Woman who wrote ‘tear down’ on statue charged with felony

ATLANTA — A protest organizer says a woman arrested Thursday at the Georgia State Capitol for defacing a statue of a Confederate general only wrote “tear down” on it in chalk, questioning whether the action merited any criminal charges, much less a felony charge filed by the Georgia State Patrol.

State Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Lt. Stephanie L. Stallings said 55-year-old Jamie Loughner of Atlanta was arrested Thursday and charged with interference with government property, a felony, and criminal trespass, a misdemeanor.

Loughner was taken to the Fulton County jail where records show she remained jailed on Friday. Bail is set at $1,500. The Associated Press was unable to determine if she has a lawyer.

The Georgia Capitol Police, a unit of the Department of Public Safety charged with protecting the capitol and other state government buildings, said the statue was “defaced,” Stallings said. She said she had no specifics and the police report remained incomplete Friday afternoon.

Protesters have been gathering at the statue of John Brown Gordon, on a corner of the capitol grounds, for daily protests demanding that it and other monuments be removed, saying they were white supremacists and that Georgia shouldn’t honor them. The protests spun out of other demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Organizer J.J. Nicole said Friday that Loughner was not part of her normal group of demonstrators, but has been circulating among various protests in Atlanta, surveying demonstrators on changes they want. Nicole said Friday that Loughner uses a walker and climbed the stairs from the street level on Thursday, where demonstrators were gathering, to the elevated capitol lawn and wrote on the base of Gordon’s statue in yellow chalk. Nicole said Loughner wrote “Tear Down,” part of the protest’s slogan of “Tear Down Gordon” and that about 10 officers then came out of the capitol to arrest her. Video on WXIA-TV showed the words.

“Dude, it’s chalk,” Nicole said. “Take a wet rag and wipe it off. She’s in a walker. Surely there’s better things to do with our resources. Per usual, the police response was 10 times more than what it needed to be.”

Interference with government property is punishable by one to five years in prison.