Beside the ruins of a burnt Wendy’s, an Atlanta community struggles to create peace

In the early morning of Tuesday, bulldozers and backhoes moved in to demolish the charred ruins of a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant that had become a shrine, a mini occupation zone, and rallying point for protesters since the building was set ablaze following theActivists who occupied the parking lot around the former drive-through restaurant hoped to create a space that would affirm Black lives, even naming the site the Rayshard Brooks Peace Center.

While activists say no one they know was responsible for the shooting — and point out that wielding firearms is not a crime in this open-carry state — city leaders insisted on dismantling the camp. An organizer of the Rayshard Brooks Peace Camp, who calls herself Lady A, speaks to Atlanta Police Department interim Police Chief Rodney Bryant on Monday as police officers and sanitation crews dismantled the memorial to Rayshard Brooks.

flocked to the site to light candles and snap selfies, many knelt before a makeshift altar decorated with placards: “I CAN’T BREATHE,” “ABOLISH THE POLICE” and “MELANIN IS NOT A CRIME.”One message, that remained up for days, was more ominous: “FOR EVERY BODY YOU’VE TOOK IM TAKING 5 OF YALLS ON THE FOURTH OF JULY.”residents of surrounding neighborhoods and reporters who ventured to the Wendy’s to look at the memorial were frequently interrogated by Black men and asked to leave.

in Turner’s death, and they are still looking for other persons of interest, including a Black man who appeared on video surveillance footage carrying an AR-15.a local TV outlet he was a peaceful protester who witnessed the shooting. He denied firing his weapon.In the tiny historic Black neighborhood of Peoplestown, poor but gentrifying with about 2,700 residents, there is almost universal support for reforming the Police Department.

momentum for making the site permanent, he said, asking Wendy’s to relinquish the deed to the land and getting buy-in from local officials for creating a new community space. Ward believes in nonviolence, but he said he was reluctant to focus on Black men carrying or firing guns. It was more important, he said, to take a step back and address the underlying systemic racism that had left so many Black residents languishing in poverty.

Huh?

Shit the blue checks are back 😢

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