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Athens Mayor Girtz Fights Recall Effort Spurred by Laken Riley Murder

A local recall effort is underway to remove Athens, Georgia Mayor Kelly Girtz. The recall effort is motivated by the circumstances surrounding the vicious murder of 22-year-old University of Georgia (UGA) student Laken Riley on February 22 by illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra. Riley had been jogging on the campus.

Georgia officials have since revealed gruesome details about the killing and accused Ibarra of “disfiguring her skull” and “dragging her body to a secluded area.” ICE previously stated that Ibarra had been arrested by the New York Police Department a year after being paroled, on Sept. 14, 2023, and “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.”

Ibarra entered the country in El Paso, Texas, in September 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said, and later lived in New York City briefly before moving in with his brother in Georgia. The two brothers were also busted for shoplifting at an Athens Walmart in October and charged with stealing $200 in merchandise, “but were released after being issued summonses.”

Athens does not acknowledge that it has or had an official sanctuary city policy, but Girtz had “come under fire for what critics call a soft stance on immigration, including signing a 2019 city resolution that declared the county “is welcoming to people from all lands and backgrounds.””

As reported, following Riley’s gruesome death, “Girtz defended his sanctuary city’s policies in private emails where even the most violent illegal immigrants who commit crimes are not turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”

Girtz asserted in one of his emails that it was a “well-documented propensity of immigrants in the U.S. to be less criminally inclined than the native-born population.”

Some people in Athens want to recall him. Girtz is fighting the recall effort. “Girtz filed a petition with the county’s superior court this week requesting the suspension of the recall effort. He claimed that the effort has been mishandled by county elections officials and the court must review it.” Girtz is requesting that a court “examine the sufficiency, or lack thereof, of the grounds stated for the recall effort.”

D&B Staff

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