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<\/p>\nEnvironmental activists hold a rally and a march through the Atlanta forest that is scheduled to be developed as a police training center, on March 4, 2023, in Atlanta, Ga.<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Andrew Lichtenstein\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/p>\n
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In an aggressive<\/u> and indiscriminate arrest sweep on Sunday, police stormed a music festival held in the Atlanta forest by activists protesting Cop City, a vast police training facility under construction atop forestland. Twenty-three of the activists arrested in the raid now face domestic terrorism charges for their participation in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.<\/p>\n
The protesters are alleged to have participated in acts of vandalism and arson at a Cop City construction site over a mile away from the music festival location and over an hour before the arrest raid took place. They have all been charged under Georgia\u2019s domestic terror statute, though none of the arrest warrants tie any of the defendants directly to any illegal acts.<\/p>\n
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The probable cause stated in the warrants against the activists is extremely weak. Police cited arrestees having mud on their shoes \u2014 in a forest. The warrants alleged they had written a legal support phone number on their arms, as is common during mass protests. And, in a few cases, police alleged protesters were holding shields \u2014 hardly proof of illegal activity \u2014 which a number of defendants even deny.<\/p>\n
This is just the latest<\/a> incident of law enforcement and prosecutorial overreach against the abolitionist, environmentalist movement in Atlanta, an absurd attempt to establish guilt by association, as the flimsy arrest warrants make clear.<\/p>\n At a hearing for arrestees on Tuesday, 22 activists were denied bond outright. One defendant, a Georgia-based attorney who was arrested while acting as a designated legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild during Sunday\u2019s events, was released on $5,000 bond.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen a charge for arson or interference with government property,\u201d said Eli Bennett, the attorney for several defendants, describing the arrest warrants during Tuesday\u2019s bond hearing. \u201cThe state has no evidence,\u201d he said, adding that Georgia\u2019s domestic terrorism statute is \u201claughably unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n A total of 41 participants in the Stop Cop City struggle now face state domestic terror charges, as 18 individuals were previously hit with the same charges in the last two months on equally weak grounds. At the end of January, during a multi-agency police raid on the forest encampment, cops shot dead 26-year-old Manuel \u201cTortuguita\u201d Ter\u00e1n, marking a grim escalation in repression against a movement that has shown impressive resilience in its two years of mobilizing against Cop City.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now, on the most tenuous claims of vicarious liability, multiple forest defenders face up to 35 years in prison if found guilty of domestic terrorism.<\/p>\n “It’s collective punishment. The police are trying to establish a de-facto norm that anyone who associates with a political movement will be attacked and charged for the actions of any other supporter of that movement,” said Marlon Kautz, an Atlanta-based organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides bail funds and legal support to protesters targeted for involvement in social movements, including against Cop City.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a law enforcement strategy, it’s utterly incompetent and ignorant of how the law works. But as a strategy for repressing a political movement it makes a lot of sense,\u201d Kautz told me. \u201cConvincing activists and prospective activists that they will be held criminally responsible for the actions of other supporters of their movement can have the effect of pitting activists against each other.\u201d<\/p>\n The music festival on Sunday, where the arrests took place, marked the beginning of an ongoing \u201cweek of action<\/a>\u201d organized by forest defenders. In line with the movement\u2019s diverse deployment of tactics over the last two years, its semiregular weeks of action involve peaceful rallies, arts and music events, child-friendly educational and cultural activities in the forest, and Indigenous-led knowledge sharing and prayer, alongside targeted protests and direct actions against Cop City\u2019s supporters and funders.<\/p>\n \u201cRoughly 1,500 people attended over the weekend; to dance, to commune, and to take a stand against Cop City,\u201d organizers of the music festival, the Sonic Defense Committee, told me. \u201cThere is no excuse for the police violence that festival attendees were subjected to.\u201d<\/p>\n The week of action brought together locals and supporters from around the country and world to raise awareness of the Atlanta forest\u2019s importance and Cop City\u2019s profound threat \u2014 which reaches far beyond the state of Georgia.<\/p>\n The $90 million training center aims to train cops in militarized urban warfare. The Atlanta Police Department told the Atlanta City Council that it intends to recruit 43 percent <\/a>of the planned facility\u2019s trainees from out-of-state police departments. Numerous multinational corporations, including Coca-Cola and Bank of America, are funding the project.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a certain irony, then, that in statements<\/a> on Sunday\u2019s arrests, Atlanta police officials have made a point of blaming \u201coutside agitators\u201d for taking up militant action. Out of 44 people originally detained<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s forest raid, the 11 people released without charge all had Atlanta addresses. Twenty-one of the 23 activists charged with domestic terrorism are from out of state.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n