In March 2023, scores of activists were gathered in the Weelaunee Forest near Atlanta, on the site of a proposed police training academy opponents had dubbed Cop City. Dozens of the Stop Cop City activists were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism — with no evidence to back up that serious charge. Many spent weeks in the county jail before making bond. Those arrested were never indicted for domestic terrorism, but those charges still hang over them.
About six months later, that group plus others, a total of 61 people, were charged under Georgia’s RICO law, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. One defendant, Ayla King, requested a speedy trial that was scheduled to begin in December 2023, but due to many delays began on July 7 this year. Meanwhile, the controversial police training center opened in April. The campaign against the facility resulted not only in the arrests of scores of opponents, but the police shooting death of one activist, Manuel Esteban Páez Terán, known as Tortuguita.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Xavier de Janon, an attorney representing one of the 61 defendants. Here, he discusses the status of the cases and the serious possible sentences — up to 20 years in prison — that await any who are convicted. On July 7, a few days after this interview was conducted, the judge in King’s case declared a mistrial, saying there were “juror issues.”
XAVIER DE JANON: Well, I think the reality in Georgia since these cases were started is that the Attorney General Chris Carr, who is really the pushing force behind these cases, he wants to run for governor of Georgia. So since these cases all began in late 2022, the domestic terrorism, the attorney general’s office has always had political interest in these cases to seem that they’re hard on crime and so on and so forth.
What is important though to remember of Atlanta, Georgia is that they have a Democratic mayor. Fulton County has a Democratic district attorney, and DeKalb County also has a Democratic district attorney. And so all these repressive tactics, which were done by Atlanta Police Department mostly, happened under a blue city in blue counties. Perhaps the Trump era makes the Republican attorney general more stubborn, but the actions themselves were taken by Democratic-elected officials. Even the Democratic City Council of Atlanta is the one that pushed forward the Cop City project in secret, ignored the referendum of hundreds of thousands of people and so on.
MELINDA TUHUS: Are they saying how long this trial will last? Are they trying to get a lot of supporters down there to try to get into court or do other things around Atlanta?
XAVIER DE JANON: Yeah, so the prosecutor told the judge he expects the first trial to take between three to four weeks minimum, and the state also released its witness list and there’s hundreds of people in it. So yeah, it’s expected to be a very long trial. Something that is very important about this case is that — and some people have called it — it’s a movement on trial. It’s not just Ayla King’s specific situation because they try to tie Ayla King to this alleged massive RICO that they describe as being so, so large that it’s even bigger than 61 people. They say there’s way more co-conspirators out there. And so it’s important to pay attention to this kind of case because it’ll tell people what the state is thinking about the social movements, how they’re criminalizing them, how they’re putting their case forward for people in movements to understand what the stakes are now.
MELINDA TUHUS: Earlier on there was a lot of talk about collective defense. Is that happening on any level? And if so, could you explain what it is?
For more information, visit the Stop Cop City website at stopcop.city, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund: “When activists face repression, we stand with them” at atlsolidarity.org, Defend the Atlanta Forest on X @defendATLforest, Defend the Atlanta Forest at Instagram.comdefendatlantaforest.
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