The state of Georgia has handed down RICO indictments in opposition to 61 activists protesting in opposition to the event of an Atlanta police coaching facility, leaving many to boost questions in regards to the criminalization of free speech.
Final week’s controversial indictments primarily goal the Defend the Atlanta Forest group, The Atlanta Journal-Structure reported. Issued on Aug. 29, they accuse protestors of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Others had been charged with cash laundering, home terrorism, and tried arson within the first diploma, in response to a press launch from Legal professional Common Chris Carr. Out of these charged, solely 13 are from the state.
Defend the Atlanta Forest group has brazenly opposed the development of “Cop Metropolis” — a proposed coaching middle for officers and first responders on land owned by town of Atlanta.
Associated: ‘Fully Inappropriate’: Cultural Consciousness and Variety Instructor Steps Down After She Is Accused of Writing N-Phrase On Seating Chart Subsequent to Black Center Faculty Pupil’s Identify
Town has invested $90 million within the challenge, which was met with a wave of pushback. The group desires to protect the Weelaunee forest and emphasize that it’s “vulnerable to destruction as police and Hollywood make plans to pave over” town’s “largest remaining inexperienced area” within the predominantly Black space that’s simply south of town limits.
“This anarchist, anti-police, and setting activism group coordinates, advertises and conducts “direct motion” designed to forestall the development of the Atlanta Police Public Security Coaching Middle and Shadowbox Studios … and promote anarchist concepts,” the indictment alleges. “This self-proclaimed ‘direct motion’ has included vandalizing of personal property, arson, destruction of presidency property, assaults on utility staff, assaults on legislation enforcement, assaults on non-public residents and gun violence.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE.
The indictment says the muse of Defend the Forest goes again to Could 2020 following the demise of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer and whose demise sparked a worldwide motion in opposition to police brutality. It argues that when the demonstrations began to stop, “an undercurrent of threatening, violent anti-police sentiment persevered” amongst some individuals in Atlanta, together with members of the group.
“Chris Carr could attempt to use his prosecutors and energy to construct his gubernatorial marketing campaign and silence free speech, however his threats is not going to silence our dedication to standing up for our future, our group, and our metropolis,” Cop Metropolis Vote, a coalition standing in opposition to the challenge, instructed the AP in a press release.
In accordance with prosecutors, 225 incidents included within the in depth indictment spotlight allegations that members threw rocks and a Molotov cocktail by way of the Division of Public Security headquarters window, inflicting a hearth and injuring two individuals in the summertime of 2020. That summer time predates the motion in opposition to Cop Metropolis by a full two years, because the Atlanta Metropolis Council’s vote to maneuver forward with the coaching middle got here in September 2022.
The indictment additionally lists an incident from earlier this yr in March, the place it accuses a member of assaulting a police officer and making a mob that attacked legislation enforcement guarding the location whereas additionally setting “building automobiles on hearth.” Three activists who officers say handed out flyers that labeled a state trooper who gunned down a demonstrator who was tenting on the location a “assassin” had been included within the indictment.
“This nation has been upended by governments throughout the nation making an attempt to construct cop cities in an effort to quell protests as a result of the federal government is just upset that folks search to oppose and use their First Modification proper to protest once we see injustice coming from these in authority,” Cease Cop Metropolis organizer Keyanna Jones mentioned throughout an interview on Democracy Now.
Jones continued, “I don’t perceive how opposing the federal government utilizing your authorized proper to protest, your proper to freedom of speech, is home terrorism.”
Individuals on social media additionally reacted to the indictments:
