Gov. Brian Kemp has once again extended his emergency order calling for up to 1,000 Georgia National Guardsmen to protect state buildings in Atlanta, prolonging a source of tension with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms as the two clash over their responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
Kemp signed the state of emergency extension Friday to “preserve the peace and ensure public safety,” said his spokeswoman, Candice Broce. The guardsmen, she added, will continue protecting state property.
The governor’s move came just a day before people vandalized the downtown Atlanta building housing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices. Several windows were broken and the building was spray-painted. The attack on the building prompted the U.S. Justice Department to shut down the Immigration Court inside it Monday.
Georgia Guardsmen have not been dispatched to that site on Ted Turner Drive, but they could “easily secure” it, if they were sent there, Maj. Gen. Thomas Carden Jr., Georgia’s adjutant general, said Monday.
“We stand ready to continue to do what the governor has tasked us to do,” Carden said. “We can provide additional forces at his beck and call. We have access to many more thousands of servicemembers.”
Kemp called out the troops earlier this month despite opposition from Bottoms, who has urged the governor to focus state resources on responding to soaring numbers of coronavirus cases in Georgia. The latest extension keeps them in place through Aug. 10.
“It’s a terrible visual to have military tanks on our streets. It has the potential to further inflame this already very tense situation. I personally think it’s overkill,” Bottoms, who is being considered as a potential vice presidential running mate for Joe Biden, said in an interview this month. “But don’t blame that on Atlanta. Call it what it is — you want to protect your buildings.”
The governor, a Republican, signed the first order July 6 after a burst of violence across the city that included the shooting death of an 8-year-old girl and the ransacking of the headquarters of the Georgia State Patrol in southeast Atlanta. He first extended the order on July 13.
The troops were sent to three sites across the city: the state Capitol, the Governor's Mansion in Buckhead and the Department of Public Safety building, which had been vandalized by a group of at least 60 people.
Meanwhile, Bottoms and Kemp were scheduled to undergo court-ordered mediation Monday in their legal dispute over the city’s response to the pandemic. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jane Barwick ordered the mediation Thursday, just hours after Bottoms disclosed she and Kemp discussed a possible settlement to avoid a contentious court battle over his lawsuit challenging the city’s mask mandate and other restrictions.
