“These criminals facilitated and encouraged domestic terrorism with no regard for others, watching as communities faced the destructive consequences of their actions. Here in Georgia, we do not allow that to happen.” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp
One of the most extensive urban forests in Atlanta is the site of significant protests by Atlanta green and social activists due to the construction of Cop City, a national training site for police. The construction would destroy the ecosystem of the South River Forest.
This police training site, forest defenders rightly point out, protects the headwaters of the most biodiverse watershed in the state, and the sources are the origin of the fresh drinking water for millions of people.
A young Venezuelan man, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Little Turtle to his American friends, was brutally executed a few months ago by authorities. Multiple police shot rounds from weapons of war at him for peacefully protesting the Cop City site while sitting with his hands up in the air. His body was struck 57 times. He was the first Climate activist to be murdered by the police in the United States.
The police also arrested 42 others, charging every last one with domestic terrorism. If found guilty, they will serve 35 years in prison.
Climate and Social justice advocates are being targeted worldwide. The global elites will never allow climate protests to continue without severe and violent pushback. In fact, we have a Supreme Court that devastated the Clean Air Act last year and the Clean Water Act. They are dominating the fight against the climate emergency. They are like pitbull, never letting go. They won. What they have in store for us is pure fascism and murder, particularly once it all goes to hell. With El Nino civil protests across the world. This could be the year we get a preview of what is to come.
"Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances." 2013
ATLANTA (AP) — Police on Wednesday arrested three Atlanta organizers who have been aiding protesters against the city’s proposed police and fire training center, striking at the structure that supports the fight against what opponents derisively call “Cop City.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced its agents and Atlanta police had arrested three leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has bailed out protesters and helped them find lawyers.
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Charged with money laundering and charity fraud are Marlon Scott Kautz, 39, of Atlanta; Savannah D. Patterson, 30, of Savannah; and Adele MacLean, 42, of Atlanta.
Kautz himself predicted in a February statement that investigators were trying to build a criminal case against protesters using Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.
That law allows prosecutors to bring charges against multiple people accused of committing separate crimes while working toward a common goal. RICO is a felony charge that carries stiff penalties: A prison term of five to 20 years; a fine of $25,000 or three times the amount of money gained from the criminal activity, whichever is greater; or both.
On May 31, scores of heavily armed police raided the homes of Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean, and Savannah Patterson in Atlanta, GA. All three were raising bail funds for 42 protesters via the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. They were arrested and charged with Money Laundering and fraud.
But this use of violent force against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund really shows that the real intent has nothing to do with any criminality, which has never taken place with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, but this is really another way of destroying and attacking the infrastructure of organizing a movement, particularly against those who have been organizing against Cop City.At Friday’s bond hearing, Don Samuels, an attorney representing the three who were arrested, said, “My real concern here is if you look at these warrants ... of what they’ve done with the money that prompts both the money laundering and the charitable fraud, I mean, $37.11 to build yard signs. What could be more First Amendment activity than getting materials to build yard signs?”
The judge who granted bond to the defendants said that at this point in the prosecution’s case, “I don’t find it very impressive. “There’s not a lot of meat on the bones.”
In contrast, on the day of the arrests, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp took to Twitter to announce that the state would not rest until all those involved in the “criminal organization” known as the Stop Cop City movement are “arrested, tried, and face punishment.”
Amy Goldman from Democracy Now noted that when George Santos was charged with fraud, no armed SWAT team arrested him. See the great video below.