Protests moved from city streets to college campuses and back again in the span of 24 hours as metro Atlanta residents responded to Wednesday’s grand jury decision that declined to indict a white police officer in connection to the death of an unarmed black man in New York City.
“No justice, no peace” was the chant as a crowd marched south on Peachtree Street toward Memorial Drive about 7 p.m. Thursday. About 100 mostly cheerful protesters converged at Underground Atlanta to take part in the rally that began about 90 minutes earlier.
Drama almost erupted during the protest when a carriage driver almost lost control of his rig when the crowd’s chanting spooked the two horses.
While one of the chants was “We won’t stop,” the orderly and considerate if boisterous crowd quickly realized the trouble it was causing and toned it down while the coachman dismounted and steadied his animals.
Later, the crowd converged on the Atlanta City Detention Center after reports that Occupy Atlanta organizer Tim Franzen had been arrested Thursday on old warrants for criminal trespass and jaywalking. Activist Jim Chambers said he understood that more charges had been added during the day.
“We are trying to find someone to tell us what the charges are and for a judge to set a bond,” Chambers said. “We will bond him out.”
Franzen’s arrest, Atlanta police spokesman Officer John Chafee said, happened earlier in the day when officers were monitoring a group of demonstrators protesting fast food restaurant employee wages. Demonstrators were peaceful and using the sidewalk as they walked, but as the group reached MARTA’s Ashby Station on Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, they began entering the roadway and impeding the flow of traffic.
Officers say they saw a man waving people into the street, encouraging demonstrators to walk in the roadway. They identified the man as Franzen and a check of his name revealed outstanding warrants for his arrest from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and Atlanta Municipal Court.
Upon the conclusion of the demonstration and as Franzen was leaving, officers stopped him and took him into custody on the warrants.
Chafee said participants remained peaceful during the evening protests, with officers making no arrests or noting any issues.
But the size of Thursday night’s rally, and the visual it offered, paled in comparison to one held earlier in the day.
‘Die-ins’ held on college campuses
More than 300 people, black and white, were taking part in a “die-in” protest Thursday afternoon outside the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. One person held a sign that read, “I am not Mike Brown but I refuse to be Darren Wilson,” the Ferguson, Mo., police officer who was not charged in the August fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Bodies were still on the damp ground, nothing but their mouths moving in unison: “Black lives matter. I cannot breathe. I want to live.”
Similar protests were held Thursday at Georgia Tech, Agnes Scott College, Kennesaw State University and Columbia Theological Seminary.
“It’s just so wrong,” said Debbie Sinex, a white Atlanta woman who lives near Emory and attended the protest there. “We talk about getting cameras on officers, but this was on camera, they saw what happened, and still nothing.”
Sinex was referring to the videotaped chokehold killing death of 43-year-old Eric Garner, who had been stopped by New York City authorities on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. A grand jury on Wednesday cleared the officer in connection to his death.
A start, but not the end
That decision sparked the first of a series of protests in and around Atlanta. Wednesday night saw an estimated 150 people take part in a peaceful demonstration that began across from the North Avenue MARTA station.
Thursday night’s gathering, though smaller than that of the previous night, featured many of the same messages. Before protest participants began marching, chants of “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “Black lives matter” were among the messages of those gathered - mostly young and largely black with a sprinkling of whites and Asians. Many held handmade placards with such slogans as “We can’t breathe,” a reference to Garner’s death.
Michelle Watson, a Georgia State University student and member of Shut It Down Atlanta, ended the rally with an announcement of another in Woodruff Park 7 p.m. Saturday.
“This is not the end, it is the beginning,” she said.
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