'Cop City' protesters charged under revamped Georgia law. Advocates call the charges 'baseless.'
Amid ongoing protests against the construction of a police and fire department training facility near Atlanta, advocates and experts are raising concerns about demonstrators who remain jailed on domestic terrorism charges.
Dozens gathered at City Hall last week to oppose the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, informally dubbed "Cop City," a $90 million, 85-acre training space, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Activists have occupied the forested area near the site since late 2021, after the project's lease was approved, because of concerns the facility will destroy important habitat for wildlife and leave the area surrounding South River Forest vulnerable to stormwater flooding, according to a letter signed by multiple environmental groups.
A protester was also fatally shot by police in January after allegedly shooting a state trooper. Then in March, 23 people were charged with domestic terrorism. Atlanta police said "violent agitators used the cover of a peaceful protest" to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at police officers and destroy multiple pieces of construction equipment with fire and vandalism.
Advocates for protesters say scant evidence presented in arrest warrants show the charges are unfounded. Both activists and experts say the charges, which are believed to be one of the first uses of Georgia's recently broadened domestic terrorism law, could be intended to quell legitimate protests.
Fifteen of the people arrested, including a legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild, were granted bond last month. The remaining eight were denied bond.
"The repression that we're seeing against this political movement is unprecedented," said Marlon Kautz, an organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides resources to protesters. "Because it's part of a strategy of keeping people in jail for as long as possible, creating headlines with the word 'terrorism' in them and just kind of creating a chilling effect around the movement."
Domestic terrorism charges could test Georgia law
Officials have been labeling environmental activists domestic terrorists and applying a terrorism enhancement to their sentences for decades, said Keith Woodhouse, an associate professor at Northwestern University in Illinois and author of "The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism."
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Protesters in Georgia have been charged with violating a specific state domestic terrorism law amended in 2017 after a white supremacist killed nine people at a historic Black church in South Carolina. Civil rights groups opposed the law at the time and raised concerns it would be used to restrict freedom of speech and the right to peacefully protest.
The arrests are believed to be among the first uses of the law since it was updated, according to Christopher Bruce, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
When asked about the domestic terrorism charges, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Department referred to previously released public statements and directed further questions to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A spokesperson for the GBI also referred to the agency's news releases and declined to comment further on the domestic terrorism charges.
Georgia law previously defined domestic terrorism as crimes “intended or reasonably likely to injure or kill not less than ten individuals." In 2017, lawmakers removed the 10-victim criteria and redefined the offense as a felony intended to harm or kill people or destroy "critical infrastructure" with the intent to intimate the population, change government policy or affect the government's conduct "by use of destructive devices, assassination, or kidnapping."
"Domestic terrorism charges should not exist in the first place," said Bruce, who recently joined Mayor Andre Dickens' task force on the training center. "They quell political speech and there are other ways of handling this rather than locking up protesters and individuals who are simply voicing their concerns on 'Cop City.'"
Multiple states have domestic terrorism laws, but there is no national or universally accepted definition of terrorism, which can make using the term subjective, according to David Malet, an associate professor in the justice, law and criminology department at American University in Washington, D.C.
"They are not consistent between states so that they at least risk looking very political for the reasons that we're seeing right now," he said. "So when one is particularly broad like this law in Georgia it can certainly be questioned what the people who introduced the law we're trying to achieve."
The charge carries a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison and lawmakers are considering classifying domestic terrorism as a serious violent felony, which would mean anyone convicted must serve their full sentence, can’t be sentenced to probation for their first offense and can’t be paroled until they serve at least 30 years.
"One of the big stories coming out of Georgia is the disparate treatment that left-wing extremists get," said Daryl Johnson, a security consultant and former senior analyst for domestic terrorism at the Department of Homeland Security.
"It's meant to quell free speech and to send a message to those that are part of the social justice movement that you're going to be treated harshly, you're going to be treated very seriously for whatever interference or protests that you're participating in," he added.
'Cop City' activists plan to fight 'baseless' charges
Dozens of environmental and human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and chapters of the National Lawyers Guild signed a letter urging officials to drop the charges, calling them an "escalatory intimidation tactic and a draconian step that seems intended to chill First Amendment protected activity."
The law enforcement response to the protests is "the very reason why we are opposed to building a 'Cop City,'" said Kamau Franklin, director of Community Movement Builders, an Atlanta-based organization opposing the project.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr previously told Fox News, "Protesters use words, rioters use violence. And again, in Georgia, you can be charged with domestic terrorism for engaging in this type of behavior."
Kautz said many arrest warrants for the protesters don't accuse them of serious crimes, but "guilt by association." Some of the arrest warrants filed in December and January obtained by Grist accuse demonstrators of "participating in actions as part of Defend the Atlanta Forest" – a group the documents claim is classified as domestic violent extremists by the Department of Homeland Security – citing behavior including criminal trespassing, throwing rocks, possessing incendiary devices and posting on social media.
Defend the Atlanta Forest describes itself as a decentralized social movement with no official leadership, "not an organization or group of people." A spokesperson for the DHS said in a statement to USA TODAY the department uses the term to refer generally to individuals who use violence to advance their social or political goals, but does "not classify or designate any groups as domestic violent extremists."
Malet said many groups that are generally considered violent extremists don't have formal memberships, "but it's really hard to say an individual – unless they've committed an act of terrorism – is a terrorist just for being associated with them."
Police said 17 of the 23 people arrested after a music festival in early March were wearing muddy clothing and carrying shields, which law enforcement claims is evidence they were among those who attacked the nearby construction site earlier that day, according to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press. Warrants for five others don't include details to explain their arrests.
Kautz said his organization is working to get a hearing for the demonstrators who are being held without bond and to combat fears of activists who may want to get involved in the demonstrations.
"We're quite confident at this point that these charges are baseless, that the prosecution does not have a case to successfully prosecute them," Kautz said. "The real purpose of bringing charges like this is to stoke fear, to make people worry about what could happen to them."
Dig deeper
Autopsy: 'Cop City' protester's hands were raised during Georgia fatal shooting, attorney says
What is 'Cop City?': Why activists are protesting police, fire department training center in Atlanta.
Attack on 'Cop City': 23 people charged with domestic terrorism after attack on Atlanta police training center
Contributing: The Associated Press
Contact Breaking News Reporter N'dea Yancey-Bragg at nyanceybra@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @NdeaYanceyBragg
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Cop City' protests: Advocates dispute domestic terrorism charges
