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11 months ago
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A female military veteran said to have mental health issues was filmed trying to set Martin Luther King Jr's childhood home ablaze.
The unnamed would-be arsonist, 26, was seen pouring the contents of a five gallon gasoline container onto the wooden porch of the historic Atlanta home on Thursday.
In a clip of the incident, a witness twice asks: 'What are you doing?'
The woman signals with her hand for him to leave her alone. 'That's gasoline,' he tells her.
Those witnesses later said that they stepped in when they saw her attempting to ignite a lighter on the lawn, The New York Times reported.
Eyewitness Zach Kempf, 43, who was visiting the federal landmark from Salt Lake City, stepped in after the woman walked to the front yard to get a lighter.
The woman was also seen trying to yank the screen door off the front of the property, which was built in 1895 and was MLK Jr's home until he was 12.
Kempf said the woman had a 'nervous energy' about her, adding: 'But she wasn't aggressive.'
He added 'Obviously, the house is so important, and I’m really glad nothing happened to it. But I feel like now I’m mostly just concerned for her well-being.'
The woman is then said to have relented in her attempts to burn the home and started to walk away. Two cops visiting from New York restrained her, with another part of the video shared showing the woman with a knee on her back.
Witnesses said that they initially thought that the suspect was watering the shrubs until she tried to get access to the house
Two off-duty NYPD officers stopped the suspect, 26, from leaving the scene as they waited for the Atlanta PD to arrive
The property was constructed in 1895 and was MLK Jr's childhood home until he was 12
Martin Luther King Jr's childhood home
When Martin Luther King Jr was born in 1929, he lived in a Queen Anne-style frame house at 501 Auburn Ave. in Atlanta.
The home was built in 1895 for a white family and bought by King’s maternal grandfather in 1909 for $3,500.
The neighborhood was the Sweet Auburn District, a thriving location for black-owned businesses, churches and clubs.
King’s mother later inherited the property.
The civil rights icon would go on to live there until he was 12 years old.
The last members of the family to live in the house was King's younger brother Alfred Daniel King and his family, who passed away in 1969 in a mysterious swimming accident.
In 1980, Congress declared the house a National Historic Site and in 1982, the National Park Service began offering tours.
The house was bought by the National Park Foundation in 2018.
It has been restored with period pieces to the way it would have looked when King lived there in the 1930s and early ‘40s.
In November, it was announced that the house would undergo further renovations and be closed to the public until 2025.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the Good Samaritans had helped 'save an important part of American history tonight.'
Shortly after her arrest, the woman's father and sisters arrived at the scene. They said that they had been trying to track her down because they were worried about her and found her through a tracking app on her phone.
The home is located in Atlanta's historic Sweet Auburn section and is undergoing renovations and is closed to the public until 2025.
Atlanta Fire Department Battalion Chief Jerry DeBerry echoed the police chief's words, saying that if the witnesses any longer, the home could have been lost forever.
'It could have been a matter of seconds before the house was engulfed in flames,' DeBerry said.
'Tonight, an unfortunate incident occurred at the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as an individual attempted to set fire to this historic property. Fortunately, the attempt was unsuccessful, thanks to the brave intervention of good Samaritans and the quick response of law enforcement,' the King Center said in a statement.
'We thank the Atlanta Police Department, Atlanta Fire Department, the National Parks Service, and Mayor Andre Dickens for leading the efforts to ensure the safety of our cherished national landmark and its adjacent neighbors. Our prayers are with the individual who allegedly committed this criminal act,' the press release continued.
Congress declared the home a National Historic Site in 1980, and the National Park Service began offering tours of it in 1982.
The home was built in 1895 for a white family and bought by King's maternal grandfather in 1909 for $3,500. King's mother inherited it. King's younger brother, A.D. King, and his family were the last of the King line to live there.
English (US)