must be clean and that a high standard of behavior and adherence to constitutional law will be paramount.

"The individuals in this special tactical unit are going to have to be different," said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who says the police will operate "with a sense of humanity and decency and in a constitutional manner."