Body Cam Footage Shows Atlanta Cop Knew Felony Charges Against Cop City Protesters Were ‘a Reach’
Authorities in Georgia have dropped felony charges against protesters as bodycam footage apparently shows officers admitting, at the time, that there was no justification for the tougher charge.
As Reason has documented, activists oppose the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in a forested area outside the city limits; protesters call the project “Cop City” and use the slogan Stop Cop City as a rallying cry. State and local authorities have cracked down aggressively, hitting more than 60 protesters with charges including racketeering, terrorism, and money laundering.
On July 29, 2022, protesters entered the Convocation Center, a sports arena at Georgia State University (GSU) that was under construction at the time. According to an incident report from the GSU Police Department (GSUPD), witnesses said protesters entered the building, “damag[ed] a few of the walls and some signage,” and shouted “Stop Cop City” and “Stop Brasfield [&] Gorrie,” a general contracting firm responsible for the construction of both the Convocation Center and the police training facility.
In the report, a GSUPD officer responding to the scene says he “observed a large group of people wearing mainly black and camouflage clothing in front of” the building, yelling at the construction workers inside. The officer writes that he identified himself and ordered the protesters to stop, “at which point the group looked at me and ran away.” He radioed in when he lost sight of them, and a nearby GSUPD sergeant spotted an SUV he suspected may contain some of the suspects. The sergeant “initated a traffic stop” and detained the occupants after determining they matched the descriptions of the protesters.
In all, seven people were arrested and booked. In a September 2023 indictment in Fulton County Superior Court, all seven defendants were formally charged with burglary in the second degree, a felony punishable by at least one year and as many as 20 years in prison, for entering the building “without authority and with the intent to commit a felony therein”; criminal damage to property, a felony carrying between one and five years, for causing more than $500 worth of damage to “the door and walls of the Georgia State University Convocation Center” by “forcing entry into the building through the door and removing signage from the walls”; and willful obstruction of law e
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