ATLANTA — Less than a year after Occupy Atlanta members clashed with police in riot gear in a downtown park, they’re now protesting alongside officers to help a retired detective avoid losing her home to foreclosure.
Activists joined current and retired Atlanta police Monday for a demonstration and discussion at the home of retired Atlanta police Detective Jaqueline Barber in Fayetteville, south of the city.
‘‘The police are in the 99 percent and when it comes down to their economic struggles, we’re going to be there to shine a light on those and organize around those,’’ said Tim Franzen.
He and others who were involved with Occupy Atlanta are now part of a group called Occupy Our Homes ATL, focusing on the housing crisis.
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Barber said she is under threat of eviction after her medical bills mounted, partly because of a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a form of blood cell cancer. ‘‘I know God did not bless me with this house for someone to just come and take it,’’ Barber, 62, said through tears Monday.
Representatives of US Bank in Minneapolis, involved in the foreclosure proceedings, did not return phone calls and e-mails.
Barber said she spent part of her 20-year career kicking in doors as a member of a fugitive task force and also worked undercover in a narcotics unit. She was later assigned to Atlanta’s airport, the world’s busiest, before she was struck by a car and retired due to the injury in 2001.
She’s now raising four grandchildren who range in age from 2 to 10, she said.
If she’s evicted, she expects that she will be homeless.
A Thursday court hearing in her case is planned. ‘‘If she loses, she will be evicted,’’ Franzen predicted.
Barber is the second police officer Franzen’s group has tried to help avoid foreclosure, he said. The first was a law enforcement officer who ended up losing his Snellville home.
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