ATLANTA — It got a little tense when advocates for the unhoused tried to deliver a letter to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens on Thursday. The letter listed demands the group wanted after a city bulldozer ran over a tent and killed an unhoused man inside.
But the advocates and family of 49-year-old Cornelius Taylor never got inside the mayor’s office.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” someone said as police prevented them from going into Dickens’ office.
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Tim Franzen with the group told Channel 2′s Tom Jones he wasn’t happy about being denied an opportunity to meet with the mayor.
“They wouldn’t let us in,” he said. When asked why, he said: “They said it’s closed to us.
Taylor was killed when a city bulldozer ran over his tent during a sweep of a homeless encampment near Ebenezer Baptist Church on Jan. 16. Some advocates believe the city was trying to clean up the area in advance of MLK festivities planned the next week.
“You got four minutes to get your stuff. That’s what they said. 4 minutes,” Gus Hendricks, a friend of Taylor’s who says he was at the encampment. He says city workers didn’t check any tents before they started clearing the area.
“Cornelius Taylor died because of failure of city policy,” community activist Derrick Boazman said to protesters gathered on the steps of City Hall.
People who spoke at the rally and march said the city needs to make policy changes to prevent something like this from happening again.
“Stop the sweeps. Stop the sweeps,” they chanted.
They want a moratorium on the sweeps.
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Taylor’s family said they don’t want this to happen to anyone else.
“There won’t be a next one if we stop the sweeps,” Darlene Chaney said.
The protesters then marched to city hall. That’s where Jones spoke to Taylor’s mother. She said she needs justice.
“Yeah. For real. Justice is the main thing,” Lois Taylor said.
A spokesman for the mayor says he had a scheduled meeting with the advocates for 9:30am Thursday morning, and they canceled. He said the mayor wasn’t at city hall when the advocates stopped by.
Mayor Dickens has said he is saddened by what happened. And he said the city is reviewing its procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
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