QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:
Aren’t you the lady who let Atlanta burn down?
— Matt Whitlock (@MattWhitlock) June 18, 2026
Flashbacks:
● CNN Center in Atlanta damaged during protests.
—CNN, May 29th, 2020.
● Atlanta Protests Turn Violent: Police Cars, Local Restaurants Damaged.
—Georgia Public Broadcasting, May 29th, 2020.
● Atlanta’s protest ends with shattered storefronts and pleas for peace.
—Georgia Recorder, May 30th, 2020.
● College Football Hall of Fame vandalized, looted in Atlanta riots.
—AL.com, May 30th, 2020.
● Protesters burn down Wendy’s in Atlanta after police shooting.
—Reuters, June 13th, 2020.
● As Black Vigilance Becomes Armed Vigilantism, Accountability Is Lost in Atlanta’s Streets.
—The Intercept, June 24th, 2020.
—Stacey Lennox, PJ Media.com, July 6th, 2020.
● Amid spike in crime, a question of who owns the streets.
For some in Atlanta, the feeling is one of abandonment. “The police just don’t seem to care anymore,” says Morris Worthen, a Black Atlanta native. At the same time, he adds, “Everybody protests police shootings of Black people, but I don’t see any protests when Black people kill Black people.”
Nearby, a white neighbor, Tom Doyle, says he can’t deny a shift in attitude among his neighbors, regardless of their race.
“If the police back off, there’s really only two things left to do: defend yourself or be a victim,” says Mr. Doyle, who says he sometimes carries his gun.
But the police feel abandoned, too, says Thaddeus Johnson, a Georgia State University criminologist, who spent 10 years as an officer with the Memphis Police Department in Tennessee.
—The Christian Science Monitor, July 15th, 2020.
● Atlanta mayor says city has been ‘defunding the police’ for the last few years.
—Reporter Newspapers, June 11th, 2020.