Despite calls for a “cooling off period,” more than two dozen Black Lives Matter protesters attempted to get on the Downtown Connector on Wednesday.
Following the shooting deaths last week of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota by police, demonstrators marched through Atlanta for five consecutive nights, then briefly marched again Wednesday along Sweet Auburn's Edgewood Avenue.
Protesters ended the march just before 11:20 a.m.
After Monday’s protest, which started at Lenox Square and ended with a sit-in outside the governor’s mansion on West Paces Ferry Road, Mayor Kasim Reed agreed to meet with demonstrators at 9 a.m. Monday following what he called “a cooling off period.”
Tiffany Smith, a spokeswoman for Black Lives Matter Atlanta, said now is not the time for a "cooling off" period. She asked for surveillance video to be released in a local police shooting that killed a woman while she was handcuffed in April 2014.
That woman, Alexia Christian, was shot after she allegedly opened fire on two officers.
“And so we understand that (Reed) might want to cool off, but right now we can’t cool off because right now in southwest Atlanta this is still happening,” Smith said.
Smith added that protesters want more information about a proposed initiative dubbed Operation Whiplash to give more resources to officers in the city.
“And so today we’re saying that we don’t need more officers in our communities,” Smith said. “We need better policing.”
