Threats clog voicemails for some Atlanta City Council members after training center funding vote

Some city council members said they are receiving death threats after voting in support of a bill that would give $67 million toward Atlanta’s new public safety training center.

“They’re saying all kinds of horrible things, ‘We hope you die.’,” said Council Member Michael Julian Bond. “The worst thing for me is, ‘I wish you were dead like your father.’

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He said the callers use racial slurs against him.

“In every other sentence that is left on the voicemail,” said Bond.

He said he and 10 other council members who voted “yes” last Tuesday started receiving threats almost immediately.

“It takes away from the movement itself,” said Council Member Liliana Bakhtiari.

Bakhtiari voted against the bill, but she said she heard the threatening voicemails.

“Some of my colleagues had their spouses threatened, their children, some as young as less than a year old also threatened,” said Bakhtiari. “There were fears about their children being picked up from school or leaving them home alone that their houses were being watched, things along those lines.”

Groups against the training center construction, like Community Movement Builders, wrote in a statement:

“I don’t believe I should give air to the narrative that city council members are under threat when a forest defender has been killed, over 42 people are facing domestic terrorism charges, bail funds are being raided and the whole movement is being criminalized in local media. It is not a real story.”

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“There absolutely needs to be time to heal. Violence is not the way to do that. People have every right to be upset and emotional about what happened with that vote. People have every right to be upset and emotional about Tortiguita being killed. People have every right to be upset and emotional about an officer being shot, but, now we make space and hold space for that grief, but we move forward peacefully,” Bakhtiari said.

Bond said police are tracking the calls and patrolling their neighborhoods.

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