The murder of Laken Riley traumatized not only her family and friends, but the entire Athens community and people all across Georgia. It shook students, made every parent’s worst nightmare come to life and sent shivers through women who’ve had their own brushes with violence while walking or jogging alone.
The 22-year-old nursing student went for a run the morning of Thursday, Feb. 22 and never came back. Police found her body shortly after noon Thursday, Feb. 22 near a secluded trail behind Lake Herrick, her skull crushed by blunt force trauma. Less than 36 hours later, a suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was in custody.
Riley and Ibarra did not know each other, according to UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark, who called it a crime of opportunity. “This was an individual who woke up in the morning with bad intentions,” Clark said.
Riley ran track at her high school in Woodstock before enrolling at UGA in 2020 and joining the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. Last year, she transferred to Augusta University to complete her nursing degree while remaining in Athens.
Chloe Mullis, president of Alpha Chi Omega, remarked that the campus has lost one of its brightest lights, and that the sisterhood will not be the same without Riley. At a memorial service that drew thousands of people to Tate Plaza, she encouraged audience members to be kind, catch up with friends and strive to be the kind of person Riley was.
“Laken showed incredible wisdom throughout her friendships,” Mullis said. “Whether it was nursing school, being the Alpha Chi banner chair or the incredible runner that she was, Laken showed devotion throughout every avenue of her life.”
Students were already reeling from the unrelated death of another classmate, Wyatt Banks, the day before Riley was killed. Nick Nichols, a close friend of the business major and Kappa Sigma member, said he was a constant spreader of positivity and a hardworking student. He urged anyone who is quietly suffering to speak out, because there is always someone who will listen.
“Wyatt never hesitated when he noticed others in need, and always made those around him feel safe and welcomed in his presence,” Nichols said. “I and many others will forever wish that we had noticed his pain.”
Is Athens a Sanctuary City?
Riley’s death was already a national story, but all hell really broke loose the evening of Friday, Feb. 23, when Clark announced that a suspect was in custody and told dozens of reporters gathered for a news conference that Ibarra is not a U.S. citizen. At the time, Clark said he was unsure of Ibarra’s immigration status, but with the border a hot-button issue in national politics, that didn’t stop an almost immediate backlash.
“The blood of Laken Riley is on the hands of Joe Biden, [Homeland Security Secretary] Alejandro Mayorkas, and the government of Athens-Clarke County,” Athens’ congressman, Republican Mike Collins, tweeted just minutes after the news conference ended. “The Venezuelan suspect in Laken Riley’s murder is one of millions of illegal aliens that the Biden administration has released into this country to be welcomed with open arms by Democrat-run sanctuary jurisdictions.”
Soon after, flocks of social media users began hurling online insults and threats at Mayor Kelly Girtz, other local elected officials, journalists and even ordinary residents who expressed a desire not to scapegoat immigrants or politicize Riley’s death.
It wasn’t until two days later that Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that Ibarra had unlawfully crossed the border at El Paso, TX in 2022 and sought asylum, claiming a credible fear of returning to his violence-torn home country. Ibarra’s wife told the New York Post that they were put on a bus to New York City, where he worked for a time as a delivery driver. Layling Franco said the couple split up in November, and Ibarra went to stay with his brother, Diego, who briefly worked at a UGA dining hall before being fired because his immigration documents didn’t check out. The brothers lived in a South Milledge Avenue apartment complex not far from the trail where Riley was killed.
While in Athens, the brothers were cited for shoplifting from a local Walmart, which police said is a common practice for the misdemeanor charge. Officers in the field don’t have immediate access to federal information about immigration status, which is usually checked when suspects are booked at the jail, according to ACC Police Chief Jerry Saulters.
A bench warrant was issued for Jose Ibarra in December after he failed to appear in court on the shoplifting charge. When asked whether the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office ever attempted to serve that warrant, a spokesperson responded: “We had no contact with Mr. Ibarra prior to his arrest related to the murder.”
Ibarra was never booked into jail, but the sheriff’s office has a policy—instituted under community pressure in 2018 by Sheriff John Q. Williams’ predecessor, Ira Edwards—of not holding inmates past their release date for ICE pick up unless a judge orders it. Ibarra’s lawyer, public defender John Donnelly, said in court filings that Ibarra won’t seek bail. As long as he’s being held without bond, he will not be turned over to ICE for deportation, the sheriff’s office said.
Meanwhile, Girtz denied at a news conference last week that Athens is a sanctuary city. Although there’s no official legal definition of a sanctuary city, Georgia law bans them, and cities are required to certify with the state yearly that they’re not one in order to receive state funding. A resolution the commission passed in 2019 condemning white supremacy and declaring Athens a “welcoming” community for immigrants regardless of documentation was prompted by violence against immigrants during the Trump administration, Girtz said. A resolution is an expression of opinion by a government body, not a law.
At times, a small group of protestors shouted over the mayor, calling him a liar and telling him to resign. “I taught high school for a lot of years, and I got better behavior out of them,” he quipped.
One of those protesters, James Depaola, was later interviewed on Fox News under the name James Lee. Prior to that appearance, his claim to fame was a 2016 charge of threatening his wife for putting too much cheese on his grilled cheese sandwich.
Campus Safety
“I caution you not to conflate immigration and crime,” Girtz said at the news conference. “The data suggests the two are not connected.” Even the conservative Cato Institute concluded, based on Texas data, that the crime rate among both documented and undocumented immigrants is far lower than among native-born U.S. citizens.
Nevertheless, in the wake of Riley’s murder, Republicans introduced a slew of legislation aimed at undocumented immigrants and law enforcement officials perceived as tolerating or abetting them. On Feb. 29—generally, the last day for bills to pass one chamber or the other, although some dead bills can be revived—the state House passed a bill requiring jailers to cooperate with ICE, which Democrats fear will overload law enforcement agencies and lead to more racial profiling.
“There are so many people both in this body and outside of this body who would be suspected as foreign nationals and would be unfairly detained until it was proven they were citizens,” said Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-Duluth).
The Athens Immigrants Rights Coalition released a statement expressing sorrow over Riley’s murder and commending authorities for acting quickly, but also warning of a backlash against immigrants:
“The safety of all members of our community is paramount. Unfortunately, violence against women is a continuously present reality in our country, and cuts across all ethnic or racial lines. As a community, we must work together to address the conditions that continue to put women at risk in these ways.
“That includes rejecting messages of hate. We vehemently oppose assertions that immigrants and Latinos as a group pose threats to or diminish our community. Our immigrant neighbors spend their days working hard to build a life here for their families, and contribute to our schools, economy and social fabric in positive ways, as shown in all statistics.”
Gov. Brian Kemp and state Rep. Houston Gaines (R-Athens) took the opportunity of speaking engagements at an Athens Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast last week to excoriate the Biden administration and District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez.
“This community, all of Georgia, and the entire country have been robbed by this inexcusable and avoidable murder,” Kemp said. “Laken’s life should not have ended so soon. We need to demand justice for what happened to her. She deserves justice, her family deserves justice, and we need justice on a national level to prevent this type of thing from happening again.”
Kemp and Gaines, both long-standing critics of Gonzalez, expressed doubt that her chronically short-staffed office can handle the case. Gonzalez brought in Sheila Ross, who has experience in several high-profile murder trials, from the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia for assistance.
“From day one, our office has worked diligently to keep this community safe from anyone who seeks to do it harm. This includes those who believe violence is the answer. We will ensure such individuals are brought to justice,” Gonzalez said in a statement.
Beyond the DA’s checkered success rate prosecuting major crimes, Riley’s murder left students and parents questioning whether campus—and Athens as a whole—is safe. “UGA’s campus is safer than others, but I think safety can definitely be improved right now,” said Trey Manning, a third-year psychology major and resident advisor at Brumby Hall.
A Fayetteville-based group called SafeD Athens that claims 4,000 members—a few of whom were among Girtz’s hecklers—and has enough clout to meet with top UGA leadership is pushing for a “safe zone” extending 500 yards beyond UGA property, and possibly to student housing further out, where penalties for crimes are stiffer. While that’s not currently on the table, UGA did include some of SafeD Athens’ ideas in a recently announced $7.3 million package of safety initiatives.
President Jere Morehead announced a permanent 20% increase to the campus police budget. He also announced the addition of blue-light call boxes, more security cameras, license-plate readers and lighting upgrades. Hours for the university’s RideSmart program, which provides a 50% subsidy on four Uber and Lyft rides per month, were extended to 6 p.m.–6 a.m. UGA is beefing up security in areas where students congregate at night, and access to the main library will be limited to students and faculty after 6 p.m.
Girtz announced his own public safety package, including installing more security cameras, a real-time crime center, mobile surveillance trailers that can be deployed during public events and all-terrain vehicles for police to patrol off-road areas. Far from defunding the police, as critics have accused ACC of doing, the county has spent millions in recent years on salary raises, perks and equipment for the department—some of which has been controversial among those on the left, like Girtz’s “cadet corps” that encourages high school students to become police officers.
Girtz also pointed to Athens’ crime statistics, which show that most types of crimes fell in 2023. Violent crimes like assaults, aggravated assaults and shootings were down 7%. At 66 per 1,000 residents, the crime rate compares favorably with other similarly sized college towns like Fayetteville, AR (88 per 1,000) or Tuscaloosa, AL (92 per 1,000).
Under the Clery Act, colleges are required to report statistics on certain crimes that happen on campus. UGA reported 24 rapes and sexual assaults, four aggravated assaults and 44 cases of battery in 2022, the most recent year data is available.
The number of murders on the UGA campus since 1996 is one. As Girtz said, though, “The only appropriate number of murders is zero.”
Flagpole contributor Rebecca McCarthy, editorial intern Xinge Lei and Toni Odejimi of the Georgia Recorder contributed to this report.
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