Mayor Kelly Girtz hosts media conference to address recent community questions

On Feb. 28, Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz hosted a media conference to discuss safety initiatives for Athens-Clarke County, as well as Athens’ asylum status following the murder of nursing student Laken Riley. 

Girtz began the conference by addressing the tragic death of Riley and conveyed his condolences to her family and loved ones. 

“It’s one of these (tragedies) that is a reminder of our collective failure to be where we wish to be, in the community and our society,” Girtz said. “I empathize with the frustration and anger so many are feeling right now. The Chief (Jerry Saulters) and I are parents — parents who have raised children in this town and poured our heart and our souls in our work as parents. I can’t imagine the grieving of this family and their loved ones,” Girtz said.

He also discussed new and current safety measures in the Athens community, and those specific to the University of Georgia’s campus. The University of Georgia has already announced more than $7 million in new investments for public safety. Girtz plans on asking the County Commision to endorse several new investments, totalling more than $500,000 in the upcoming weeks.

These steps include advancing the real time crime center, the first steps of which were started in the last budget year, to completion, and making sure it is staffed on all shifts. Alongside the real time crime center, the police department will be tying publicly accessible cameras to complicit private ones in a unified system. A mobile closed circuit television heavy duty trailer will also be introduced to use at large community events. The trailer will allow police to act quickly, similar to how they want to consistently respond to high crime areas. 

Given the expansion of trail networks in the Athens area, Girtz will also ask to increase the funding for all-terrain vehicles in the police department; this initiative would be utilized in cases like Riley’s that are difficult to respond to efficiently. Police will also be expanding their pan, tilt and zoom cameras, of which they currently have 24, toward areas that have been deemed vulnerable by data and experiences of Athens police officers.

When Girtz began to discuss Athens and being called a “sanctuary city,” a term which he said has no clear definition, protestors began to shout over him mid-sentence, repeatedly calling him a liar.

“You are guilty and have blood on your hands with this murder sir,” one protestor said.

Some protestors also held signs that said “Justice for Laken,” “Resign Now” and “Stop Lying.”

“When you have millions of people crossing the border, some of them are going to be bad,” another said.

The protestors continued to interrupt, even after law enforcement officials asked them to stop. While one man kept talking loudly over Girtz, the mayor tried to explain to him that he was there to listen and there would be time for questions later, but Girtz was once again interrupted. The mayor soon asked non-members of the press to leave because of the excessive disruptions, but they refused and continued yelling over him. Throughout the hostility, police did not remove any protestors.

“I’d say trauma affects all of us. And I understand in the wake of a great tragedy like this we’re all deeply hurt, and everybody expresses their hurt differently,” Girtz said when asked to address the protestors.

Before Girtz concluded and was ready for questions, his final notion addressed Athens-Clarke County’s diligence to improve the safety of its citizens.

“The only appropriate number of murders in this community, and the number that we are going to be working our tails off everyday for, is zero,” Girtz said.

In response to Girtz’s statement, a protestor said that in order to decrease the murders to zero, the United States would have to deport all “illegal aliens.”

“I want to say we center our work here in Athens-Clarke County in people’s humanity, and part of everybody’s humanity is the expectation of human dignity,” Girtz said.

Despite the protestors’ outbursts, Girtz repeatedly attempted to redirect the conference back to its original intentions and address issues of public safety and concern.

“The practical reality is that those families (in the community) tend to be blended amongst a variety of immigration statuses,” Girtz said when asked if the 2019 resolution supporting the country’s undocumented communities and immigrants would still be in place. “We want to create a stable environment for people in our community. When that environment is disrupted by hate or vitriol, that’s not a safe environment for the school children and their families to live in.”

Athens-Clarke County Deputy Police Chief Saulters also briefly addressed the media. He explained that there was an arrest made back in October 2023 on Jose Ibarra for shoplifting. Ibarra has recently been charged with Riley’s murder, however, both of the investigations are ongoing and Saulters could not comment more on it. 

For the shoplifting crime, Ibarra was “cited” which is common with misdemeanors. Being cited, or given a citation are a substitute for an arrest in situations with minor offenses. Instead of going through the jailing process, an individual is given a written notice to show up in court or mail a response.

Saulters said that the police ran Ibarra’s name through their database and if they’d been alerted to any federal warrants or holds on him they would’ve detained him. However since there were none at that time, the police had no reason to suspect Ibarra of being an illegal immigrant. He also explained that the police don’t have access to any sort of database to view immigration status.

“Any murder in this community is a tragedy, particularly when we see young lives cut short. It means that the blossoming that we’ve expected for our own children is not going to bear fruit for this family,” Girtz said. “Our anger of these murders and other criminal activities will drive us to continue to improve our community safety, as we’ve been pursuing for so many years.”