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Nearly Two Years After Being Indicted on #Racketeering Charges in #Georgia, the First of 61 #StopCopCity Defendants is Set to Start Trial Today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 7, 2025 via #WeelauneeTheFree

Repeated Evidentiary Violations, Dismissals of Charges, and More Than 200 Unresolved Motions Have Plagued the State’s Efforts to #Criminalize a Political Movement

ATLANTA, GA – "Nearly two years after being indicted on State racketeering charges in Georgia, the first of 61 Stop #CopCity defendants charged with #RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) will go to trial today, Monday, July 7 at 9 am in Fulton County Superior Court. A press conference will also be held today after the trial adjourns.

"#AylaKing filed for a speedy trial in October 2023, but their case has been held up on appeal while higher courts considered whether Georgia’s speedy trial statute had been violated and whether King’s rights had been denied. Multiple pretrial motions and the possibility of additional motions being filed this morning could delay the start of the trial, but according to Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer, jury selection will begin today.

What: First of 61 Stop Cop City RICO trials for Ayla King and press conference
When: Monday, July 7, 2025: Trial at 9am; Press conference at 4pm or when trial adjourns
Where: Fulton County Superior Court, 185 Central Ave SW, Courtroom 4D

" 'Despite facing two decades in prison—nearly as long as they’ve been alive—Ayla King has bravely pushed for a speedy trial, and will now, after two years, finally see their day in court,' said local community member Evan Grace. Supporters of King argue that the charges are politically motivated. 'We know these charges are meant to bully us into silence, but the movement to Stop Cop City has always taken the courageous path, the one in righteous opposition to the #racist, #classist, violent system of #police and #prisons,' continued Grace. 'King, all the Stop Cop City defendants, and everyone coming out to show support during this trial will prove that the scare tactics they throw at us will never stop us from fighting back.' "

weelauneethefree.org/nearly-tw

weelauneethefree.orgNearly Two Years After Being Indicted on Racketeering Charges in Georgia, the First of 61 Stop Cop City Defendants is Set to Start Trial Today – Weelaunee The Free

Defendants in Georgia ‘Cop City’ case say they are in limbo as trial delays continue

By R.J. RICO
Updated 12:26 AM EDT, May 12, 2025

ATLANTA (AP) — "Single mother Priscilla Grim lost her job. Aspiring writer Julia Dupuis frequently stares at the bedroom ceiling, numb. Geography and environmental studies researcher Hannah Kass is worried about her career prospects after she graduates from her Ph.D. program.

"The three are among 61 defendants accused by Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr of participating in a yearslong racketeering conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility just outside Atlanta that critics pejoratively call 'Cop City.'

"Their cases are at a standstill, 20 months after being indicted under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO, which is likely the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history, experts say.

"Trial for five of the defendants was supposed to start last year but got bogged down in procedural issues. The judge overseeing the case then moved to another court. A new judge has set a status hearing for Wednesday.

"The delays have left people in limbo, facing charges carrying up to 20 years behind bars for what they maintain was #LegitimateProtest, not #DomesticTerrorism. The case also has suppressed a movement that brought together hundreds of #activists to protect a wooded patch of land that ultimately was razed for the recently completed $118 million, 85-acre (34-hectare) project.

"Officials say the project is sorely needed to replace outdated facilities and boost officers’ morale. Opponents say it will be a training ground for a #MilitarizedPolice force and its construction has worsened #environmental damage in a poor, majority-Black area.

"Protests escalated after the fatal 2023 shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as #Tortuguita, who was camping near the site when authorities launched a clearing operation. Officials said they killed Tortuguita, 26, after the activist shot and wounded a trooper from inside a tent.

"A family-commissioned autopsy concluded Tortuguita was killed with their hands in the air, but a prosecutor found the officers’ use of force was 'objectively reasonable.' "

Read more:
apnews.com/article/cop-city-ri

AP News · ‘Stop Cop City’ activists' lives in limbo as unprecedented Georgia racketeering case unfoldsIt has been more than a year and a half since authorities in Georgia indicted 61 activists on racketeering charges in connection with protests against an Atlanta-area police training facility that critics derisively call “Cop City.” Experts say it's likely the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history. But the case has hit numerous delays and the defendants say they have been left in limbo, facing serious charges for what they maintain was legitimate protest, not domestic terrorism. Three activists have told The Associated Press that the charges wreaked havoc on their personal lives but they are determined to fight the case in court.

#CopCity Is Everywhere

Learning from the Movement to #DefendTheForest

#CrimethInc, 2025-03-14

"The movement to #StopCopCity and defend #WeelauneeForest was one of the most important social struggles of the Biden era. Its trajectory tells us a lot about the challenges we confront today under Donald Trump. In the final chapter of our chronology, we trace the movement’s concluding phase, beginning in 2023 and ending with Trump’s arrival in power, and explore what we can learn from it."

Read more:
crimethinc.com/2025/03/14/cop-
#ACAB #StopCopCityQueens #StopCopCitiesEverywhere #JusticeForTort #USPol

CrimethInc.Cop City Is EverywhereThe movement to stop Cop City was one of the most important social struggles of the Biden era. Its trajectory tells us a lot about the challenges we confront today.

Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity

Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
2023-12-12

"Starting in April 2021, people in #AtlantaGeorgia set out to defend #WeelauneeForest, where politicians and profiteers are attempting to build a police training compound known as #CopCity. Over the past two and a half years, this movement has given rise to one of the fiercest struggles in North America. Opponents of Cop City have repeatedly destroyed equipment and forced contractors to withdraw from the construction project, while the authorities have killed one #ForestDefender and pressed outlandish #racketeering charges against 61 more, including the members of a legal support collective."

Read more:
crimethinc.com/2023/12/12/dont

CrimethInc.Don't Stop: Continuing the Fight against Cop CityWe trace the trajectory of the movement to Stop Cop City from the June 5 City Council vote through the November "Block Cop City" mobilization.

Protesters in #Atlanta mobilized against the $90 million #CopCity police training complex in #WeelauneeForest, advocating for a citywide referendum, now mired in legal disputes. Concurrently, 61 activists face serious #RICO and #DomesticTerrorism charges, amid state efforts to label them as "militant anarchists." #KamauFranklin criticizes Atlanta's clampdown on peaceful protests as a strategy to safeguard police interests and capitalism.

democracynow.org/2023/11/17/co

Democracy Now! · Cop City Protest Tear-Gassed as Activists Face “Unprecedented” <span class="caps">RICO</span> & Domestic Terrorism ChargesPar Democracy Now!

This Wednesday, organizers from Block Cop City will be doing a local teach-in at our co-op! Their presentation will include information on the history of the land The Atlanta Police Foundation is attempting to build on, a history of the movement to #StopCopCity, an outline of the movement's next phase #BlockCopCity, and a short workshop to help interested folks form affinity groups and participate in the November weekend of action. We hope you'll join us!

"Aside from bringing people to Atlanta, we hope to spread skills and creativity related to mass direct action and participatory, democratic mass organizing, strengthening the prospects for other, local struggles."—Block Cop City organizers

#DefendTheAtlantaForest #WeelauneeForest #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

The people of #Ecuador just made #ClimateJustice history. The world can follow

Voters won a huge battle with the #OilIndustry – proving that we can’t save the planet without robust democracy

by #StevenDonziger, August 31, 2023

"Days ago, voters in Ecuador approved a total ban on oil drilling in protected land in the #Amazon, a 2.5m-acre tract in the #Yasuní national park that might be the world’s most important #biodiversity hotspot. The area is a Unesco-designated biosphere reserve and home to two non-contacted #Indigenous groups. This could be a major step forward for the entire global climate justice movement in ways that are not yet apparent.

"This vote is important not only for Ecuador and for the Indigenous peoples in the Yasuní, who now have hope of living in peace in perpetuity. It is also a potential model for how we can use the democratic process around the world to help slow or even stop the expansion of fossil fuels to the benefit of billions of people.

"The Yasuní referendum proves that real democracy that respects the popular will can be a powerful tool for transitioning to a sustainable future. Ecuador’s state oil company, #Petroecuador, had been producing nearly 60,000 barrels a day in the Yasuní. It now must figure out how to dismantle its entire operation and go home. When in history has a popular vote ever forced an oil company to cease active drilling? Never.

"The Yasuní vote was not the result of a business decision made in a boardroom or government office. It was the product of two decades of #grassroots organizing by citizens and #activists like you and me. I know because I have been to Ecuador more than 250 times to work on a historic pollution case against #Chevron on behalf of the Indigenous people there. Many of the same Indigenous leaders and activists who helped fight Chevron organized the Yasuní vote.

"At the same time, the vote underscores how important it is to protect our increasingly fragile democracy. Without a robust democracy that allows citizens to place issues of critical importance on the ballot without the intermediation of elites, the Yasuní referendum never would have happened.

"The flipside is that powerful #OilAndGas companies understand the threat a real citizen-based democracy poses to their power. They fear a society where citizens can put referendums on the ballot without the approval of business leaders. Those of us in the climate movement often can’t even stop to focus on the connection between democracy and climate justice because we’re so focused on dealing with the immediate crises taking place before our eyes, such as the Maui fire.

"In the United States, it is not broadly known that the #FossilFuel industry quietly funds a national lobbying campaign that has introduced draconian #antiprotest bills in at least 18 states. These laws threaten anyone #protesting at an oil or gas facility with huge fines and serious prison sentences; some states even impose criminal liabilities on non-profit advocacy groups that support the protesters. These are really laws of intimidation designed to stop protest before it happens. And they are also manifesting in other countries including #Australia, the #UnitedKingdom and #Germany.

"As a result, many Americans who have committed #peaceful acts of non-violent #CivilDisobedience – central to the birth of our country and a cornerstone of our political tradition – now face decades in prison. In Atlanta, #Georgia, 42 people have been charged by prosecutors with 'domestic terrorism' for trying to save the city’s last green canopy in the #WeelauneeForest. Local police are trying to raze part of the forest to build a military-style police training academy, colloquially called “#CopCity”, that already resulted in the first police killing of a climate activist in US history. (The police have said that the activist, Manuel Paez #Terán, was used a weapon; activists dispute that claim.)

"The Atlanta cases represent a frightening escalation of attacks on #FreeSpeech and protest in the US. None of those charged – whom authorities accused mainly of vandalism and arson – committed a direct act of violence against another person. Nobody was injured other than the activist shot and killed by police while sitting in the forest.

"That this is happening in a city considered to be one of the cradles of the American civil rights movement shows just how entwined corporate and police power have become in their efforts to erode democratic rights.

"The prosecutions in Georgia are also occurring in a broader context where the right to vote has been seriously impaired. Voter suppression is now a regular feature in many US states, with ludicrous laws being passed to throw out votes. In this short century, two presidents have taken office in the US who did not win the popular vote. Votes are constantly thrown out for the thinnest of reasons, as journalists such as Greg Palast have meticulously documented.

On top of these threats to democracy at the state level, the US #supremecourt and its unelected, mostly #FarRight justices are weakening both our democracy and its ability to regulate the fossil fuel industry. The court has consistently approved measures like voter ID laws and felon disenfranchisement that make it more difficult for historically marginalized groups to vote. It has also, of late, decided its role is to strike down popular legislation, so who knows what they’d do to a popularly won ban on oil drilling.

"I am an #EnvironmentalJustice and #HumanRights lawyer, but one reason I spend significant time focused on issues of democracy is because I simply cannot do my work if our political system does not allow the political space to advocate freely. After I helped Indigenous peoples win a major pollution case in Ecuador, I was detained for almost three years in the US after being targeted with the nation’s first-ever corporate prosecution. My own case is a reminder that the normal rules of democracy can easily be suspended when entrenched economic interests face a serious enough threat to their bottom line.

"As I write this, a heat dome in the US sits over the entire midwest and is affecting 100 million people. Fires have destroyed millions of acres of land. A tropical storm just smacked southern California for the first time, and the historic town of Lahaina in Hawaii burned to the ground with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. In the meantime, the oil industry is reporting record profits, creating enormous incentives for a small group of powerful shareholders to maintain their power by shrinking our democratic space.

What the referendum in Ecuador teaches us is that democratic processes when coupled with strong grassroots organizing can produce startlingly effective results. Taking a cue from our friends in that brave country, the next major move for the climate justice movement could be to launch a national campaign to put the simple question presented in Ecuador before the American people in every state that allows citizens to place their own questions on the ballot. The question is whether we can vote to end the destruction of our planet by the burning of fossil fuels.

"It is clear we cannot trust either of the two major US political parties – both of which mostly support fossil fuel expansion – to adequately address this crisis. We simply cannot save the planet without first protecting and strengthening our democracy."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/

The Guardian · The people of Ecuador just made climate justice history. The world can followPar Steven Donziger

Folks in #Atlanta Won’t Accept ‘#CopCity

#HBCU students, faculty, and community activists have joined forces to stop the environmentally destructive police training facility.

By Maya Richard-Craven, Word In Black, May 10, 2023

"#Environmental activists have long raised concerns about 'Cop City' due to its potential #ecological impact. The facility is slated to be built in the #WeelauneeForest (South River), a tract of undeveloped #forested land that serves as an essential #GreenSpace and #CarbonSink for the city. Activists say losing this green space would contribute to increased #AirPollution, decreased #biodiversity, and the exacerbation of #ClimateChange.

"Along with concern about the environmental impact, opposition to 'Cop City' from the #Black community also stems from fears of racial profiling, over-policing, and strained police-community relations. Critics argue that the allocated funds should be redirected to address systemic issues affecting Black residents, such as education and community development, rather than expanding policing resources."

#stopcopcity #defendwelauneeforest #defendatlforest #weelaunee #DropTheCharges #StopCopCity #DefendTheAtlantaForest #TheirNameWasTort #FreeAllForestDefenders

Read more: sacobserver.com/2023/05/folks-

The Sacramento Observer · Folks in Atlanta Won’t Accept ‘Cop City’Par WordInBlack.com

"What’s indisputable is that police repression has extended into all corners of this movement, amounting to a profoundly undemocratic exertion of state power. From the outset, the voices of the people have been marginalized and subsumed under deference to Atlanta’s police state.

As in the days of brutal repression of the civil rights movement, so too are the levers of state power aligned against the Stop Cop City movement. But there are also reasons for hope. Despite the best efforts of Atlanta authorities to contain the movement, to smear those standing in solidarity as outside agitators, this movement is both intersectional and multilocational.

Beyond the week of action, the battle to stop Cop City continues, in forms ranging from sabotage to legal battles over environmental permitting minutiae. Only time will tell how this movement resolves — whether it succumbs to police repression or whether Cop City will indeed never be built. But it’s been a hell of a fight so far, with the full force of state power brought against the protesters that dare to defy it."

#StopCopCity #Tortuguita #JusticeforTort #Atlanta #AtlantaForest #DefendtheAtlantaForest #Weelaunee #WeelauneeForest #BlackLivesMatter

truthout.org/articles/atlantas

TruthoutAtlanta’s “Stop Cop City” Movement Is Spreading Despite Rampant State RepressionPolice and prosecutors have used every tool in their arsenal to crush the spreading movement against Atlanta’s Cop City.

After checking the news from Georgia Public Broadcasting and reading a copy of an executive order closing (sections of) so-called Intrenchment Creek Park from the Dekalb County CEO that was posted on Friday I made a startling observation:

Weelaunee People’s Park parking lot, where police and contractors have destroyed memorials for Tortugita and posted “no trespassing” signs today (Monday March 27th), is not within any of the closed properties listed in Dekalb County Executive Order 2023-001, the order that is being used to justify today’s horrific actions. Policing and clear-cutting forests pose threats to all life in the Weelaunee forest and beyond.

The executive order can be found on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s website: gpb.org/sites/default/files/20

"With the end of the Food Autonomy Festival came the end, too, of 10 days of mass mobilization in the forest. As the movement grows and mobilizes new kinds of engagement, more possibilities open up for the Weelaunee Forest and those who choose to protect it. Alongside the student organizations, faith leaders, and Black-led organizations catalyzed by the movement, an assortment of farmers and botanists across the continent now have multiple-year investments planted in the forest along with a combative vision to foster them.

Two years into the movement to Stop Cop City, the Atlanta Police Foundation’s vision of a future wrought with violence and ecological destruction continues to be challenged. People from disparate backgrounds have come together to halt the destruction of the forest utilizing a myriad of different tactics, but all contributing to the creation of a free Weelaunee Forest."

#StopCopCity #Atlanta, #WeelauneeForest #Tortuguita #AtlantaForest

itsgoingdown.org/we-are-not-in

It's Going Down“We are Not in the Least Afraid of Ruins”: Food Autonomy in the Weelaunee ForestReport on the Weelaunee Food Autonomy Festival in so-called Atlanta, GA during the recent week of action in defense of the Weelaunee forest. On Friday March 10th, the first annual Weelaunee Food Autonomy Festival began in the Weelaunee (South River) Forest. The festival was a practical experiment in food production and distribution outside of, and...

Some background about the Weelaunee Forest and #StopCopCity

The New Fight Over an Old Forest in Atlanta

The plans for an enormous police-training center—dubbed Cop City by critics—have ignited interest in one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces.

By Charles Bethea, August 3, 2022

"Three years ago, Joe Santifer, a Black man in his early fifties, moved from the wealthy north Atlanta enclave of Buckhead to Glen Emerald Park, six miles southeast of the city’s downtown. Santifer, who owns a computer-consulting firm, raised triplets in Buckhead—all three are now in college—but his new neighborhood, he told me, is where he’d always wanted to live. He was attracted to its 'collage of humanity,' he said, and also its proximity to the #SouthRiverForest, one of #Atlanta’s largest remaining #GreenSpaces. The forest encompasses a three-hundred-acre, city-owned tract of land that sits in a poor and predominantly Black part of unincorporated DeKalb County. 'Most people in Buckhead couldn’t find it on a map,' Santifer said, chuckling.

"After he moved, Santifer began making frequent visits to what he called a “verdant oasis,” where he often saw deer and rabbits. The forest also bears traces of the people who have lived in and around it over the years. Exploring by bicycle recently, I came upon giant stones with “HOMER,” “POE,” and “VIRGIL” carved into their nearly overgrown façades—relics from Atlanta’s old Carnegie Library, discarded here sometime after it was torn down, in the late nineteen-seventies, when the forest was a de-facto city dump. Underground are the much older remains of the Muscogee Creek people, who lived in what they called the #WeelauneeForest until they were forcibly removed by white settlers in the eighteen-twenties and thirties. Later, the forest was home to what has been called the “finest plantation in the county,” and the site of a famous Civil War battle.

"In 2017, the South River Forest was designated as one of four major city “lungs” in a report titled “The Atlanta City Design,” put together by Atlanta’s city-planning department. The report’s lead author was Ryan Gravel, a Georgia Tech alum whose graduate thesis led to the creation of the city’s ballyhooed BeltLine #greenway. Gravel and his co-authors envision the South River Forest as a great urban park and conservation corridor. The city council formally adopted the plan, and Gravel began working with the Nature Conservancy to make it a reality; in March of last year, a two-hundred-acre parcel surrounding a drained lake three miles south of the prison farm, which could have become another landfill, was approved for permanent preservation.

"Then, the following month, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, made an announcement: the area around the prison farm was going to be the site of a sprawling training facility for police and firefighters. This, Gravel said, was “a big surprise.” Many people in Atlanta were startled by the news—including Joe Santifer, who told me that he’d already been bothered by the police presence in the forest. For decades, the Atlanta P.D. has operated a firing range there, and, on his forest strolls, Santifer had begun hearing gunfire. Even from a distance, he said, it “sounds like a battleground.” He e-mailed a complaint to the city, and, a few days later, he got a response: “Call 911.”
[...]
"Other cities have lately built or proposed similar facilities, but, at eighty-five acres, Atlanta’s would be much larger than nearly all of the others. New York City, for instance, has a thirty-acre facility for a force fifteen times the size of the Atlanta P.D. The A.P.D. facility’s planned features include a firing range, a “vehicle skills pad,” a “burn building” for firefighters, and a “mock village” for staging simulated emergencies. It’s slated to cost around ninety million dollars, with a third of that money coming from public funds, and the rest coming from the Atlanta Police Foundation."
#StopCopCity

newyorker.com/news/letter-from

A répondu dans un fil de discussion

To support the #StopCopCity week of action to defend the #WeelauneeForest in Atlanta, we purchased a fat stack of Stop Cop City stickers, of which 100% of the proceeds went to support forest defenders.

Every package we send out will also include one of these stickers.

(Attached image is an anonymous submission of one of these stickers caught in the wild at the skate park in Chapel Hill, NC. Skateboarding *is* a crime!)

Atlanta (USA): In solidarity with the movement to Stop Cop City and Defend Weelaunee Forest
We call on all people of good conscience to stand in solidarity with the movement to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.

O
freedomnews.org.uk/2023/01/21/
#Activism #Atlanta #climatebreakdown #copcity #DefendWeelauneeForest #Protest #Solidarity #StopCopCity #USA #WeelauneeForest