Why The Cop City Indictments Are So Important

This is a fight about whether or not we are doomed to live in a police state.

Last week, Georgia’s attorney general indicted 61 members of the movement to stop “Cop City”—the massive, draconian, environmentally disastrous police training facility currently being pushed by every part of Atlanta’s cop-industrial complex—with racketeering. (Several of the defendants have also been charged with domestic terrorism.)

forest defense does not equal domestic terrorism sign as stop cop city protest

The indictments are breathtaking in their scope and chilling in their implications. They are also a signal of why the fight to Stop Cop City matters so much.

Some thoughts:

It should go without saying that these charges are outlandish. People are being accused of conspiracy for handing out flyers. They’re being targeted for signing their name as “ACAB” on documents. They’re being targeted for reimbursing people for $11 worth of glue. It’s nonsense.
But it’s supposed to be nonsense. This is the government telling people that, if they have the temerity to go up against the expansion of the security state, they will be crushed by any means necessary, even if the methods seem ridiculous on their face. It’s a signal that the state has the ability to deploy overwhelming force in any way it wants to, whether that is through physical violence or the unhinged use of the legal system. It’s a message that to dissent is to invite the government to destroy you. It is meant to be a reminder that the only power that really exists in America is the power of the state.