CIVIL UNREST

Georgia Guv Activates 1,000 National Guard Troops Amid ‘Cop City’ Protests

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also declared a state of emergency on Thursday.

Gov. Brian Kemp (R) declared a 15-day state of emergency in Georgia on Thursday amid the civil unrest that followed the killing of an environmental activist by police officers. The order also authorized the use of up to 1,000 National Guard troops, making them available to respond to any “unlawful assemblage, overt threats of violence, disruption of the peace, and danger existing to persons and property.” His declaration alleges that, during the Jan. 21 protest, “masked activists threw rocks, launched fireworks and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation office building.” Six people were arrested in the wake of the demonstrations, which ignited in response to the Jan. 18 death of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, an activist known as Tortuguita. Terán was part of the movement resisting the creation of a police training complex, pejoratively nicknamed “Cop City,” within a 300-acre forest in Atlanta. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Terán shot and wounded a state trooper in the chest prior to his death.