Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms spoke with CNN Monday following the shooting-death of an 8-year-old girl; blaming the spike in gun violence on President Trump’s “lack of leadership.”
“I don’t know the answers because I don’t know the questions to ask… We talk about systemic racism and the trauma and anxiety… It’s this convergence, this perfect storm, it’s where we are in this country. Think about the leadership -or lack thereof- coming from the highest office in the land.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms responds to a weekend of violence in her city describing a "perfect storm," and pointing to President Trump, saying his lack of leadership is stirring emotions which are playing out as "violence in our streets." https://t.co/Gke7JcI5nU pic.twitter.com/yFHIEikGh0
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) July 6, 2020
Watch the Mayor’s comments above.
ATLANTA MAYOR on CHILD’S MURDER: ‘You Can’t Blame This on a Police Officer’
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms weighed-in Sunday on the tragic murder of an 8-year-old girl near a ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest site; telling demonstrators “you can’t blame this on a police officer.”
“We’ve talked a lot about what we are demanding from our officers in our communities,” Bottoms said. “We’ve protested, we’ve demonstrated, we’ve been angry, we’ve cried, we’ve demanded action. Well now we’re demanding action for Secoriea Turner and for all the other people who were shot in Atlanta last night and over the past few weeks, because the reality is this: These aren’t police officers shooting people on the streets of Atlanta, these are members of the community shooting each other, and in this case, it is the worst possible outcome.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms:
“We are shooting eachother up on our streets..” pic.twitter.com/Q6Atkm49ES
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) July 6, 2020
“You can’t blame this on a police officer, you can’t say this is about criminal justice reform,” said Bottoms. “This is about some people carrying some weapons who shot up a car with an 8-year-old baby in the car. We got to stop this. We are doing more harm than any police officer on this force.”
Watch the Mayor’s comments above.
DEVELOPING: Atlanta Police ‘Call Out of Work,’ Say Department Has ‘No Direction’ from Leadership
From Fox News:
Atlanta police officers are continuing to call out of work while concerns are emerging over a lack of direction from the department’s new leadership, according to a report.
The call outs began Wednesday after a district attorney announced charges against two Atlanta officers in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks. Fox5 Atlanta says it has received tips of officers calling or walking out of the job again during the night shift Thursday, although the department has not confirmed the information
“The police officers are like you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” retired DeKalb County Police Major K.D. Johnson told the station. “I have heard that there have been some call outs and some refusing to respond to calls.”
“The officers I’ve spoken to say they have no direction from the new leadership and that’s a concern because they need to know who’s got their back,” Johnson told the station.
Read the full report at Fox News.