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ATLANTA — Good Samaritans, including two men from Utah, helped thwart a woman's attempt to set a fire at the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, police said.
Police were called to the historic home in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood around 5:45 p.m. Thursday on a vandalism report, the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement. When officers arrived, they found multiple people had stopped the 26-year-old woman after she poured gasoline on the property, the statement said.
The two men from Utah, who were in Atlanta for work, decided to visit the historic home and noticed the woman pouring a liquid on the bushes, according to the police report. They became suspicious when she did not respond when they asked if she was watering the plants and other questions.
Once they realized it was gasoline that she was pouring, they pleaded with her to stop and then "saw no other option but to try to apprehend her" with the help of other bystanders, the report says. As they tried to detain her, "she was actively trying to spark the lighter to the property and bushes so they had to remove it out of her hands and get her under control until police responded."
"It was a little scary there for a minute because we didn't know who she was, we didn't know if she had weapons on her, we didn't know anything," Zach Kempf told CNN affiliate WSB of seeing the woman throwing gas on the home.
The New York Times identified Kempf as a filmmaker from Salt Lake City.
Two off-duty officers visiting from New York then helped restrain the woman until police arrived, WSB reported.
The woman was arrested and charged with attempted arson and interference with government property, Atlanta police said.
The bystander intervention likely saved the home from being burned to the ground, Atlanta Fire Department Battalion Chief Jerry DeBerry told WSB.
"It could have been a matter of seconds before the house was engulfed in flames," DeBerry told the news outlet.
It was a little scary there for a minute because we didn't know who she was, we didn't know if she had weapons on her, we didn't know anything.
–Zach Kempf, visitor from Utah
There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage to the home, the National Park Service told CNN Friday.
There is still a strong gasoline odor that needs to be aired out, Ash Phillips, a historical architect with the National Park Service, told CNN. Crews are working to keep any potential sparks away from the home, Phillips said, calling it an "irreplaceable resource."
The King Center, a nonprofit founded by King's wife, released a statement thanking bystander and police efforts.
"Fortunately the attempt was unsuccessful thanks to the brave intervention of good Samaritans and the quick response of law enforcement," the statement said. "Our prayers are with the individual who allegedly committed this criminal act."
King's birth home is a popular historical site that offers tours of where King was born and lived the first 12 years of his life, according to the National Park Service, though tours were recently suspended through November 2025 for rehabilitation work.
King's parents moved into the home in 1926 when they got married, according to the National Park Service. Years later, the Kings moved to another Atlanta home. After King was assassinated in 1968, restoration work on the house began so that it could become a historic museum.
Contributing: Associated Press
