Bulldozers kill man in tent in Atlanta clearing homeless camp near MLK’s church The city was clearing the area around the Ebenezer Baptist church before the MLK Day celebration on Monday.
The death of Cornelius Taylor on Thursday afternoon resulted from an effort to reduce the visibility of people without shelter near the city’s historic Ebenezer Baptist church as an accommodation for crowds expected in the area to celebrate King this weekend and on Monday, the federal holiday dedicated to the civil rights leader’s life and legacy.
City workers in Atlanta have killed a man living in a tent while clearing a homeless encampment with construction equipment near Martin Luther King’s famous Georgia church.
Witnesses told local media that bulldozers from Atlanta’s department of public works were removing tents from the open area across the street from the church and ran over a man inside a tent who had not left the encampment on Old Wheat Street.
“The sweep, prior to which the city failed completely to check the tents, is a stopgap measure to try to project a false, sanitized vision of Atlanta,” activists from the Housing Justice League said in a statement.
