Gang laws are used to indict Confederate flag supporters, 'terroristic threats' alleged
US News
Gang laws are used to indict Confederate flag supporters, ‘terroristic threats’ alleged
Fifteen members of “Respect the Flag,” a group that supports maintaining the Confederate flag, violated Georgia’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, according to prosecutors. The group’s members were indicted for driving vehicles bearing Confederate flags to a birthday party hosted by an African- American family in July in Douglasville, Ga., just west of Atlanta. The charges, which were handed down Friday and posted by Southern Poverty Law Center, refer to the group as “a criminal street gang” and allege that it unlawfully participated “in criminal gang activity, specifically terroristic threats.”
[The defendants threatened] to commit a crime of violence to persons attending a party … with the purpose of terrorizing those individuals and in reckless disregard for the risk of causing such terror.
Indictment
One of the defendants told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the vehicles were leaving a nearby event and passed by the birthday haphazardly, when attendees began yelling and throwing rocks. Morris Dees, who founded the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that he was unaware of any instance in which an anti-gang law had been used to prosecute such a group.
