In anticipation of violent anti-police protests in Atlanta this weekend, Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, issued a state of emergency on Thursday.
This weekend, protesters in masks burned down a police car and threw rocks and fireworks at the Atlanta Police Foundation building. In response, the governor called up 1,000 National Guard troops. He will use them to put a halt to further violence.
Georgians are okay with protests that don’t involve violence, but they don’t like violence against people or property.
Unless the governor extends it, the state of emergency will end on Thursday, February 9.
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The Atlanta Police Department, known by its enemies as “Cop City,” was building a new police training facility when violence broke out last weekend. Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, an environmental activist, had been shot by police when opposing the project.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says that a 26-year-old protester shot a Georgia state trooper during an “operation” to get activists off the site of the $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. He was shot and killed by law enforcement on January 18.
Investigators say that the hurt state trooper was taken to a nearby hospital and had surgery there.
Last Friday, anti-police protestors demanded a “night of wrath” in response to a shooting involving police.
Over the weekend, rioters broke windows and threw bricks at least at three businesses. Two police cars, including one on fire, were targeted. According to investigators, some of the people detained had bombs on them.
Six people have been charged with domestic terrorism in connection with the disturbances over the previous weekend; five of them were from outside the state.
They were named Madeleine Feola, 22, of Spokane, Washington; Ivan Ferguson, 23, of Nevada; Graham Evatt, 20, of Decatur, Georgia; Francis Carroll, 22, of Kennebunkport, Maine; and Emily Murphy, 37, of Grosse Isle, Michigan. Nadja Geier, 24, of Nashville, Tennessee, was one of them.
