Atlanta council member, security guard get into confrontation at Oakland Cemetery

ATLANTA — Atlanta City Council Member Liliana Bakhtiari was involved in a confrontation with a security guard at Oakland Cemetery on Oct. 4. She said she regrets that it may have cost him his job.

Bakhtiari posted a statement online about the altercation.

The councilwoman said she and some friends were at the cemetery at sundown for a surprise wedding engagement and they had permission from the foundation to be there.

“We were asked to leave by one security guard. As we began to pack our things, our otherwise happy celebration devolved as an unidentified man began approaching us in the dark, with no flashlight, shouting obscenities at the top of his voice,” Bakthiari wrote online.

When she “stepped forward to intervene” on her friends’ behalf to have the man identify himself and protect her friends from his advance, Bakthiari said she stood her ground.

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Channel 2 Action News obtained a copy of the non-criminal incident report from the Atlanta Police Department. It gives the security guard’s details of the event.

The security guard told officers that Oakland Cemetery Sexton Samuel Reed told him he’d heard voices in the cemetery after the cemetery was closed.

He said he went to check on what he heard, but didn’t have a flashlight with him. He added that he couldn’t see any faces but did see lights.

The security guard “began yelling ‘Pack it up, pack it up! It’s time to go,’” the report says.

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The guard told officers that he saw several women stand up and “one walked up to him and put her hand in his face. He stated that he told her to back up and she then pushed him down.”

The guard said the woman “continued coming towards him, knocked his hat off and hit him across his forehead,” later identifying her as Bakhtiari.

Police interviewed another security officer, who corroborated his account of what happened.

According to the report, Reed said over the phone that he had advised the foundation’s executive director that Bakhtiari and her group had permission to be at the cemetery after hours.

Members of Bakhtiari’s group told police they were already packing up the site and spoke with a different security guard earlier.

The guard denied medical treatment and chose not to press charges. Another security guard escorted the group out of the cemetery.

Bakhtiari wrote online that she regretted that the incident led to the security guard losing his job and “that the incident caused so much harm.”

She said the issue could have been avoided with advance communication between members of the contracted private security team at the cemetery.

Channel 2 Action News has reached out to Oakland Cemetery to confirm the guard’s employment status.

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