Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens condemned whoever is responsible for destroying eight police motorcycles with explosives over the weekend, calling them “outrageous, dangerous and violent criminals.”
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Atlanta police responded to reports of a fire at an Atlanta police precinct on Southside Industrial Parkway around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Firefighters found multiple motorcycles on fire in a parking deck and evidence of “incendiary devices.” Photos show that the flames simply melted the motorcycles.
“The attack utilized extremely dangerous, homemade incendiary devices to set on fire and completely destroy eight police motorcycles,” Dickens said. “Thankfully, no one was injured. As shocking as this is, this was not an isolated incident.”
Dickens said the group took credit for the attack with a statement that said, “We are vengeful wingnuts with nothing left to lose.”
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Police said they believe activists targeted another police precinct on Memorial Drive, where multiple police cars had broken windows. Police said they believe the intention was to set those vehicles on fire too.
“Collectively, these have been some of the most significant attacks on public safety in our city, and in our nation over the past year,” Dickens said.
Channel 2′s Audrey Washington was at APD headquarters Wednesday, where there’s now a $10,000 reward to find the people responsible for the attacks, which come after more than a year of protests against the construction of a planned public safety training facility in DeKalb County.
Activists camped in the woods to try to keep the facility from being built for months, getting into several violent confrontations with police. On several occasions, protestors hurled Molotov cocktails and fireworks at officers, set construction equipment on fire and vandalized buildings, police said.
Last week, activists hosted a “week of action” in which they protested at several businesses connected to the training facility, throwing rotten meat at officers at one point.
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Dickens said at the news conference Wednesday that he fully supports people’s right to protest the facility peacefully, but that he won’t tolerate criminal behavior. He blamed the attacks on outside agitators.
“Criminals are hiding in the midst of peaceful protesters,” Dickens said. “Some are career arsonists and vandals from across the nation.”
Washington spoke to Rev. Keyanna Jones with Community Movement Builders, a group associated with the effort to stop the construction of the training center.
“They want to associate us with people who others would label as terrorists,” Jones said. “We will not ever say that the destruction of property is violence, because what we know to be acts of violence are the ways police terrorize the Black community.”
Atlanta police chief Darin Scheirbaum said the people who are conducting the violent attacks are a “group that is on borrowed time.”
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