The stakes are rising in Atlanta

The Georgia Attorney General has indicted 61 people associated with the ‘stop cop city’ movement in Atlanta with very serious RICO charges. Defendants include workers at the solidarity bail fund and people who had participated in actions to protest the city’s razing of crucial forest land to build a major police training campus. The campaign to halt construction of cop city is popular: over 100,000 people in Atlanta recently signed petitions to put the matter on the ballot this fall, and the city is is fighting hard to avoid certifying the measure — here’s the latest on that. The city has already been arresting and overcharging people before the state got in the game: past arrests of Atlanta activists for doing things like posting flyers - leading to charges of ‘domestic terrorism’ - have burdened both mental health and political expression. And yet the ramping up of repression may also be backfiring, as just days after the most recent indictments, protestors chained themselves to construction equipment.

The AG’s indictment dates an alleged conspiracy back to the death of George Floyd in May of 2020, which long predated the ‘stop cop city’ movement. As the Intercept reports, “The sweeping, 109-page RICO indictment paints the decentralized and diverse movement as a criminal enterprise, citing social justice activities such as ‘mutual aid,’ writing ‘zines,’ and ‘collectivism’ as proof of criminal conspiracy.” In other words, the state is indicting them for having certain political beliefs about society, while laying on very flimsy racketeering charges on top. As the Intelligencer reports (in a good thought piece you should read), the indictment is an “artifact of political repression.”

The stakes here are extremely high – Jocelyn Simonson calls the case a disaster for civil liberties. Will the state get away with criminally prosecuting and intimidating protestors who seek racial and environmental justice? Other states are surely watching closely.