Following the death of an environmental activist who was shot and killed by police last week after they claimed the 26-year-old had shot a state trooper, a protest that started peacefully in downtown Atlanta on Saturday night became violent.
Large glass windows were broken when masked demonstrators wearing all-black attire tossed rocks and let off pyrotechnics in front of a tower that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Then, as shocked onlookers dispersed, they set a police cruiser on fire, broke additional windows, and spray-painted anti-police messages on the walls.
In mourning for the protester’s passing, a nonbinary person who went by the name Tortuguita and utilized they/it pronouns, hundreds of demonstrators gathered and marched up Atlanta’s renowned Peachtree Street.
Tortuguita was slain on Wednesday as police moved to remove a few protestors from the location of the “Cop City” public safety training facility that organizers want to build in the Atlanta area.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Tortuguita was shot by a state trooper and then killed by police. However, activists have questioned the official account of what happened, calling it a “murder,” and they are pushing for a separate investigation.
The encounter was not captured on body cams, according to the GBI. The trooper was struck in the abdomen by a bullet from a weapon that was in Tortuguita’s possession, the bureau reported on Friday.
On social media and among leftist activists, news about the demonstration on Saturday had been widely disseminated beforehand. Some activists even distributed flyers that stated, “Police killed a demonstrator. Rise up. Strike back.
At a news conference, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum reported that police had made six arrests and found explosive devices after demonstrators damaged property on Peachtree Street, a stretch of hotels and eateries, on Saturday.
Authorities, according to him, put an end to the violence within two blocks, and neither civilians nor law enforcement personnel was hurt.
