Dozens Charged With RICO Following Atlanta Police Station Protests

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – More than 50 activists have been charged with illegally plotting to block construction of a police training center in Atlanta, derisively dubbed “Cop City,” that has been the target of sometimes violent protests in recent months.

A 109-page indictment, unsealed by a grand jury last week, accuses 61 members of a group called Defend the Atlanta Forest of illegally occupying the 85-acre wooded site where the $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is being built.

The defendants were charged with violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as the RICO Act. The law, enacted in 1970, was originally intended to serve as a stronger tool to combat organized crime activities.

The alleged crimes included in the racketeering indictments in state court include criminal trespass, vandalism, throwing objects, including Molotov cocktails, at police and posting threats on the Internet.

“Each individual charged in this indictment knowingly joined the conspiracy to prevent the construction of the training center,” the indictment reads.

Neither members of the group nor Atlanta police immediately responded to requests for comment.

The indictment describes the members as part of a “self-described coalition and enterprise of militant anarchists, environmentalists and community organizers” based in Atlanta who are also “anti-police.”

On its website, the group said its mission is to protect the South River Forest site, located in unincorporated DeKalb County. It describes the area as “the lungs of Atlanta.”

The site also aims to stop the expansion of what the site calls a “hyper-militarized” police force, which it links to a string of police killings of unarmed black men in the United States in recent years. One of those killings, the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks in 2020 in Atlanta, helped fuel the nationwide protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis the previous month.

“The movement to stop the development of Cop City is a fight against hundreds of years of racial violence and ecological destruction,” the website says.

Clearing of the training center site has already begun, but a petition has circulated in Atlanta calling for the project to be halted pending a referendum.

A 26-year-old protester was shot dead by police in January during an operation to clear protesters at the site. Police said the man fired first at the officers, a claim disputed by activists.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Bill Berkrot)