Athens police said they arrested 19 people after Sunday night’s protests turned violent.
The department said the daytime protests remained peaceful and the majority of those who went to downtown Athens to voice their opposition to racism and police brutality left by sundown.
“(The department’s) primary focus was placed on protecting protest participants’ constitutional rights and ensuring those rights were not diminished unless criminal activity or other justifiable public safety hazards existed,” police said in a news release.
The city issued an emergency declaration that included a curfew between 9 p.m. Sunday and 5 a.m. Monday, the release said. While most obeyed that order, police said a group of roughly 200 people remained downtown, blocking College and Broad streets. Many of them "possessed weapons and other instruments commonly used by extremist(s) during violent protests" and "appeared to belong to a violent extremist group." Tear gas was used to break up the crowd, leading to the arrests.
However, some protesters have pushed back on that narrative provided by police.
Erin Stacer told AJC.com that she didn’t see signs of an “extremist” group infiltrating the peaceful protest. The only group she said had any form of weapons were a small number of demonstrators wearing Hawaiian shirts and armed with rifles.
According to local media reports, officials have accused the group of being part of the Boogaloo movement.
“Some people were really nervous about (them),” Stacer said. “Others were very ‘eh, whatever’ about them.”
However, she said the group left by sundown, along with most of the initial protest group. Instead, Stacer thinks police misinterpreted the backpacks worn by protester medics, who were carrying first aid supplies in case of tear gas.
Three of the civilian medics, identified as Carly Fabian, Mikaela Warner and Alden DiCamillo, put out a statement to counter the one released by police.
“According to our thorough observations, none of the remaining protesters were armed, and the protest was consistently peaceful,” the statement said. “The backpacks we wore contained medical equipment.”
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Stacer added that police were giving protesters lots of space during the afternoon and were making sure traffic avoided the protesting area, which was set up along Broad Street near the University of Georgia’s iconic Arch. Stacer said things lasted that way until about midnight, when the National Guard came in to disperse the remaining protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets.
“I heard about eight (rubber bullets being fired), one right after the other,” she said. “There was a pause and then I heard some screaming.”
The civilian medics provided a link to a YouTube video of cellphone footage, which they said shows the last 45 minutes of the protest and how events unfolded.
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In Atlanta, at least 350 arrests were made between Friday night and 8 p.m. Monday, according to police. Only the names of 82 people were released during that time frame, and the majority of them were from metro Atlanta, AJC.com previously reported.
MORE: Atlanta protests: 298 arrested over the weekend, many for misdemeanors
According to local media reports, a smaller group gathered in downtown Athens to continue the peaceful protest Monday. It’s unclear if any additional arrests were made, and police have not released any information about the more recent protests.
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