![[Valid RSS]](https://web.archive.org/web/20240108205913im_/https://ocgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed")
ATLANTA–Congressman Hank Johnson (GA-04) said he “fully supports” peaceful pro-Palestinian student protestors who were arrested at Emory University’s campus in Atlanta on Thursday, April 25. The Atlanta demonstration over the Gaza war was one of many protests on college campuses held this week across the U.S.
Emory University’s Vice President for Public Safety Cheryl Elliott said in a message to the campus that 28 people were arrested on Thursday morning, including 20 Emory community members.
“At 7:41 a.m. a few dozen protestors arrived on campus. When they arrived, these individuals ignored and pushed past EPD officers stationed on the Quad and set up tents in an area where equipment and materials were staged for Commencement,” Elliott said in her message. Elliott said that multiple dispersal orders were issued to the encampment telling them to leave because they were trespassing, but the orders were ignored and authorities began arresting the protestors.
Georgie State Patrol (GSP) said in a release that a taser was used on one individual who resisted arrest when protesters were throwing bottles at officers and refusing to disperse. Elliott said that person was not a member of the Emory community. GSP said troopers also deployed pepper balls to control the crowd.
Congressman Johnson criticized the Georgia State Patrol’s involvement, saying that students have a right to protest what they see as unjust policies and practices of their government.
Johnson issued the following statement late Thursday about the unrest on Emory’s campus:
“I am disturbed to learn that Governor Brian Kemp has deployed the Georgia State Patrol (GSP) onto the Emory University campus. The mandate of GSP is to “investigate traffic crashes and enforce traffic and criminal laws on the state’s roads.”
Georgia State Patrol has no place on the college campus. And neither do outside agitators who seek to usurp the peaceful protests against the Netanyahu government’s killing of tens of thousands of innocent Gazans by giving life to a false narrative that the protest movement is violent and anti-Semitic. Those participants who seek to intimidate, threaten, or demean our Jewish brothers and sisters have no place among the legitimate protesters.
Reminiscent of the anti-war and civil rights protests on college campuses in the 1960s and 70s, today’s student protesters have a First Amendment right to protest against what they see as unjust policies and practices of their government, I fully support their right to peacefully protest on campus, and I call for the outside agitators to stay away from our college campuses.”