Two dueling events happened outside Athens City Hall on Tuesday, and it’s difficult to know what to call them. Protests? Rallies? Memorials? Both sides claimed to remember slain Athens nursing student Laken Riley in a nonpolitical way, but passions ran high nonetheless.
On the steps of City Hall facing College Avenue stood Laurie Camp, speaking to about 200 supporters, mostly Republicans, mostly angry about immigration because the man charged with Riley’s killing, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, crossed the border illegally from Venezuela.
“We want to keep our community safe. We want to hold our commissioners accountable,” said Camp, who organized that rally under the MAGA-esque moniker “Keep Athens Safe Again,” aligning with former president Donald Trump seizing on the border as a main issue in the 2024 presidential race.
But the county commission isn’t the real enemy, she said. “The real enemy is that many people have turned away from God.”
On the other side of the street, a slightly smaller group gathered to express support for immigrants and to put the blame for Riley’s death on violence against women. A number of left-wing organizations—including the Athens Immigrants Rights Coalition, the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement and socialist student groups at UGA—came together to form a counterprotest.
“We didn’t want that to be solely what the [national] media saw,” said school board member, ACC Democratic Committee president and former commissioner Tim Denson. Instead of immigration, he said the focus should be on male violence against women.
“We definitely got tired of the narrative being controlled by a lot of folks outside of Athens who have an ideology that doesn’t represent this community,” Denson said.
Both sides said they were nonpartisan, but with the border being a hot-button issue, inevitably politics crept into the discussion. Speakers included Jessica Fore, a Democratic candidate for Congress, and state Rep. Houston Gaines (R-Athens).
Gaines touted a bill the House recently passed authorizing police to arrest people on suspicion that they might be in the U.S. illegally and requiring jailers to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests.
“While we have a local government with many issues, your state government is working to try to address these challenges,” he said.
As the two demonstrations started to break up around 6:30 p.m., some attendees filed into City Hall as the commission meeting was already well underway. The commission was in the midst of passing a public safety package including $530,000 for a new mobile surveillance center, 20 cameras and all-terrain vehicles for police to patrol recreational trails.
Joseph Wargo, a staffer for Charlie Kirk’s conservative organization Turning Point USA, interrupted the proceedings and was led away by police.
“Kelly Girtz! You are going to resign!” he shouted. “I’m done with the corruption. I know what you’re hiding. Where’s the bank account? Where was the audit?”
James DePaola—a street preacher who disrupted a Mayor Kelly Girtz press conference last week and recently appeared on Fox News—called on Girtz, commissioners and Sheriff John Q. Williams to resign or face a recall effort. Charles Hardy—who has had an ongoing beef with Girtz since being removed from running a now-shuttered homeless camp—also called for the mayor’s resignation.
Camp, who said she had appeared on national TV five times but declined to give her address publicly, denied that she is hateful or xenophobic. She questioned why the commission denounced white supremacy in a 2019 resolution in support of immigrants, which critics have falsely said made Athens a sanctuary city.
While some demonstrators waved signs in support of immigrants, some speakers sought to turn attention toward women’s safety. Fore, for example, spoke about how to recognize abusers from their patterns of behavior.
After the public comment period ended, Commissioner Melissa Link gave a speech addressing a variety of issues. “I am as disgusted by the crime as I am by the hysterical glee with which so many have seized on this tragedy to promote division, bigotry and hate,” she said.
Link tied Riley’s murder to assault weapons, toxic masculinity, school shootings, bad drivers, terrorists and world leaders who wage war, Town & Gown Theater shooter George Zinkhan, a UGA football player who killed a Racetrac clerk, UGA students Jennifer Stone and Tara Baker’s murders decades ago, strict abortion laws, sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court justices and “lying, cheating, fraudulent, philandering rapist” Donald Trump. She called on the state legislature to enact gun control despite no indication that a gun was used in Riley’s murder.
Commissioner John Culpepper said that county attorneys confirmed that he 2019 resolution did not make Athens a sanctuary city, and that he is committed to correcting that misperception.
Commissioner Ovita Thornton said she regrets that the resolution categorized anyone as white supremacists. “My intent was at that time to help a group of folks that were struggling,” she said.
Commissioner Patrick Davenport criticized the national media for painting a false picture of Athens. “This is a very loving town,” he said. “… One act of callousness should not divide this community.”
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