ATLANTA.- Atlanta police arrested a woman accused of trying to burn down the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace in Atlanta.
Officers arrested the 26-year-old woman around 5:45 p.m. Thursday after receiving a report of vandalism in progress at the two-story home in the Auburn Avenue Historic District, police said in a statement. Police said a preliminary investigation revealed that the woman had poured gasoline on the property before other people at the scene stopped her from setting it on fire.
“We believe she was spraying gasoline on the porch and door of the house. “Her quick action saved a jewel of our city, something very important for Atlanta,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told television channel WXIA-TV.
A video recorded by a witness and broadcast on local television shows a young woman dressed in black pants, a black shirt and a black wool hat holding a red gasoline can on the front porch of the house and spraying a liquid. A police report indicates that the woman was not wearing shoes.
Two men from Utah, who were in Atlanta for work, decided to visit the historic house and detected the woman pouring a liquid on the bushes, according to the police report. They became suspicious when she did not respond when they asked her if she was watering the plants and other questions.
Once they realized what she was pouring was gasoline, they begged her to stop and then “saw no other option but to try to stop her” with the help of other passersby, the report says. When they tried to arrest her, “she tried to set fire to her property and bushes, so they had to take the lighter from her hands and hold her until the police arrived.”
The police report indicates that the woman was taken to a hospital for a psychological evaluation. She is charged with attempted second-degree arson and interference with government property. The historic site is now a museum owned and operated by the National Park Service.
Source: AP
