Biography
Emily Murphy, 37, is an activist from Grosse Ile, Michigan. On January 21, 2023, she was arrested during a protest march through downtown Atlanta called in response to the police killing of Manuel "Tortuguita" Paez Terán three days earlier. Demonstrators vandalized the Atlanta Police Foundation building, smashed windows at a Wells Fargo branch, and set an APD patrol car on fire. Murphy was the oldest of the six arrested and was charged with domestic terrorism, first-degree arson, second-degree criminal damage to property, interference with government property, rioting, unlawful assembly, obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and pedestrian in a roadway. She was denied bond on January 23, 2023 and held first at the Atlanta City Detention Center — the subject of a Vice article reporting on her detention there — before being transferred to Fulton County Jail. A consent bond was agreed to on April 24, 2023, but Murphy voluntarily chose to remain jailed in order to force her preliminary hearing to proceed. She was released on May 4, 2023 — 103 days after her arrest — after Judge Ashley Drake upheld all eight charges, including domestic terrorism, at the preliminary hearing. In September 2023 she was included in a 61-person RICO indictment; the RICO charge was dismissed December 30, 2025. Her domestic terrorism and arson charges remained pending as of July 2026.
