MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — Heavy smoke was causing low visibility Wednesday along Interstate 20 east of Atlanta as chemicals continued spewing from a beleaguered chlorine facility, and emergency officials warn that smoke from the disaster scene is projected to move toward Georgia's capital city after sunset Wednesday.
Three days after a chemical fire at the BioLab plant in Conyers, Georgia, sent a huge plume of orange and black smoke into the sky on Sunday, Rockdale County emergency officials recommend that residents shelter in place from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. each night until Friday. Air quality readings may reach “concerning levels” during those times for people in the path of the chemical plume, they have warned.
The still-billowing chemical cloud was cutting visibility for motorists on Interstate 20 near the plant, between mile markers 78 and 82, the Georgia Department of Transportation reported Wednesday. Drivers were advised to roll up their car windows in the area.
But concerns and complaints are not limited to the Conyers area. People in Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs have reported a strong chemical smell and haze for many miles around the plant, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of downtown Atlanta.
Winds are expected to begin shifting from the east to the west on Wednesday evening, pushing smoke toward Atlanta, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency said.
“Smoke is predicted to settle towards the ground as it moves toward Atlanta,” the agency said in an update Wednesday. “There is a high likelihood that people across metro Atlanta will wake up on Thursday morning seeing haze and smelling chlorine.”
Overnight monitoring around the facility “detected some exceedances above the action level for chlorine," the agency said.
The fire was brought under control around 4 p.m. Sunday, officials said, but material there has continued to smolder.
Federal officials are investigating what led to the fire and how it has been handled. The sprinkler system showered water onto water-reactive chemicals around 5 a.m. Sunday, Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel said. There were employees inside the plant, but no injuries were reported.
BioLab’s website says it is the swimming pool and spa water care division of Lawrenceville, Georgia-based KIK Consumer Products.
There have been other destructive fires at the Conyers complex, which opened in 1973.
In May 2004, multiple warehouse explosions led to a huge fire and chlorine-laden blaze that prompted the evacuation of 300 people, at least nine of whom sought hospital treatment for burning eyes and lungs, The Associated Press reported.
In June 2015, six Rockdale County firefighters were hurt in a fire at the complex, and another fire in 2016 prompted voluntary evacuations, the Rockdale Citizen reported.
In September 2020, a chemical fire prompted authorities to shut down Interstate 20. Nine firefighters went to hospitals after inhaling hazardous vapors, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board determined.
Chemical smoke spewing from a Georgia factory is projected to spread toward Atlanta as winds shift
Chemical smoke spewing from a Georgia factory is projected to spread toward Atlanta as winds shift
Smoke billows from a fire at the BioLab facility in Conyers, Ga., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Memphis police officers who beat Tyre Nichols to death wanted to punish him after he ran from a 2023 traffic stop and thought they could get away with it, a prosecutor said Wednesday as closing arguments began in the federal trial of three of the officers.
“They wanted it to be a beatdown,” prosecutor Kathryn Gilbert told jurors in the federal trial of Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, who are accused of violating Nichols' civil rights and of trying to cover up the beating. “That’s what it was.”
Prosecutors have argued the beating was part of a common police practice referred to in officer slang as the “street tax” or “run tax. ”
Police video shows five officers, who are all Black, punched, kicked and hit Nichols, who was also Black, about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother. Two of the officers, Desmond Mills and Emmitt Martin. pleaded guilty and testified for prosecutors.
“You saw the punches," Gilbert said. "You saw the kicks. You saw the baton strikes.”
Defense attorneys have questioned whether the officers were properly trained and pointed to Martin as a principal aggressor. They are expected to give their closing arguments later Wednesday.
Earlier Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mark Norris read lengthy instructions for the jurors.
To find any of the three guilty of using too much force, Norris said jurors would need to find that the officers acted as law enforcement officers, violated Nichols’ right to be free from the use of excessive force and “deliberate indifference” to his injuries, and that he suffered bodily injury or death.
The jury also must consider whether the officers were using their “split second judgment” about the force needed to put handcuffs on Nichols after he ran from police.
Outside the courthouse Wednesday, supporters of Nichols' family stood in a circle for a prayer from Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson while holding hands. They ended the prayer with a chant of “Justice for Tyre.”
Attorneys for Bean, Haley and Smith rested their cases after each had called experts to try to combat prosecutors’ arguments that the officers used excessive force against Nichols, didn’t intervene, and failed to tell their supervisors and medical personnel about the extent of the beating.
Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. An autopsy report shows Nichols — the father of a boy who is now 7 — died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
The officers used pepper spray and a Taser on Nichols during the traffic stop, but the 29-year-old ran away, police video shows.
All five officers were fired. They were part of the the Scorpion Unit, which looked for drugs, illegal guns and violent offenders. It was disbanded after Nichols’ death.
Haley, Bean and Smith pleaded not guilty to federal charges of excessive force, failure to intervene, and obstructing justice through witness tampering. They face up to life in prison if convicted.
The five officers have pleaded not guilty to separate state charges of second-degree murder. A trial date in that case has not been set. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas.
Associated Press journalists Jonathan Mattise in Nashville and Kristin M. Hall in Memphis also contributed.
RowVaughn Wells, left, mother of Tyre Nichols, prays with Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, right, before entering the federal courthouse for the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of her son Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
RowVaughn Wells, left, mother of Tyre Nichols, prays with Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, center, enter the federal courthouse for the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of her son Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
RowVaughn Wells, left, mother of Tyre Nichols, prays with family and friends before entering the federal courthouse for the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of her son Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Justin Smith, one of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, arrives at the federal courthouse for the day's proceedings Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Tadarrius Bean one of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, arrives at the federal courthouse for the day's proceedings Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
RowVaughn Wells, left, mother of Tyre Nichols, shouts her son's name with Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, second from right, before entering the federal courthouse for the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of her son Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Family and friends of Tyre Nichols, pray before entering the federal courthouse for the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating of Nichols, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Friends and family of Tyre Nichols gather to pray before entering the federal courthouse for the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the 2023 fatal beating Nichols, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
