Bystanders stopped a 26-year-old woman who poured gasoline onto the Atlanta birth home of Martin Luther King Jr. from burning it, the authorities said.
Two visitors from Utah interrupted the woman as she was pouring gasoline on the porch and the door of the home, Darin Schierbaum, the Atlanta police chief, told reporters on Thursday.
Then two off-duty N.Y.P.D. officers who had been visiting the center chased her down and detained her until the officers from the Atlanta Police Department arrived in response to a report of vandalism, he said.
“That action saved an important part of American history tonight,” he added.
The woman was charged with attempted arson and interference with government property, the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement.
“An individual attempted to set fire to this historic property,” the King Center said in a statement. “Fortunately, the attempt was unsuccessful,” it added.
Jerry DeBerry, the Atlanta Fire Department’s battalion chief, said that a hazardous materials team was cleaning up the property and that there was no damage done.
“If the witnesses hadn’t been here and interrupted what she was doing, it could have been a matter of seconds before the house was engulfed in flames,” he said. “It was really about the timing and the witnesses being in the right place at the right time.”
The two-story Queen Anne-style house, built in 1895, was Dr. King’s home for the first 12 years of his life. The house is in Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue Historic District and is a federal landmark.
The interior of the house, which the National Park Service acquired in 2018, has been closed to the public since November for repairs and renovations. Its collection will be stored elsewhere until 2025, when it is expected to reopen, the National Park Service said.
The police, who did not name the suspect, said they were investigating the incident.