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andre dickens
Georgia Drops Money Laundering Charges Against 'Stop Cop City' Activists
"From the beginning, we knew these charges were not based on any evidence, but were instead politically motivated and intended to target a social movement," said an opponent of the facility.
Sep 18, 2024
Members of the "Stop Cop City" movement on Tuesday celebrated that Georgia prosecutors are dropping money laundering charges as a "major victory in the ongoing fight against the political repression of forest defenders and activists," but reiterated criticism of the broader case.
"The state has previously claimed that the Atlanta Solidarity Fund is at the center of the alleged criminal enterprise, using the money laundering charges to do so," explained Keyanna Jones, a Stop Cop City activist and co-pastor at Park Avenue Baptist Church, in a statement. "Now, it is admitting that it doesn't have the evidence to prove its allegations, just as it lacks the evidence to prove its case altogether."
A deputy attorney general revealed in court that the state will no longer pursue money laundering charges against Atlanta Solidarity Fund leaders Marlon Kautz, Adele MacLean, and Savannah Patterson, though the trio and 58 other opponents of the DeKalb County law enforcement facility—which remains under construction—still face widely condemned racketeering charges.
As The Associated Pressreported:
Just as a motions hearing was about to start Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams that he would be filing paperwork to dismiss the 15 counts. A spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Tuesday afternoon on why the charges were dropped.
But Kristen Novay, the attorney for Patterson, applauded the decision.
"The entire indictment is defective, but with those particular counts, I think it is a wise move for a seasoned prosecutor to say, 'This isn't worth it,'" Novay told The Associated Press. "Sometimes the hardest call as a prosecutor is to not go for something."
Stop Cop City activist Kris Hermes also applauded the development while blasting the state for the remaining charges.
"From the beginning, we knew these charges were not based on any evidence, but were instead politically motivated and intended to target a social movement," said Hermes. "Defeating these bogus charges is a major victory, and the attorney general will ultimately be forced to drop or lose the entire case against Stop Cop City activists."
The news out of the courthouse came after some Cop City protesters disrupted a Monday afternoon Atlanta City Council meeting with chants, pingpong balls, and a banner for the Democratic mayor that read, "Andre Dickens: You dropped the ball on democracy."
The protesters "were demonstrating on the one-year anniversary of submitting 116,000 petition signatures calling for a referendum on the public training facility," according toAtlanta News First.
"While council members are complicit by turning a blind eye to the signatures collected by not evoking the verification process, it has been the mayor's office that has spent an estimate of $1,000,000 on legal fees to withhold the vote from its own tax-paying residents," the protesters said in a statement.
Construction on the 85-acre, $110-million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—as the facility is formally called—is set to be largely finished by December, despite local opposition.
"To be clear—Cop City is not just a controversial training center," Kwame Olufemi of Community Movement Builders has said. "It is a war base where police will learn military-like maneuvers to kill Black people and control our bodies and movements. The facility includes shooting ranges, plans for bomb testing, and will practice tear gas deployment. They are practicing how to make sure poor and working-class people stay in line."
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Atlanta Referendum to Block 'Cop City' Clears Key Bureaucratic Hurdle
Backers of an Atlanta ballot measure to cancel the land lease enabling the controversial training complex now have less than two months to gather more than 70,000 signatures.
Jun 22, 2023
Opponents of the proposed Public Safety Training Center—widely known as "Cop City"—near Atlanta cleared an important administrative hurdle Wednesday as the city clerk's office approved their petition for a referendum on whether to cancel the controversial project's land lease.
The petitioners will now have just 58 days to collect signatures from 15% of Atlanta's registered voters—or 70,000-75,000 people—in order for the referendum to qualify for this November's ballot.
Paul Glaze, an organizer with Cop City Vote Coalition, told WXIA that more than 3,000 volunteer canvassers have already signed up to gather signatures.
"The mayor says the people of Atlanta want Cop City, that this is a thing the people want, and if that's true, no one should be afraid of a vote," Glaze said, referring to Democratic Mayor Andre Dickens, a supporter of the project. "We are committed to this and we believe in this."
The petition's approval follows months of protests inside and around Atlanta City Hall. Cop City opponents are set to launch a week of action this weekend to drum up support for the ballot measure and amplify opposition to the $90 million project, which is funded largely by the city of Atlanta and the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF).
Despite opposition from environmental, racial justice, Indigenous, and other groups, the APF—a private organization whose backers include major corporations like Amazon, Home Depot, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and UPS—was granted permission in 2021 to build Cop City in the Weelaunee Forest in DeKalb County just outside Atlanta city limits.
The complex would be built on land stolen from the Muscogee people, many of whom were forced westward during the genocidal Trail of Tears period.
Earlier this month, the Atlanta City Council approved funding for the project.
In January, militarized police shot and killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a 26-year-old protester also known as "Tortuguita" who officers claim opened fire on them, during a raid to violently remove forest defenders from the project site. A DeKalb County Medical Examiner autopsy—which officials suppressed for months—revealed that Terán was shot 57 times and that there was no gunpowder residue on the victim's hands, debunking the government's claim Terán fired first.
Police subsequently charged nonviolent anti-Cop City activists with "domestic terrorism," a move described as "unprecedented" by human rights defenders.
Police also arrested Marlon Scott Kautz, Savannah Patterson, and Adele Maclean of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund (ASF)—a legal aid group and bail fund supporting the Cop City protesters—in a dramatic militarized raid on June 1.
Authorities accused the trio of money laundering and charity fraud, with Georgia Deputy Attorney General John Fowler claiming that despite what "appears to be laudable [and] lawful" nonprofit work, the defendants "harbor extremist anti-government and anti-establishment views and not all of the money goes to what they say that it goes to."
Atlanta City Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari responded by calling the organizers—who deny the allegations against them—"some of the best of our Atlanta mutual aid network" and condemning their arrests as "nothing more than an intimidation tactic by the state."
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Activists Slam 'Compromise' Proposal for Georgia's Cop City
"Power concedes nothing without a demand," said the Atlanta Community Press Collective. "Ours is, 'Cop city must never be built—not here, not anywhere."
Feb 01, 2023
As Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced Tuesday that construction of the $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training center known as "Cop City" will proceed under what Dickens called a "compromise," critics of the project had a resounding message: "Defend the Atlanta Forest. Stop Cop City."
Speaking during a press conference at Atlanta City Hall, Dickens, a Democrat, outlined changes to the project. Acknowledging "concerns about the environmental impact" of the project, the mayor said a 100-foot tree buffer would be added, and that 100 new hardwood trees would be planted for each one destroyed during construction. Dickens also said the complex's firing range would be moved further away from a nearby residential area.
Dickens also defended the type of police training that would take place at the facility, saying it "includes vital areas like de-escalation training techniques, mental health, community-oriented policing, crisis intervention training, as well as civil rights history and education."
However, activists—many of whom protested inside and outside City Hall chanting slogans including "APD, shut it down," referencing the Atlanta Police Department, and "Cop City will never be built"—were not swayed in their opposition to the project.
"Our firm line is no Cop City anywhere," Jasmine Burnett, organizing director at Community Movement Builders, toldUnicorn Riot outside City Hall. "No destruction of the forest at all. I know, they're trying to harp on the fact that it's only 85 acres. And allegedly, the rest will be left for public use. But that's 85 acres too much."
\u201cRIGHT NOW: Protesters outside City Hall ahead of an announcement of amended plans to move forward with the future site of the Atlanta public safety training center\u201d— Joe Ripley (@Joe Ripley) 1675185881
"We are also calling for the charges to be dropped against all of the protesters who've been charged with any crimes, but especially the domestic terrorism charges," Burnett added, referring to the 19 nonviolent protesters facing prosecution under a 2017 Georgia law that expanded the definition of "domestic terrorism" to include certain property crimes.
Over the objections of environmental, racial justice, Indigenous, and other groups, the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF)—a private organization whose backers include major corporations like Amazon, Home Depot, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and UPS—was given permission in 2021 to build what's officially called the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in the Weelaunee Forest in DeKalb County just outside Atlanta city limits. Cop City would be built on land stolen from the Muscogee people, many of whom were forced westward during the genocidal Trail of Tears period.
Last month, militarized police shot and killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a 26-year-old protester also known as "Tortuguita" who allegedly opened fire on them, during a raid to violently clear forest defenders from the site. While a few federal lawmakers have called for an independent probe, Georgia Democrats including U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have said little to nothing about the killing, or about Cop City in general.
Also protesting outside City Hall on Tuesday, community organizer Micah Herskind said: "How dare they stand in front of people and say, 'Oh, this plan, where we're tearing down trees, is actually good for people, and it's good for the economy, and it's—you know, it's actually going to protect people?' It's obviously false, and I hope that it's reported as such, because it's such classic, blatant spin, that they're taking us for fools if they think anyone would believe that tearing down trees and putting cement over it is protecting the environment. That's outrageous."
\u201cThere is no compromise between the movement and the government. \n\nThe fact that they feel the need to say there is shows that we are winning.\n\nNo more backroom deals. No more empty promises.\n\nNo Cop City.\nNo land-swap.\nNo more repression.\n\nWe are close. Keep fighting.\u201d— Defend the Atlanta Forest (@Defend the Atlanta Forest) 1675190179
In a statement, the Atlanta Community Press Collective said that "like all other points of 'compromise,' this has proved empty rhetoric to cover over the undemocratic railroading of this project on to unrepresented, disenfranchised residents of Atlanta and DeKalb County. This is more backroom talk between powerful elites and their dark money contributors."
"Now, the city, DeKalb County, the APF, the funders and builders of Cop City collectively have blood on their hands, and it seems they are willing to get bloodier: These are the people in power goose-stepping us to climate apocalypse," the collective continued. "Police continue to kill at higher and higher rates. In 2022, more people in the U.S. were killed than in any other year on record. The police and their corporate and political backers have used lies, misinformation, and distorted half-truths at every step of this process. Why should we believe a word they say?"
"Power concedes nothing without a demand," the authors asserted. "Ours is: 'Cop city must never be built—not here, not anywhere. Not one blade of grass! Not one tree! Free the prisoners, drop the charges!'"
"The fight continues. The movement to stop Cop City is only growing," they added. "On February 19-26 we are calling for a Week of Solidarity to Stop Cop City, with protests throughout the U.S .and around the world."
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