Cop City protesters hit with RICO charges: justice served or a chilling overreach?

It's been a busy summer for members of Georgia's highest-profile grand jury. Under the direction of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, jurors tasked with investigating former President Donald Trump's alleged election interference delivered a historic slate of indictments against Trump and a host of his accused co-conspirators, including Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and Ken Chesebro. Just weeks later, state Attorney General Chris Carr announced that those same jurors had served up an entirely separate set of charges on a separate, if similarly prominent case — one which some fear might set a controversial new precedent whose ramifications will be felt for years to come.

In early September, AG Carr made public a sweeping indictment of 61 people accused of having "conspired together to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center by conducting, coordinating and organizing acts of violence, intimidation and property destruction in Fulton County, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and other states," his office explained in a press release. This group, the vast majority of whom do not live in Georgia, have all been charged with violations of Atlanta's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act — the same expansive law Trump and his allies are accused of breaking.

At the heart of Carr's allegations is the ongoing controversy over what's colloquially become known as "Cop City" — a massive, $90 million construction project for a new police and fire department training facility that has faced intense opposition from critics who claim it will both further the militarization of local law enforcement and destroy part of Atlanta's urban forest.  But while Carr has dubbed the accused as belonging to a violent "anarchist, anti-police and environmental activism organization," some observers alleged the indictment is a chilling criminalization of legitimate protest.

What the commentators said

The use of RICO charges against members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, Defend the Atlanta Forest, and broader stop Cop City movement is "breathtakingly broad and unprecedented," ACLU National Security Project Senior Staff Attorney Aamra Ahmad told Mother Jones. The RICO indictment is "so at odds with the First Amendment," agreed John Ruch of MSNBC, "that it puts everyone’s rights at stake." Noting that one of the people charged is a representative for the National Lawyers Guild who claims they were simply on hand at a protest as a legal observe, "this is the problem with RICO charges more generally," Ruch concluded. "They can connect otherwise innocent acts to crimes."

Documenting more than 200 "overt acts" undertaken by the accused, the indictment claims that "the beginnings of the anarchist Defend the Forest movement formed in 2020" following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, "even though the resulting protests occurred months before officials announced plans for the training center," The Associated Press pointed out. The indictment also centers "anarchy" and "the anarchist ideology" as a major theme in the protests, writing that the accused were "promoting virulent anarchist ideals." This focus on anarchy serves as "a primer to allege that common actions like 'mutual aid' and 'solidarity' are linked to the violent tactics" used by some of the more extreme protesters, Rolling Stone reported. All 61 people charged with RICO violations were "allegedly involved in Antifa efforts," according to National Review, although the indictment merely references "Antifa" as the most "prominent" of "other decentralized extremist groups."

What next?

Just days after the RICO indictments were announced, police confirmed to the Atlanta Journal Constitution that five protesters had been arrested for chaining themselves to construction equipment as part of the "effort to stop work" on the training center.

This week "Atlanta officials declined to begin the process of verifying the forms" allegedly containing the signatures of more than 100,000 residents who had petitioned the government to put the construction of the training facility to voters as a referendum, PBS News reported — a "legal limbo" stemming from dueling judicial orders over the petition's deadline.

This past June, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced she would relinquish her office's role in sharing the prosecutorial responsibilities with AG Carr, telling WABE that the two had "fundamentally different prosecution philosophies" after Carr charged a number of protesters with Domestic Terrorism.