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Bulldozers kill man in Atlanta tent while clearing homeless camp near MLK’s church

City workers in Atlanta killed a man living in a tent as they used construction equipment to clear a homeless encampment near Georgia’s famed Martin Luther King church.

The death of Cornelius Taylor on Thursday afternoon resulted from an effort to reduce the visibility of unsheltered people near the city’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church as accommodation for crowds expected in the area to celebrate King and Queen this weekend. on Monday, the federal holiday dedicated to the civil rights leader’s life and legacy. Taylor’s death has enraged homelessness advocates and prompted a soul-searching from city leaders.

“The cleanup, which the city previously failed to fully police the tents, is an emergency measure to attempt to project a false, sanitized vision of Atlanta,” activists with the Housing Justice League said in a statement. “Taylor and everyone else living on the streets deserved much more than to be steamrolled during the MLK Weekend festivities. Everyone deserves to live in dignity.”

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Officials in Atlanta have not yet clarified how Taylor died. Witnesses told local media that Atlanta Public Works Department bulldozers were removing tents from the open area across the street from the church and ran over a man in a tent who had not left the encampment on Old Wheat Street.

“I am saddened by this terrible incident and extend my thoughts and prayers to the family of the deceased,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement. “I care deeply about every life in this city. We will review all our processes and procedures and take every precaution to ensure this never happens again, as we continue our important work to house our unsheltered population and bring our neighbors in.”

Historically, the city sends social workers and relief teams to camps for a period of months before issuing a final evacuation order. These teams work to place people in shelters and ultimately permanently house them.

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The city had been working with people at the encampment since April and had placed many in shelters, said Cathryn Vassell, CEO of the city’s homeless organization Partners for Home. Atlanta last year announced an investment of $60 million in new public funding — the largest amount in the city’s history — to address homelessness.

That investment comes as Atlanta grapples with a 60% increase in unsheltered homelessness since the coronavirus pandemic, following previous years of declines.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock, one of Georgia’s senators, is pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The Democrat, who was elected during Joe Biden’s historic victory in Georgia in the 2020 election, previously announced that he will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington on Monday and will not attend this year’s King Memorial Day events .

Marcus Coleman, a community activist in Atlanta, noted that the city is also hosting the college football championship this weekend, and the city government is alternating clearing homeless encampments with high-profile visitor events. “Big money for the city this weekend,” he said. “The death of Cornelius Taylor and the excruciating manner in which he died seems inappropriate for a city too busy to hate.”

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Sylvia Broome, who does outreach to the area’s unhoused, went to the site where Taylor was killed and suffocated on Friday when she described the man at a local outlet as someone with a good heart who liked to draw.

“He had dreams, ambitions, he had family, he was a good friend of mine and he’s gone,” Broome told WABE. She called for a full investigation.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was co-pastor at the church from 1960 until he was assassinated in 1968, and Joe Biden had the rare honor of being the first sitting president to deliver a Sunday sermon there in 2023.

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