Georgia's Republican attorney general announced the indictment of 61 Leftist militants on Tuesday, under the same RICO statue that was used against Trump just weeks ago.
All 61 charged are members of the Defend the Atlanta Forest group which has long campaigned against the construction of the new $90 million police training center in Dekalb County's South River Forest, employing terroristic tactics to get their way.
Gov. Brian Kemp (R) noted earlier this year that "domestic terrorism will NOT be tolerated in this state. ... We will not rest until those who use violence and intimidation for an extremist end are brought to justice."
In January, Attorney General Chris Carr warned the group that "We are not Oregon. We are not California. We are not Washington. You cannot come to our state, break our laws, throw rocks at buildings, damage property, and shoot police officers. You can and you will be charged, and that's exactly what we're doing."
In recent months, three dozen have been charged with domestic terrorism, three have been hit with felony intimidation charges for distributing flyers accusing a state trooper of being a "murderer" and three have been charged with charities fraud and money laundering, involving the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.
Carr described the group as being an "anarchist, anti-police, and anti-business extremist organization" and said that "As the indictment asserts, members of Defend the Atlanta Forest subscribe to a philosophy of anarchy. They hold a core belief that society should abolish police, government, and private business, and as further alleged, they're willing to bring about such changes 'by any means necessary,'" reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"If you come to our state and shoot a police officer, throw Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set fire to police vehicles, damage construction equipment, vandalize private homes and businesses, and terrorize their occupants, you can and will be held accountable," Carr continued. "We will not waver when it comes to keeping people safe, enforcing the rule of law, and ensuring those who engage in criminal activity are vigorously pursued and aggressively prosecuted."
The Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition, which opposes the project, denounced the RICO indictment and questioned the motivation behind it and claimed that “These charges, like the previous repressive prosecutions by the State of Georgia, seek to intimidate protestors, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government".
The ACLU called the indictments "unprecedented and extremely concerning," adding that the organization is "tracking the situation closely."
The RICO act was recently used against former President Donald Trump and 18 others.
“Defendant Donald Trump lost the United States presidential election, held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity, in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the state of Georgia, and in other states", the indictment of former President Trump reads.
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