The Atlanta City Council is set to vote on Feb. 3 to reevaluate its policies on clearing homeless encampments after Cornelius Taylor was crushed in his tent by a city front loader during a recent sweep.
The same day as the council meeting, Taylor’s funeral will be held at Ebenezer Baptist Church. After the service, a horse-drawn carriage will carry his coffin to city hall as a call to action for city leaders to make systemic changes in how Atlanta treats unhoused people.
“He’s worthy of being known [as] more than a homeless man,” said his cousin, Darlene Chaney. “We want to march there silently, almost like silent anger, so they can all see us stand together … and they can see who they killed.”
“We’re just hoping to resurrect change. We’re hoping that this won’t happen again,” she said.
Taylor, 46, lived at an encampment on Old Wheat Street near Ebenezer Baptist Church and The King Center. On Jan. 16, witnesses said an Atlanta Public Works vehicle struck his tent while he was still in it, killing him.
An Atlanta Police Department report released more than a week after the incident said Taylor suffered from “other major injury or affliction” and that his death was a “suspected overdose.”
“I observed the large earth-moving machine that is customarily used at these types of cleanups take some of the debris and trash that was down the street away,” wrote Officer Jonathan Allen in the report.
Allen said he notice a man waving from a tent near where the machine had just removed trash. He said he approached the man, later identified as Taylor,
“He was in clear distress, and I saw that he had a bloody nose. I did not see any other obvious signs of physical hurt, but when I asked him questions, he said that something had fallen on him,” Allen said in the report.
Allen said Taylor was able to move and be pulled mostly out of the from under the collapsed tent. Taylor then “declined quickly,” the report said.
“His breathing decreased, and he was emitting a foam out of his mouth. I stayed with him, trying to keep him awake until Grady came. I conducted a sternal rub and checking for a pulse while we waited,” Allen wrote in the report. He was taken to Grady where he was pronounced dead.
Taylor’s family is represented by the Davis Bozeman Johnson Law Firm. At a Jan. 30 press conference, their attorneys disputed the APD’s claim that Taylor died of a drug overdose. They said they interviewed a Fulton County medical examiner who said the autopsy showed he was crushed to death by heavy machinery.
The medical examiner said Taylor suffered “massive internal injuries” including a split pelvis, a lacerated and crushed spleen, and a lacerated and crushed liver, said attorney Harold Spence.
“She told us these injuries were the cause of his death,” he said.
The toxicology reports have not yet been received, so the manner of death is still inconclusive, Spence said.
“Could drugs have played a role? I am not going to say it was not a factor. That’s why we asked her, ‘Did he die as a result of being run over by a heavy machine?’ Her answer was an unequivocal, absolute, yes,” he said.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner has not released the autopsy report publicly. Atlanta Police say the investigation into Taylor’s death is ongoing.
His death sparked outrage among advocates for the unhoused and his family. Many people have rallied at city hall and criticized the city for criminalizing homelessness. They are demanding the sweeps be stopped permanently.
Advocates also emphasized the need for housing first policies that prioritize immediate housing to people experiencing homelessness without preconditions like having a job or being sober. After a person is stabilized in housing, they are then offered access to wraparound services for substance abuse or mental health issues.
“Homelessness is not something that can be swept. It’s something that has to be rooted out by policy that puts people first,” said Monica Johnson of the Housing Justice League. “[This] is a real time for reckoning, to make a change and to make a difference in the way that we do things in Atlanta.”
The council is expected to approve at the Feb. 3 meeting a resolution to temporarily halt the use of heavy equipment during encampment sweeps. The legislation, introduced by Council member Liliana Bakhtiari, also mandates Partners for HOME, the city’s designated partner charged with organizing efforts to address homelessness, to report to the council within 45 days on how it plans to make sure encampment clearings are safe and humane.
“The tragic death of Cornelius Taylor during an encampment clearing … has left our community heartbroken, and I refuse to let this tragedy go unanswered,” Bakhtiari said. “What we are doing now is not working.”
Dickens has called Taylor’s death a “devastating incident” and said he has spoken with Taylor’s family to offer condolences. He said in a social media post he supports Council member Jason Winston’s legislation up for a Feb. 3 vote to create a task force to review all of the city’s policies and procedures for encampment closures to ensure “a tragedy like this never happens again.”
Atlanta is grappling with an affordable housing crisis like most cities across the nation, contributing to a rise in homelessness. In 2024, nearly 3,000 people in Atlanta were considered homeless, a seven percent increase from 2023.
In 2023, the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill that mandates local governments to enforce ordinances prohibiting unauthorized public camping and sleeping on sidewalks and other public spaces, the Georgia Recorder reported. Democrats denounced the bill as criminalizing homelessness.
Dickens has made housing a priority for his administration and noted its $60 million commitment to address homelessness as well as The Melody, a rapid housing community in South Downtown.
But, he added, homeless encampments are unsafe — to those living in them and to the communities surrounding them.
“Let me be clear, homelessness is not a crime, and we have not and will not punish people who have found themselves temporarily locked outside the doors of opportunity,” he said. “But make no mistake, we must do everything in our power to safely and humanely close these encampments and provide housing and stability to our neighbors who have found themselves out in the cold, just as we have done dozens of times in the past.”
Several men remained at the Old Wheat Street camp days after Taylor’s death. New tents stood along the sidewalks near the Jackson Street intersection, steps away from the church where Taylor’s funeral is being held.
Piles of garbage, heaps of wet, dirty clothes, sleeping bags and other belongings and debris were strewn along the street, remnants of the clearing. A barrel used to burn wood to keep warm was turned over. A donated patio heater appeared broken.
They all said Taylor was a friend, a brother. They said when the city trucks came Jan. 16, they were told they needed to leave quickly.
“But where were we supposed to go?” said a man named Samuel. “We’re out here on the streets, we don’t have a place to go.”
Samuel said nobody from the city’s clearing crew checked tents even when others told them Taylor was in his tent.
“They treat homeless people like we’re outcasts, a disease or something,” he said.
Gus Hendricks said he knew Taylor well. He misses the friend who was affectionately called “Psycho.” Sitting in a wheelchair, he rolled to a makeshift memorial for Taylor and pointed to a collapsed blue tent next to it. That was Taylor’s tent, he said.
“We’re homeless, and I think Cornelius Taylor paid the price, paid the ultimate price for us being here,” he said.
