At a press conference to go over city public safety initiatives on Wednesday following the brutal assault and murder of a University of Georgia nursing student by an illegal immigrant, several protestors demanded Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz (D) step down amid fierce anger in the community over the young victim’s death and worries over public safety in the Georgia city.
“What would you do? You are lawless Mr. Mayor!” one protester shouted as Girtz stood at the podium of microphones.
“I’d be glad to get some time with you if you would like some individual time,” the mayor offered.
“Yeah, I’d like to spend some time with you,” the protestor shouted back.
“Let’s do that,” Girtz agreed, to which another protester shouted: “How about a town hall?”
This Athens gentleman says he'd like to spend some time alone with the mayor…
Seems like a fair request. pic.twitter.com/k4Pu6tPe92
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) February 28, 2024
The mayor held the press conference one week after Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, attacked, kidnapped, and killed 22-year-old Laken Riley, a nursing student at UGA. The sudden death of a young student in a violent crime on the college town’s streets sent the community into an uproar.
At the press conference, Mayor Girtz responded to the notion of Athens as a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants by saying, “That term means different things to different people depending on the context of the discussion.”
In response, a protester shouted, “Liar!”
“We center our work here in Athens-Clarke County on people’s humanity and part of everybody’s humanity is the expectation of human dignity,” Girtz said as he urged the city to show sensitivity toward illegal immigrants.
The Democrat mayor then tried to smear former President Donald Trump.
“While 2019 was not that long ago, you might remember the dynamic we were living in, in the late teens in this country where you had the president of the United States speaking in the most vile terms about people who were foreign-born,” he said.
Girtz also brought up the violence in Charlottesville in 2017, when a protester fatally ran over a counter-protester with his car. “And you had that notion metastasizing in places like Charlottesville,” the Athens mayor said.
To his furious protesters, it seemed like an odd show of support for everyone but the victim in this month’s tragic murder.
This is Jose Ibarra's apartment complex in Athens, GA. This is his next door neighbor's security camera. The neighbor tells me it caught Ibarra taking bloody clothes and evidence and ditching it in various dumpsters on the property. He handed over all his footage to the police.… pic.twitter.com/0sqv960hql
— Alex Caprariello (@alcaprari23) February 27, 2024
