Gov. Brian Kemp has once again extended his emergency order calling for up to 1,000 Georgia National Guardsmen to protect state buildings in Atlanta, prolonging a source of tension with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms as the two clash over their responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kemp signed the state of emergency extension Friday to “preserve the peace and ensure public safety,” said his spokeswoman, Candice Broce. The guardsmen, she added, will continue protecting state property.

The governor’s move came just a day before people vandalized the downtown Atlanta building housing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices and federal immigration courtrooms. Several windows were broken and the building was spray-painted.

Georgia Guardsmen have not been dispatched to that site on Ted Turner Drive, but they could “easily secure” it, if they were sent there, Maj. Gen. Thomas Carden Jr., Georgia’s adjutant general, said Monday.

“We stand ready to continue to do what the governor has tasked us to do,” Carden said. “We can provide additional forces at his beck and call. We have access to many more thousands of servicemembers.”

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