Enraged residents of Athens, Georgia, heckled their Democrat mayor at a news briefing following the murder of 22-year-old college student Laken Riley, allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant.
Protesters interrupted Mayor Kelly Girtz’s Wednesday morning remarks on public safety, shouting and holding signs that read, “Blood on your hands” and “Make Athens safe again,” Fox News reported.
“The only appropriate number of murders in this community, the number that we are gonna be working our tails off every day for, is zero,” Girtz said before attempting to dismiss “the notion of a sanctuary city.”
“You’re a liar,” one man in the crowd yelled multiple times. “You’re the one who is guilty and got blood on your hands for this murder, sir!”
Several other people also began voicing their demands for Girtz to resign as he continued to argue that Athens is not a sanctuary city.
“There’s been no legislation from this government that’s created sanctuary city status,” the mayor said.
Despite Georgia’s state laws that prevent cities from adopting official “sanctuary” status for illegal migrants, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Athens-Clarke County authorities “don’t keep unauthorized immigrants jailed if they have no criminal history.”
A reporter continued to press him on the issue, pointing out that multiple illegal immigrants were found in the Athens apartment of 26-year-old Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra, Riley’s alleged killer.
Jose Antonio Ibarra (Clarke County Sheriff’s Office)
“We are deeply sorry for this tragedy,” Girtz responded. “Responsibility for this crime rests solely upon the perpetrator.”
The protesters also demanded that Athens-Clarke County repeal a resolution Girtz signed stating that the local government welcomed illegal aliens.
The August 20, 2019, resolution condemned “white nationalists and xenophobes” for supporting “institutions such as ICE” against “undocumented” people, especially members of the “Latinx” community.
Instead of taking accountability, Girtz shifted the blame to former President Donald Trump.
“While 2019 was not that long ago, you might remember the dynamic we were living in, in the late teens in this country where you had the president of the United States speaking in the most vile terms about people who were foreign-born,” he said. “And you had that notion metastasizing in places like Charlottesville —”
The crowd again interrupted him, one woman even laughing at the mayor’s blame shift.
“This is an invasion,” a man shouted.
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Randy Clark / BreitbartRiley was a recent transfer from the University of Georgia (UGA) and had just begun Augusta University’s nursing program when she went missing on February 22, Breitbart News reported. When her roommate realized she had not returned from her jog, she called the police.
Just hours after the running enthusiast left her home that morning, her body was found in a wooded area near Lake Herrick and UGA’s Intramural Fields, officials said.
Ibarra was arrested the next day in connection to the killing.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed to Fox News Sunday that the alleged killer was arrested in 2022 after unlawfully entering the United States from Mexico but was paroled and released back into the country for “further processing.”
ICE also admitted that the New York Police Department had arrested Ibarra on August 31, 2023, and he was “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.” He was again released to the public.
His brother, Diego Jose Ibarra, has also been taken into custody after allegedly showing police a falsified green guard during the investigation into Riley’s death.
Diego Jose Ibarra (Clarke County Sheriff’s Office)
Both siblings have also had “previous run-ins with Athens-Clarke County police,” Fox News reported, including a September 2023 incident when they allegedly shoplifted from a local Walmart.
That same month, local officials charged Diego with drunk driving and driving without a license.
Yet, the brothers remained free.
“Trauma affects all of us,” Girtz said in response to the continued jeers from the crowd. “And I understand in the wake of a great tragedy like this, we are all deeply hurt, and everybody expresses their hurt differently.”
According to the mayor, the city will finally complete its crime center, established in 2023, which will “feed public, private and UGA surveillance cameras to a law enforcement monitoring facility staffed around the clock,” Fox News reported.
This means law-abiding citizens will also be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
