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Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
What Father's Day Is Like When You've Lost Your Son
On the first Father's Day since losing his 17-year-old son, Kenneth Collier Sr. said he plans to surround himself with family and love on what he knows will be a difficult day. 'Kenn's mom was murdered when he was 10, so after that I was raising him as a single dad,' Collier said about his son, Kenneth Collier Jr. 'We started to advocate against gun violence. We spoke together, we did a lot.' 'And then for it to happen to my son, you know it's hard, it's really hard to process, you know, but I'm dealing with it though.' Kenn Jr. was shot and killed at an Austell apartment complex on Jan. 9, two months later a Cobb County grand jury indicted a 17-year-old and a 25-year-old on seven felony charges, including murder and aggravated assault. In the weeks following, Collier founded Futures Without Fear to formalize the gun advocacy work that he began with his son. This Saturday, the group will host its summer kick-off rally in Adair Park with music, games, and activities for kids, and also to provide a space for necessary community conversations about gun violence. 'I'm pretty sure this weekend is gonna be a tough time for me, but one of the things that's been helping me with my healing is being around other kids and other people that look just like my son, so when I see them I can see my son,' Collier said. Managing his grief while also being there for his fiancée, daughter, and stepson, who are also grieving, hasn't been an easy process. 'It's tough because I'm also trying to work through my feelings and my emotions,' he said. 'We've been doing the counseling as a family and just trying to hang together and spend more time together.' Collier said he wants people to know what a special kid his son was and the impact he had during his short time on earth. 'Anybody that knew Kenn knew he was an outgoing, outspoken person. He loved to perform. He loved to speak on stages,' he said. 'After his mom was murdered on his 10th birthday, he was able to channel a lot of that anger and emotion in a different way that came out in his music and his writing,' When he was 11, Kenn Jr. published a kids book called Button Buddy Stops Bullying And So Can You. 'He became a bully after his mom passed, getting upset at school, getting angry, getting in trouble, and he didn't know how to process those feelings. So he wrote a book.' Sunday, he plans to spend time with his fiancée, daughter, and stepson as they all process the grief Kenn Jr's death caused. For Jimmy Hill, he will spend his 13th Father's Day missing a child. In 2012, his 15-year-old son Curtis Jordan was murdered by two men who are now serving life in prison. Seven years later, his 21-year-old son Jimmy Atchison was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer while unarmed. 'It's [going to] be difficult after the news I just got about the dismissal,' Hill told Capital B Atlanta in reference to the federal judge who dropped the murder, aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter and violation of oath charges against the officer last week. 'I go by the graves of both my sons, Curtis and Jimmy, to put flowers down and spend time with my other children,' Hill said of his annual Father's Day routine. The Georgia NAACP has since started a petition to get Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to appeal the judge's decision. On Saturday, he plans to catch the end of the Juneteenth Parade at Piedmont Park, but otherwise Hill said he plans to have a chill Father's Day at home because he is using a wheelchair right now since breaking an ankle. He also has nine other children — eight girls and one boy — ranging in age from 20 to 41. Raised by a single mother, Hill said he does his best to always be there for his kids, who all live nearby in Atlanta or Decatur. 'You know, I had to learn how to be a father. We can be dads and sometimes think money will take care of everything. But kids want time. Kids want your love, kids want to know you care. And that's what I had to learn how to do,' he said. He credited his uncles, who helped raise him in the absence of his own father, with showing him how making time to go to games and events can sometimes be more important than money. 'That's what's going on with a lot of Black men today. We have to take the time out and learn how to be fathers. I don't care how old you get, there's always something to learn.' The post What Father's Day Is Like When You've Lost Your Son appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Progressive Candidate Bucks Establishment in Run For Governor
Launching a gubernatorial campaign with a conversation about the need for reparations for descendants of the enslaved isn't something you see every day— especially in Georgia. But state Rep. Derrick Jackson, D-Tyrone, who officially announced his bid for governor last week, says he wants to be a voice for Black voters looking for more aggressive Democratic leadership that isn't afraid to fight for bold ideas that benefit the masses. Raising Georgia's minimum wage to $27 an hour over the course of three years, continuing conversations about a Georgia reparations program, and eliminating state income taxes on teachers, nurses, military veterans, and seniors are just a few of the policies Jackson proposed during a recent interview with Capital B Atlanta. The five-term state lawmaker said he won't shy away from fighting for proposals that directly benefit Black Georgians if he's elected. 'Will there be some things specifically for Black people? Yes, because you've got a lot of things specifically for white people,' Jackson said. 'When [the federal government passes] a tax cut for the top 1%, 99% of the top 1% are white. We don't have that many Black millionaires and billionaires.' Jackson, 59, is a Navy veteran and a married father of seven who characterized himself as the anti-establishment, progressive fighter in an increasingly crowded field of candidates vying to replace Brian Kemp in the governor's mansion in 2026. Name-checking rising Democratic stars like U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez along with trailblazers like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Jackson cites the huge crowds Sanders and AOC received at anti-oligarchy rallies as evidence Democratic voters are looking for more progressive, populist candidates. He accused fellow Georgia Democratic leaders, including state Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, of being too moderate and trying to find common ground with Republicans in the Georgia General Assembly instead of outright opposing the GOP agenda. Hugley overcame Jackson and other Democrats late last year to replace James Beverly as state House Minority Leader. Jackson argues President Donald Trump's victory in Georgia and across the country made some Democrats question whether voters want them to moderate their positions or resist the controversial president's agenda, suggesting the uproar over federal employee layoffs in Georgia shows voters want the party to fight harder. 'I lost when I ran for minority leader because the caucus did not want a fighter as their minority leader,' Jackson said. 'They chose the status quo, and they regret that right now.' Earlier this year, Jackson sponsored a bill that would gradually raise Georgia's minimum wage to $27 an hour in 2028. The legislation, which failed to advance out of committee this year, would have raised the state's current $5.15 an hour minimum wage to $15 an hour this year, $18 an hour next year, and $21 an hour in 2027 before maxing out at $27 an hour in 2028. His plan to get progressive policies like this passed isn't to work with Republicans, who have majority control of the state House and state Senate. It's to defeat them at the ballot box during next year's midterm election cycle and give Democrats control of the state House. 'While I'm running for governor, I'm working to flip the [state] House,' Jackson said. 'I never believed in extending the olive branch to the Republican Party because it never worked. You've never heard a Republican say, 'I'm going to reach across the aisle,' so why am I going to extend my arm so you can chop it off?' Jackson also supports repealing Georgia's six-week abortion ban and the statewide ban on rent regulation that prevents setting limits on increases. He said he wants to make Georgia a top destination for working families, not just business owners, taking a shot at one of GOP Gov. Brian Kemp's primary talking points. 'Instead of us being the number one state for business, we're going to be the number one state for families,' Jackson said. 'If we do this right, eventually single citizens will say, 'Georgia is the best place to raise a family. Georgia is the best place in terms of affordability. Georgia is the best place for health care.'' 'The American Dream is fading for a lot of people,' Jackson continued. 'I know the governor has the responsibility to make sure that the state in which they govern is creating an environment that's conducive for everybody.' He's hoping his policy agenda will help the Democratic Party reenergize the Black voters who helped them turn the state blue in 2020, but haven't matched the same turnout rate since. 'They're disinterested because they see Democrats and Republicans as the same,' Jackson said of Black voters. 'They don't see nobody fighting for them. They don't see our interests being met. They see everyone else's interests being met and satisfied and accomplished, but we're still left behind.' Jackson joins a field of candidates that includes Attorney General Chris Carr, state Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and former lead pastor and founder of Impact United Methodist Church Olu Brown. Other rumored candidates include Stacey Abrams, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond. The post Progressive Candidate Bucks Establishment in Run For Governor appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Where to Find Free Food and Groceries in Atlanta Amid Proposed SNAP and EBT Cuts
Inside the Atlanta Community Food Bank's facility in East Point Friday morning, dozens of volunteers hustled inside to organize piles of water bottles, juice cartons, peanut butter, and cans of soup. On the other side of the building, the beeps from the forklifts echoed throughout the corridors as food bank staff in blue and gray vests packed thousands of boxes of chips, rice and pasta. Kyle Waide, CEO of the organization, said getting the millions of pounds of food out to the Georgians who need it most daily takes a 'community engagement effort' from volunteers, food bank staff, and nonprofit partners. 'We're serving hundreds of thousands of families throughout the year and connecting them with the food and resources they need, not only just to survive day to day, but to really have more bandwidth and breathing room to build stability in their lives,' Waide told Capital B Atlanta. 'I think that helps them have a better chance at pursuing opportunities and getting connected with pathways to really pursue their aspirations.' But Waide said he's fearful of what the proposed cuts being decided in Congress to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could mean for Georgians and for the food bank, which serves 29 counties across the northern part of the state. Last month, House Republicans successfully pushed for major budget cuts to SNAP in the coming years as they passed a bill that approved reducing the program's budget by $300 billion over the next 10 years. Read More: Georgia Skips Feeding Kids This Summer as GOP Pushes SNAP Cuts On top of the proposed cuts, Georgia chose to not partake in a summer program that would have helped feed 1.2 million children, according to the Food Research and Action Center. Summer EBT, also known as SUN Bucks, provides qualifying families with $120 for each eligible child in their household for the summer months. The program was designed to help feed children who receive free and reduced-price lunches at school. Congress approved the program in 2022 for use when public schools are closed or have limited hours Georgia is one of 11 states that will not take part in the program for summer 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website. Waide said that when it comes to food, the community is already in 'a state of crisis,' as demand for food has increased over the past few years due to inflation. He estimates the food bank is serving 60% more people than they were three years ago, and worries things will only get worse with cuts to SNAP. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Georgia could owe around $812 million for its share of SNAP in 2028 — more than double the $300 million in food that the food bank provides to the community annually, according to Waide. As for Black Georgians, Waide said they will face a disproportionate impact from the cuts as they are overrepresented on the SNAP rolls. In 2020, Black people made up 33% of the state's population and more than half of SNAP participants, according to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. Additionally, Black residents are twice as likely to face food insecurity compared to white residents. 'We're going to see increasing disparities in life outcomes by race, because we're already starting from a place where disparities exist, and these cuts are going to help exacerbate those disparities,' said Waide. Read More: Georgia Rejects Summer EBT, Leaving 1.2M Kids Without Food Aid The cuts to SNAP are part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce federal spending to offset the cost of extending the president's 2017 tax cuts for high-income earners. The bill with the proposed cuts is currently being reviewed in the Senate. Were the legislation to become law, these changes wouldn't come into effect until fiscal year 2028. Waide says because the state would have to shoulder more of the costs of SNAP due to the reduction from money on the federal side, state leaders could ultimately choose to reduce the amount of benefits SNAP recipients receive or restrict eligibility for the program, both resulting in less people having food. 'What we need from people is to support the food bank, get involved in our partner network and be an advocate for the community and the country you want,' said Waide. For those in search of food assistance this summer, here are ways to find free meals in the metro Atlanta area: Plug your address into a food pantry finder on the Atlanta Community Food Bank's website. Some pantries may require proof of local residency and offer curbside delivery, according to the website. You can also Text 'FINDFOOD' or 'COMIDA' to (888) 976-2232 to access the information via text message. During the summer months when schools are closed, the state has various summer meal programs in operation. Free meals are available at all the food sites for children 18 and younger, with some also serving youth with special needs up to age 21. Some of the sites operate through school-based summer programs, but many others are based within communities at parks, libraries or nonprofit organizations. Depending on the site, breakfast, lunch or both are served. To locate the nearest site, go to the USDA's website, text 'FOODGA' to 877-877, or call (866) 3-HUNGRY for help in English or Spanish. MUST Ministries, a faith based organization that provides resources to communities in Georgia, holds an annual summer lunch program that provides free meals to children in need across metro Atlanta during the summer months. They have lunches available from June through July at the following locations: Waleska UMC 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 7340 Reinhardt College Parkway, Waleska Green Acres Baptist Church 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 591 Pat Mell Road SE, Smyrna Cumberland Community Church 3059 S. Cobb Drive SE, Smyrna 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Bethany UMC 760 Hurt Road SW, Smyrna 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. McEachern UMC 4075 Macland Road, Powder Springs 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. Mount Pisgah Baptist Church 851 South Gordon Road SW, Austell 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. St. Luke UMC 5115 Brookwood Drive, Mableton 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Open Hand Atlanta is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health outcomes through the delivery of medically tailored meals and nutrition education. The organization serves residents across Georgia, focusing on those with chronic or severe health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, kidney disease, and HIV/AIDS. Information on eligibility or to request services can be found on the organization's website. The Grocery Spot is a nonprofit grocery store and community hub located in Grove Park. The store offers a free shopping experience to residents who live in the neighborhood as well as for college students, seniors, veterans and more. Residents must sign up by appointment, and groceries are available on the following days and times: 2615 DLH Parkway NW 1 to 5 p.m. (By appointment only for those who live or work in the 30314, 30318 and 30331 ZIP codes.) 777 Charlotte Place NW 1 to 3 p.m. (Wednesday is reserved for only Grove Park residents.) 2615 DLH Parkway NW 1 to 5 p.m. (By appointment only for workers in education, college students, city of Atlanta employees, residents 65 or older, and veterans.) Identification is required. The post Where to Find Free Food and Groceries in Atlanta Amid Proposed SNAP and EBT Cuts appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Atlanta Budget a Safeguard Against Potential Trump Cuts, Lawmakers Say
Atlanta City Council members say proposed cuts to federal aid programs many Black Atlantans count on and concerns about a national recession were on their minds last week when they approved another record-setting fiscal year budget. 'Everyone seems to assume we're going to have a recession,' council member Howard Shook told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. 'Things are so unpredictable in [Washington] that it's just hard to say what's going to happen.' Council members said they put more funding in this year's budget because they worry an economic downturn related to President Donald Trump's tariffs on foreign goods will have a domino effect on Atlanta's economy, and as a result will impact the city's tax revenue. They're also concerned about the effects anticipated reductions to federal aid included in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will have on city operations. 'The budget is trying to grapple with the potential that some federal money is going to go away,' council President Doug Shipman told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. The federal budget bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22 still has to be approved in the U.S. Senate and signed by Trump before becoming law. Major cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other critical programs many low-income Black Atlantans rely on for medical coverage and for paying their bills are included. More than half of Georgia SNAP benefit recipients were Black in 2020, according to the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute. Roughly 25% of Black Georgians were enrolled in Medicaid in 2023, according to the State Health Access Data Assistance Center. Only about 10% of white Georgians were on Medicaid the same year. In its current form, the Big Beautiful Bill would also cut funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's rental assistance programs by more than $26 billion, or roughly 43%. Shipman said those cuts could have a devastating impact on federal funding for affordable housing efforts in Atlanta, which is one reason the City Council voted to increase funding in its next fiscal year budget. 'The city is having to take on more of the burden of the programs that have historically been federal in nature,' Shipman said. 'We're going to try to do our best to continue to support folks [with] rental assistance, affordable housing, [and] new units.' Capital B Atlanta has reached out to Mayor Andre Dickens' office for comment. Shook and other council members voted unanimously in favor of the estimated $3 billion budget for fiscal year 2026, which begins on July 1, despite concerns about running a deficit next year, which includes a general fund budget of about $975.4 million. The city was already projected to have a $33 million deficit for the current fiscal year budget, largely due to lack of attrition and overtime pay for the Atlanta Police Department, according to lawmakers. Dickens' office told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that it has already cut the anticipated deficit in half by limiting hiring for vacant city job openings. Shook said the city's workforce was reduced by about 400 positions to help balance the current fiscal year budget. He said the mayor's office has agreed to periodically report to the council the status of department spending next fiscal year to avoid running a deficit again. Balancing the budget has become an ongoing problem in Atlanta, a city of only about half a million residential taxpayers, that is responsible for providing municipal government services to an estimated 6.3 million metro area residents who work in or commute into the city. 'There's a very widespread recognition that FY26 will have to exist in and compete with a time of really unrivaled [macroeconomic] uncertainty,' Shook said. 'We're not going to wait for quarterly budget reports, as has been the custom.' The post Atlanta Budget a Safeguard Against Potential Trump Cuts, Lawmakers Say appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Yahoo
Overcrowded, Understaffed and Unsafe: One Woman's Night in Atlanta's City Jail
Dominique Grant said she was in the middle of a mental health crisis when she was pulled over driving on Moreland Avenue by a Georgia State Trooper the Friday before Mother's Day. Arrested under suspicion of DUI, the 32-year-old mother was booked into the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC) around 11 p.m. that night. Grant admits to speeding but denies being intoxicated. She believes the officer was upset that she requested a field sobriety test and chose to arrest her instead. After she was handcuffed and placed in the back of the police car, she said the officer then offered her a Breathalyzer, which she refused. Grant is a full-time advocate and community organizer working with currently and formerly incarcerated women. So it felt like an unfortunate twist of fate when she found herself behind bars in one of the jails she regularly visits. 'I asked to be taken to the diversion center instead of ACDC, and I was denied that option,' she told Capital B Atlanta. When Grant arrived at the jail, she said, she was able to get in contact with her husband before she was put in a cell with two other women. One she said was visibly drunk and cursing at corrections officers, and another who she thought was experiencing withdrawal symptoms had a large open wound on her leg. Throughout the night, Grant said, she asked to be given water and was ignored, until an officer offered her water out of his own cup. When she asked for a new cup, he declined and continued to disregard her pleas. 'I got there at 11 o'clock at night, it's now 6 o'clock in the morning and I haven't gotten water or a phone call since … so I'm just crying,' she said. Grant said the treatment she and the other people detained in the jail that night was unprofessional, and she made it known. 'I said, 'We really push [the incarcerated women we work with] to respect y'all, because y'all are doing y''alls jobs, but to see how y'all treat people is really crazy,'' she recounted. Once the corrections officers found out she was with Women on the Rise, a local organization working to combat mass incarceration and empower formerly incarcerated women, she said her treatment changed. She was allowed to leave her cell and make a phone call at 6:15 a.m. 'I call my husband, and he's like, 'Yeah, I've been sitting in the lobby since 2:30. Your bond has been posted since 2 o'clock,'' she said. Grant was relieved to be released at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning so she could spend Mother's Day with her 4-year-old son. Still, the overall experience left a bitter taste in her mouth but even more committed to her work. Since her release, Grant has hired an attorney, begun seeing a therapist, visited a psychiatrist and restarted mental health medication. She also plans to take a driving class before her August court date. As the campaign and operations manager for Women on the Rise, Grant has been front and center with Communities Over Cages, a coalition of local organizations working to close the Atlanta City Detention Center. Built in 1995 ahead of the Olympic Games, ACDC is owned and operated by the city of Atlanta. But it is not the responsibility of the city to maintain a jail. According to Georgia law, that responsibility falls to the county's elected sheriff, Patrick Labat. Facing an overcrowding crisis and deteriorating conditions at their main jail led Fulton County leaders to turn to Atlanta for help. But even with access to a newer, not overcrowded jail, many of the same issues persist. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 97-page report on the jail that described how policy, training, and systems of accountability do little to prevent excessive uses of force by corrections officers against incarcerated people. Read More: Renovating Fulton County Jail Isn't Enough, Sheriff Says 'The DOJ report talks about the fact that the issue with Fulton County or with Rice Street isn't necessarily the condition of the building itself. It's the culture amongst [corrections officers] and that shit is carrying straight over to ACDC,' Grant said. The four-year lease agreement between the city of Atlanta and Fulton County, that allowed for Grant to be detained at ACDC rather than in a Fulton County-owned jail, will end in December 2026, and the contract explicitly states renewal is not an option. With the lease's expiration date on the horizon, advocates like Grant are hopeful they can successfully get the city to close the jail once and for all. Fulton County officials, however — such as Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts — have been vocal about wanting to purchase ACDC from the city. While Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has said he has no plans to sell or relinquish the jail to the county, Pitts told Capital B Atlanta that based on his own conversations with the mayor's office, he still believes it is a possibility. This isn't the first time Atlanta has gotten this close to closing its downtown jail. In September 2018, former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms ended the city's eight-year agreement to house Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detainees in ACDC. 'As we work to achieve our vision of an Atlanta that is welcoming and inclusive, with equal opportunity for all, it is untenable for our City to be complicit in the inhumane immigration policies that have led to the separation of hundreds of families at the United States southern border,' Bottoms said in 2018. For a while, it looked like the jail was close to being shuttered. Once it was no longer holding ICE detainees, the jail housed fewer than 50 people on average while operation costs continued to rise for the building that was designed to hold 1,300 people. In May 2019, then-City Council member Dickens successfully authored and introduced a bill to create the Reimagining ACDC Task Force made up of residents, organizers, and local government representatives. The next week, Mayor Bottoms signed legislation authorizing the closure of ACDC with the goal of transforming it into a centralized hub for social services like behavioral health programs and job training and placement. Despite the task force developing four proposals for how to repurpose the facility in 2020, ACDC now houses over 400 people. In December 2022 — at the end of one of the most deadly years at Fulton County's main jail on Rice Street, where 15 people died — the city of Atlanta entered into a four-year lease agreement with the county for up to 700 beds in the city's detention center. Two of the 19 people who have died in Fulton County custody since then were incarcerated at ACDC. At the start of the lease, Fulton County was housing around 3,400 people in its main jail, which was built to hold 2,500. Half of those in custody were unindicted. According to the county's public safety dashboard, the number of incarcerated people sleeping on portable or temporary bunks continued to rise in the months after the lease agreement began and did not reach zero until a year later. 'The leadership of the grassroots movement, especially Women on the Rise, gave the city a blueprint for how they could repurpose that space, and the city broke its promise,' said Tiffany Roberts, who served on the Reimagining ACDC Task Force, in an interview with Capital B Atlanta. Read More: Why Does Atlanta Want to Lease Its Jail to Fulton County? Roberts is also director of public policy at the Southern Center for Human Rights, who, along with Women on the Rise, was a vocal opponent of the lease with Fulton County and warned that it would not alleviate the overcrowding issue that the lease purported to address. As a former criminal defense attorney with the Fulton County Public Defender's Office and then in her own private practice, Roberts saw how the jail was used to warehouse people who often didn't have the resources to pay for their own release. '[I was] representing people who were homeless or who were profiled by police and were stuck at the detention center for city ordinance violations that were essentially either crimes of race or crimes of poverty,' she said. Roberts has been telling officials and residents for years that overcrowding will not be solved until local elected officials address the root causes of the issue instead of throwing more money at police, prisons and prosecutors to lock up more people. It was recently reported that the multi-million dollar Fulton County Center for Diversion and Services is barely utilized by the 15 police departments in the county, including APD, that are authorized to use the facility 'There should be incentives, for example, for police officers to use [diversion services] rather than arrest. Mayor Dickens has within his power to tell the police to deprioritize crimes of homelessness,' she said. A representative from Grady Health System, which operates the diversion center, told the Fulton County commissioners last week that the staff sees an average of only three people each day. Next year, Fulton County will have to find a way to house the 400, mostly women, that are currently being detained in ACDC. No announcements have been made yet, but prior to the lease, they were being detained at the south annex jail in Union City that the county has been renovating over the last year. Legislation introduced in March by council member Antonio Lewis to begin planning a staged withdrawal of detainees has stalled in the Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee. Roberts said now is the time for Atlantans to press local elected officials to prioritize uplifting Black communities, not criminalizing the people who live in them. 'We have to stop defaulting to this nonsensical belief that authoritarianism and over-policing is okay as long as Black people do it. We complain about other folks doing it at the national level, so we've got to be paying attention to what our local officials are doing,' she said. The post Overcrowded, Understaffed and Unsafe: One Woman's Night in Atlanta's City Jail appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
